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You should ALWAYS bypass the Bose amp....here's why

327K views 721 replies 251 participants last post by  Cstout 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
A while ago, I posted that I was getting some serious static/noise from my JVC KDSH909. The problem was the Bose amp.

I had just hooked it up with the wiring harness and although the sound quality was better, there was noise. I bypassed the amp this weekend by just putting a jumper wire between the correct wires down at the amp's connector. The noise problem has completely gone away. I highly recommend bypassing the Bose amp. :thumbs up:
 
#3 ·
Well, I can't believe you didn't think it was that noticeable. It was really driving me crazy.

Anyway, here are some pics of my amp bypass.

With the way I bypassed the amp, I can turn it back to stock in about 5 minutes by just unplugging a few wires. It may look messy, but it is reverseable. So when you go to sell the car, you can just put in the Bose HU, unplug the jumper wires and plug the Bose amp back in. Simple.

Anyway, here are the pics for ya:
 
#4 ·
Tools needed:
- small (~18AWG) wire
- socket wrench set
- 16 wire splicers
- 8 male wire plugs
- 8 female wire plugs
- wire strippers
- wire crimpers

Step 1: The seat rails have 4 large bolts holding the seat down. Take those off and tillt your seat back and out of the way a little. The Bose amp is held onto the seat by 2 nuts. Take those off and slide the amp off of the threads. Now unplug both connectors that go into the amp.
 

Attachments

#5 ·
Step 2: Using this wiring diagram as a guide, start splicing the Audio Unit +/- and Speaker +/- wires with a small piece of wire.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13
14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26

1 | GRY/RED | Passenger's Door Speaker (-), Right tweeter (-)
2 | GRN/YEL | Passenger's Door Speaker (+), Right weeter (+)
3 | BLU/RED | Constant power
4 | ------- | Not Used
5 | BRN | Radio Switch
6 | LT GRN | Rear stereo amplifier - bass signal (+)
7 | RED | Audio unit - Right Rear (-)
8 | GRN | Audio unit - Right Front (-)
9 | BLK | Audio unit - Left Rear (-)
10 | BRN | Audio unit - Left Front (-)
11 | ------- | Not Used
12 | BLU/ WHT | Left Rear Speaker (+)
13 | BLU/BLK | Left Rear Speaker (-)

14 | BLU/YEL | Right Rear Speaker (-)
15 | PNK | Right Rear Speaker (+)
16 | BLK | Ground (G502)
17 | WHT/BLU | Shielding
18 | ------- | Not Used
19 | GRN/WHT | Rear Amplifier - bass signal (-)
20 | YEL | Audio Unit - Right Rear (+)
21 | ORN | Audio unit - Right Front (+)
22 | WHT | Audio unit - Left Rear (+)
23 | BLU | Audio unit - Left Front (+)
24 | ------- | Not Used
25 | LT GRN | Left Tweeter (-) drivers door speaker (-)
26 | GRN/BLK | Driver's Door Speaker (+), Left Tweeter (+)



Here is what it looks like with one speaker done.
 

Attachments

#6 ·
Step 3: As shown in the picture above, strip off the ends of the little jumper wires and attach the male and female wire connect things. Keep all the Audio unit's leads male and all the speaker's leads female (or vise versa) to help prevent accidental connection of the wrong wires.

Step 4: Do this for all the rest of the speaker wires (16 total) and plug the right wires together according to the wiring diagram above.

In the end (picture below) you will have a big clusterfuck of wires and plugs.
 

Attachments

#7 ·
Step 5: Bolt the amp back to the seat (optional) but leave the two connectors unplugged. Bolt the seat back down and find a nice little place under the seat to rest the cluster of wires.

This may not be the simplist and cleanest way of doing this, but if you ever want to turn your RSX back to stock, all you have to do is unplug each of the jumper wires and plug the grey connector back into the amp. Very simple. Hope this helps some of you.
 
