One of the seek buttons on my stereo fell of the other day and I am thinking of purchasing a new head unit. I have the factory Bose system. Will it change the way the stereo sounds if I get a different head unit installed or do I have to get a factory Bose replacement. I like the way the stereo sounds and don't want to mess it up.

 

You can buy a replacement button but I believe that you have to buy it in a set. I read in another forum that the set runs about $28. See here:
aol://5863:126/alt.autos.nissan.maxima:24756

 

thanks for the info. But, actually I am looking to replace the head unit anyway if it will not alter the sound of the system. Has anyone else with a Bose system replaced just the head unit, not the speakers? Have you been pleased with the results?

 

Look at this thread;

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....5&pagenumber=1

DW

 

If I'm not mistaken, to get a common aftermarket head unit working with stock Bose speakers, you need some sort of adapter. The way the Bose speakers are set up, each speaker has its own amp and "active equalizer" I think. The way these work is not the way common aftermarket head units work with most normal amped speakers.

With that in mind, personally, whenever the word "adapter" is used in a car stereo setup, I cringe. I have a friend that went the other way and used his bose head unit with an aftermarket amp/sub...he needed a different adapter, but the sound quality of the sub is variable, and overall, doesn't perform to the level it does in a more common car stereo setup.

My view of Bose car systems is they sound very nice (more for sound-quality music and not SPL-ish music) for a stock system, but are a pain for two coinciding reasons: 1) If something breaks, it never ends up as easy/cheap as it would seem to fix, and 2) aftermarket replacement parts are difficult to get working correctly/to their potential.

Personally, if I was going to put any aftermarket piece into a car w/a stock Bose system, I'd gut the whole system. I wanted to in my 4th-gen - I had some nice equipment I wanted to put in, but gutting it all and replacing & installing everything was too expensive for me at this point....I just force myself to like the Bose

 

Recently my BOSE headunit went to crap on my 95. I wasn't about to spend the money fixing the unit ($120, 1 month wait at best) only to have it break again (these things are notorious for breaking after 3+ years). I went ahead and bought a simple looking Nakimichi headunit ($220). I then got the amp adapter, antenna adapter, harness adapter, and a Nissan "pocket" since the new heandunit is a single DIN. After all was said and done, I had spent $380. When installing this setup, you'll have TON of wires, but thank God Nissan gives you a ton of room behind the deck to work with.

It's true, you do loose some sound with a aftermarket headunit. The only sound I lost was the deeper bass. I actually gained quite a bit more mid range due to the adjustable mid range of the new headunit. You can adjust the "gain" on the adapter to find more bass and I'm still playing around with mine to find the right combo. I may just go with a small sub since I have the preouts to do it now.


Dave

 

My guess is that you used a bose adapter that took the speaker outputs from your Nakamichi and de-gausssed the signal to somewhat line level to feed to the rest of your bose system.

I'm pretty much doing the same thing you've done, but i will use a soemwhat pricey adapter, the PD4 from Audiolink. That will take me pre-outs from my headunit and feed the signal to the rest of my bose system. I should get a clean signal and full frequency response even with and aftermakret headunit. If not, then the whole systems gotta go!

DW

 

anyone of you who has broken Bose and laying around as paperweight will be kind enough to give it to me or sell for cheap? i wana to see inside of bose and find out if i can repair my owm bose. So tahts why i need some BOSE to play around.

Thanks!

 

I've got one out of my 96. The CD part doesn't work but the tape and radio functions still do. Just make me an offer.
Ravq@aol.com

 

Guys, thanks for all the info. This forum is extremely helpful. I am thinking of using the Audiolink PD4 adapter with a Sony Mobile ES headunit. I am not knowledgeable about radio systems. How much of my bass will I lose and how much should a good installation cost?

 

I'm in the process of replacing my bose headunit. You need an adapter like the PD4, the harness for the PD4, and the DoubleDIN to DIN adapter since your head unit's gonna be a whole lot smaller. You can get the Nissan part, I'm not sure what the part number is, or, like I did, get this;

http://www.metraonline.com/997417prod.htm

What's cool about the metra multi-kit is that it converts the open space under the HU into a little pocket shelf for you.

If adding an EQ instead of a pocket is what you'd like in the future, then instead get this metra part (99-7409);

http://www.metraonline.com/prod_images/99-7409.jpg

Once you've got all those, just plug everything in. No need for an installer because your not replacing a whole bunch of wiring, nor are you putting in speakers. It should be a breeze.

DW

 

Here are a couple of great links to help you do the install.
http://carstereohelp.com/stereoremovalNisMax2.htm
www.installdr.com

 

Just for informational purposes, I've had more success with one Metra kit over the other - namely, the one with the pocket below the hu seems to fit a lot better. I had the other one with a shoddy plastic faceplate over an opening in the bottom, and after a while, the whole kit kept wriggling loose at the bottom. Of course, this was in my Integra, and I didn't fully install either kits as according to the directions (they direct you to screw the back of the metra kit in...at least in the ones I had. This was to increase stabilization - if I banged on the glovebox, sometimes a CD would skip. I guess if I screwed it in, this wasn't supposed to happen, but it's not like CDs skipped at an annoying frequency without it). But still, I installed both the same - one stayed put, one didn't.