Aftermarket Stereo

[kowalski]

Thinking of getting rid of the head unit and cd changer in mine and going for a aftermarket one with ipod connection. Has anyone changed out there stereo?

If so did you wire the new unit into the existing Bose amp/speakers or replace the whole lot. I know you can get a small wiring harness from SOS to help bridge over the OEM plug installation but not sure which is best way to go.

leigh

[TheSebringOne]

Leigh, with an Ipod, you can buy an attachment that the Ipod plugs into & it will transmit the music to your radio! The attachment is a transmitter I think as I'm not that technical on gadgets! I will ask my galfriend tomorrow & let you know of it's name etc :rolleyes:

[Kevin]

From what I have read, the voltage levels to the BOSE amps, are not the same as everyone generally uses for line levels signals. I don't know whether it will work or not, or whether it will work, but at low volume.

If you rewire the door speakers, to bypass the amps, and use an inbuilt amp in a new headunit, the BOSE speakers have a low impedence of 1ohm. This is a cheap trick to get more volume out of the low powered amps, but an aftermarket headunit, may not like the low impedence.

The way to go is replace the speakers with other ones. My thread in my mods section shows how I did it. I used the standard wiring to connect to the speakers.

[kowalski]

Cheers James but i tried that route before with an itrip, it was too much clutter and still used the old stereo which is a bit dated.

Thanks for the info Kevin, should have checked your mods first! I think thats the best way for me, I have one speaker playing up anyway so might just rip the whole lot out and go with your mod. Does your ipod plug directly into the amp in the footwell?

leigh

P.S Do you know what diameter and depth your new speakers where?

[mutley]

Leigh,

I am going down a similer route, and I was unsure wether to use the original speakers or not. When I was retrimming the doors I took that opportunity to remove the speakers, and it all took a few minutes, not hard.

I think once I finaly choose what head unit to go for, I'll replace everything. There are lots of speakers on the market now in all shapes and sizes, and some are not bad price wise. So maybe going that way would be best overall.

Jim

[Lankstarr]

I have a couple of grands worth of stereo sat in the garage begging to go into the X but need time for aproper install. I thought that the BOSE unit used optic fibre cables or summin and didn't know whether that would be compatible with just any speaker... that would make an install much easier!

Problem is where to put massive amps and sourcing a replacement sub I think.

[mutley]

L*,

I don't know about fibre optic cables, certainly not in mine as I have stripped it all out (all the speakers) and I did remove the head unit at one stage to have a look at the connections. The stereo itself has a quite a few wires going into it, and one of the old style DIN multi plug things, so I think that when I do get round to doing my install, I'll probably use new wiring and do it all from scratch.

HTH

Jim

[TheSebringOne]

Jim, are you gonna have your new sound system installed before Fest? or are you just listening to the engine's induction or maybe even chat to Mutley whose sat next to you!? ;)

[mutley]

Na, if I want muisc then it's MP3 player for me.

It will be a while before I get the install that I want, and I don't want to say much about it at the mo for a few reasons. The main 1 is that I'm still not 100% sure what way I'm going with it, and 2, waiting on new console/Nav pod.

I wil also be experimenting a little with the stock speakers, possibly running with aftermarket amp, or maybe going for a complete install from scratch with a few tricks up my sleeve.

To do all this before 'fest would be a feat as I am currently still in a different country from my car! which I won't see again until the 17th May.

24 hrs to buy and fit a complete sound system???? I know i'm good but not THAT good hehehe.

Jim

[Kevin]

Thanks for the info Kevin, should have checked your mods first! I think thats the best way for me, I have one speaker playing up anyway so might just rip the whole lot out and go with your mod. Does your ipod plug directly into the amp in the footwell?

leigh

P.S Do you know what diameter and depth your new speakers where?

I don't know what they were. As from the pics, they are a bit bigger, and a bit deeper. By mounting them to the front of some ply I think I got more depth in the case as well.

The speakers were taken out of a Mission 75c hi-fi speaker. You can get those on ebay for practically nothing. The airtight seal of the case, and lack of any bass reflex porting, makes the sound very tight indeed. Not like the one-note bass of the standard system.

I don't want a super hifi in the car, just something to listen to on long trips.

[kowalski]

I looked in my local Halfords yesterday at Amps and speakers, but had some young idiot of a salesman who hadn't a clue what any of the specs where. Pretty pointless excersise!

Will probably just get a couple of 6.5" speakers, a decent small amp and ipod connection, using ipod to control volume etc. Does your ipod connect to the amp via the headphone socket or by a lead into the base?

Again the same as you, just need music for long trips, not fussed by radio or extreme modifications.

leigh

[mutley]

I concur with both above, I'm not looking for super duper surround sound etc either, just something that I'll be happy with. Halfords!! what can I say? it's a hobby of mine going in and asking questions, they have no idea what they are on about half the time.

I'll probably go down the route of a small amp enough to power the standard speakers and see if that sounds ok. Yeah fair enough I like to blast the odd song, but not up to the max power ear bleeding level.

Jim

[Paul]

I had one of the Dali CF consoles for a while, but due to losing the ashtray and ciggy lighter ... always useful to charge your phone while you're away ... I went to a company in Andover (KLM if I recall) who patched in the double din OEM holes ... then cut a new single din slot in to accept my aftermarker single din headunit.

As I had a local ICE company to get the headunit into the CF console ... so when it came time to swap it out for my 'modified' OEM centre colsole all wiring was just plug and play.

Maybe not much help on the wiring front ... but maybe useful for people to know the OEM console can be altered to accept single din aftermarket head units.

[nsxselby]

Thinking of getting rid of the head unit and cd changer in mine and going for a aftermarket one with ipod connection. Has anyone changed out there stereo?

If so did you wire the new unit into the existing Bose amp/speakers or replace the whole lot. I know you can get a small wiring harness from SOS to help bridge over the OEM plug installation but not sure which is best way to go.

leigh

i kept the bose system and had a ipod jack wired into the existing unit it works really well and is very tidy it cost £80.00 i would recomend it

[rkanaga]

Which one did you go for, a Dension or another make? Do you know which model exactly and did you have to use an ACU-ALP adaptor cable as well? Any specific information would be very helpful as I am plannng to do this as well.

I was planning to get the generic Alpine M bus version of the Dension Ice LInk as well as an ACUALP cable from PIE to swap over the pins and avoid the out of phase issue (my understanding is that the pin switch is in the head unit not the extension cable to the boot so that you need the ACUALP even if you plug your iPOD adaptor staraight into the back of the head unit).

I am undecided as to where in the cabin to mount the iPOD though as there doesn't seem to be a specific mounting plate for RHD NSX's and I don't want to do anything irreversible to the interior trim (Panavise make one for LHD but not RHD). What did you do about mounting?

Sorry for so many questions, but it might save me some grief!


thanks


Robin

[TheSebringOne]

So you are a dab hand at fitting aftermarket sound systems too?! Did you find your OEM system inadequate or just in need of modernisation? :rolleyes:

[rkanaga]

Very much a novice, but I don't like paying installers just to plug a few bits in!

(Famous last words, wait till I try to get it all back together!)

Robin

[reg]

I agree.

As long as you keep the polarities safe then you are not going to have any problems at all with 12V stuff. I think most of the install costs are down to the manufacture and fitting of enclosures and removing trim etc. I have been very inderwelmed by the stereo but then I am no fan of Bose in the first place.

Check twice switch on once ;)