#8 ·
i am installing my new head unit this weekend so i have a question about this procedure. if i am understandung what you done, you basically removed the stock amp from the loop. essentially (after following your instructions) you could remove the factory amp and leave it out until you got ready to sell the car. all that is really being done here is that you are jumping each of the wires past the amp, i think. however, after looking at that diagram you made below, i am confused as to which wires go with which and what you are supposed to do with the wires that are not speaker wires, such as the "radio switch" and "shielding". any clarifications would be appreciated!
 
#11 ·
Yes, you are basically removing the stock amp from the loop. You could take it out, but I chose to leave it in so I wouldn't lose it.

You connect the "Audio Unit - Front Right (+)" to the "Passenger Door Speaker (+)" and "Audio Unit - Left Rear (-)" to "Left Rear Speaker (-)", etc. Just follow that pattern. All the other wires you leave disconnected.

The radio switch and shielding wires are amplifier specific wires. Everything still works when you do it like this.

Yes, this is messy. Although it may look scary it is actually very easy to to. If there was a plug that jumped all the wires and you could just plug it on, that would obviously be the better alternative. But I don't know that a plug exists, so I jumped them myself.
 
#12 ·
....and RSXMachine, you aren't actually taking wires apart. You just splice into the existing wires with splicing things you can get at Home Depot or wherever. The plug for the Bose amp still works if you just unplug the jumper wires from eachothe and plug it back into the amp.
 
#14 ·
it is pretty easy when you get into it. just print out that wire list, and sit down with it and the connector right in front of you. pretty easy then. The only problem is squeezing all of those splicers and plugs into that little area.
 
#16 ·
It is probably HU dependent too. What HU do you have? I have the JVC and one way to really tell if you have noise issues is to put it on AUX or LINE and have nothing hooked up to it. Then you will be able to distinguish the noise from the media you are using.

Does anyone else have the JVCs hooked up to the Bose amp and have no noise?
 
#18 ·
Don't worry about the numbers, just look at the color code and the description of the wires. Then just match up the audio unit wires to the speaker wires. So audio unit front right positive will go to passenger door speaker positive.

Normally what is going on here is the audio unit wires are coming into the Bose amp through this grey connector. Then the Bose amp does it's thing and sends the speaker wires out to the speakers through the same connector. To bypass the amp, you just need to make sure that the audio unit's wires are hooked up to the speaker wires. That is all that is going on with this. It doesn't have to be done this way either. I chose to do it this way because I can make it go back to stock by just unplugging all the little jumper wires.

Let me know if you have any more questions.
 
#19 ·
But if you do want which numbers, it goes like this:

1,8
2,21
7,14, etc.
 
#21 ·
there you go! good job millerhh!

Would've been TONS easier if there was a male harness to fit that bose harness. I might have to do some hunting around and see if I can find one to fit it at work. it would make bypassing much easier for people in the future. And it will be cake going directly back to the Bose amp in the event of selling the car. It's not fun putting those wires back into the harness, once pulled out.

In any event great job :thumbsup:
 
#22 ·
You are right, if there was a male connector you could by to just jump the wires at the connector, that would be tons easier.

But I never unplugged the wires from the connector. They are still there. All I did was splice into them and put a jumper wire between them. If I just unplug my little jumper wires from eachother and plug the grey connector back into the amp, it will work like stock again.

....but yes, a mating connector would be a much cleaner alternative.
 
#25 ·
7->14
8->1
9->13
10->25
20->15
21->2
22->12
23->26

hope that helps.
 
#26 ·
Well I have the 909 and I don't seem to have the noise. I mean, I put it in Aux or Line In and I don't really hear anything terrible unless I crank the volume all the way to like 50. I mean I hear a very very slight static noise, but nothing really bothersome.:dontknow:

Sidenote: Does anybody know of a faster way to turn the unit OFF instead of holding down the SOURCE button? I mean, I just want to hit one button (or at least to that effect) and it go off ?
 
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