Radio Wiring - Bose or non-Bose?

[p14va]

Hi all,

How do I find out if my car has the Bose amplified system or not?

and where in the car can I find the amp and the sub??! thanks!

 

[jeffers999]

Hi mate if u look in the boot on the left hand side, behind the removable pannel u should see a sub, if u then look on the right hand side behind the cover there should be an amp if it has one ?? jeff.

 

[jojo]

Hi mate if u look in the boot on the left hand side, behind the removable pannel u should see a sub, if u then look on the right hand side behind the cover there should be an amp if it has one ?? jeff.

All A3/S3's comes with a sub woofer on the left hand side, Bose will have the extra amp on the right hand side to power the mid and tweeter speakers in the car.

 

[p14va]

Ok I checked it out today and there seemed to be nothing?? :S

left:


right:


and these are the wires in the headunit area:


What are these wires about? I know theres one block for power and one block for the speaker connections, and the aerial but what are the rest??

I know there are full front and rear speakers, should I just wire them all up to the headunit and by-pass the amp if its not there?

 

[jojo]

I can confirm you car is definitely non Bose equipped, looks like someones took the sub out on the left hand side, was the car full of after market ICE at some point in it's life?

 

[p14va]

I can confirm you car is definitely non Bose equipped, looks like someones took the sub out on the left hand side, was the car full of after market ICE at some point in it's life?

I think it was as it didnt have a headunit in either most probabaly removed before I got it.

I've already connected a headunit, and the power is there, but theres no output from the speakers when the speaker block is connected.

How do I go about getting the speakers to work then?

If theres an amp then I'm sure it'll need some sort of power feed to tell it to turn on when the headunit comes on, and also some sort of sound input, either RCA input or speaker line in input??

Thanks for the help!

 

[A3steve]

You should have sound through the front speakers, the rears,sub and CD changer (if you had one) are fed via the multi coloured din connector.

Search through Andymac's posts in the ICE forum for all the wiring information you will need.

 

[foolish3uk]

the amp which is mising from the left hand side in your boot powers up the rear speakers. the best thing you can do is put a standard sub back in so the majority of the car is standard then change the head unit to whatever you want.

 

[AndyMac]

If your not that bothered with quality then you can pick up a replacement stock sub (with the sub/rear amp inside it) for around £30 on ebay. It'll be a straight plug & play install as all the wiring is there already.
You should however be getting sound from the front speakers as these run stright off the HU. I'm assuming the HU you have sourced is an original Audi HU. This must have been out of a Bose equipped car so will have the internal amp switched off. To switch it on you'll need someone with VAGCOM, as this is the only way to tell the HU to power the front speakers.
If you want really good quality then install a proper 4 channel amp and run 2 channels to the rears and 2 channels bridged to a sub (or one of my stealth subs). I can provide an adapter to give you the feeds from the Audi loom to plug into an aftermarket amp without chopping the existing wiring, so all you'll need to run is a power cable from the battery.

Here you go:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Audi-A3-Sub-w...ryZ18805QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[p14va]

If your not that bothered with quality then you can pick up a replacement stock sub (with the sub/rear amp inside it) for around £30 on ebay. It'll be a straight plug & play install as all the wiring is there already.
You should however be getting sound from the front speakers as these run stright off the HU. I'm assuming the HU you have sourced is an original Audi HU. This must have been out of a Bose equipped car so will have the internal amp switched off. To switch it on you'll need someone with VAGCOM, as this is the only way to tell the HU to power the front speakers.
If you want really good quality then install a proper 4 channel amp and run 2 channels to the rears and 2 channels bridged to a sub (or one of my stealth subs). I can provide an adapter to give you the feeds from the Audi loom to plug into an aftermarket amp without chopping the existing wiring, so all you'll need to run is a power cable from the battery.

Here you go:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Audi-A3-Sub-woofer-subwoofer-Active-sub_W0QQitemZ270189315106QQihZ017QQcategoryZ18805QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Hi Andymac, think i've seen you about on uk-mkivs too?

Thanks for the help! Basically at the moment im just looking to get the sound up and running. I've got a pioneer headunit and I've got an audi adapter that connects to the power and speaker blocks of the audi.

The power is fine as it switches on. However, do the yellow and red wires need switching? constant and ignition power?

In terms of the speakers, can anyone post a pic of the amp? I havent found an amp after a quick search so if its not there then I'll just bypass that wire the rear speakers back to the head unit as sound quality isn't really top of my list. Maybe later on I'll see if I wana put a sub in.

For the front speakers, they are already wired to the head-unit i.e. they are not amped? In which case ill just have to check sound was going out from the head-unit. I'll have a look at it again probabaly on wednesday. thanks again!

 

[AndyMac]

Yes the perm live & ignition on power need to be reversed otherwise you'll lose all your presets.
The amp is inside the tupperware sub, which you don't have, so yes just rewire the rears to the Pioneer.
Here's a pic of the amp inside the sub:

 

[p14va]

Yes the perm live & ignition on power need to be reversed otherwise you'll lose all your presets.
The amp is inside the tupperware sub, which you don't have, so yes just rewire the rears to the Pioneer.
Here's a pic of the amp inside the sub:

Ok the pioneer is powering up but not outputting anything to the front speakers :S so Im guessing something is wrong with the output on the pioneer as I sent an electrical signal down the speaker wires and they seemed to buzz fine.



Instead I've sourced a VW beta cassette player and connected it up all the wires fit straight into the system.
Went to turn it on and nothing!
Changed the fuse and then when I tried to turn it on the backlight would flash blue for half a second and turn off??

Hooked it up to vagcom and it detected it fine with the 'DIAG' coming up on the screen of the radio, but there was a fault code logged something about internal memory error?

Anyone know what this could be?
Andymac you mentioned that you have to activate power to the radio through vagcom?
or do I have to enter the radio code ?

thanks.

 

[AndyMac]

If the HU was from a Bose system in the previous car then sometimes these units have the internal front speaker amp turned off as it's not used in the active Bose system. This can only be switched on via VAGCOM.
Have you checked all the fuses? There are 3, one on the back of the HU, and 2 seperate ones on the fuse box. One for perm live (Radio) and one for ignition on live (Radio S-kont). Easier really to use a 12v testing screwdriver and confirm you have power on both the red/white wire and the yellow/red wire on the black ISO power connector (with the ignition full on).
The VW radio will just confuse the issue as I'm not sure how compatible they are with the Audi setup. If the unit is from a CANBUS vehicle (2001 onwards) then that could give you problems as you don't have it on your 98 A3. The CANBUS is used to tell the HU when the keys are in the ignition.
If you can get a buzz from the speakers by putting an AA battery across the connections then at least you know they are still wired up to the original loom. My guess was the previous owner either rewired the fronts for the aftermarket system or didn't even bother to replace them when he took out his aftermarket speakers (as he obviously didn't bother with the sub).
Maybe worth popping a door card off and just checking.

 

[p14va]

yep the speakers are connected but I'll try activating them through VAGCOM.

How do I do this?

I can get into the radio module and it detects it fine but where to from there?

 

[foolish3uk]

the speakers at the front of the car will work from a genuine radio wether the bose is activated or not via the coding, so there must be somthing else at fault here.

 

[p14va]

ok in that case there is no fault with the wiring of the speakers.

I have two different HU's im using to test the audio.

The pioneer im sure theres something wrong with the speaker output, or that its not activated in the HU as its quite a complex one and maybe the outputs are turned off.

Instead of messing about with the settings on that, I decided to connect the VW Beta one instead. But that doesnt turn on past the flashing blue screen but it detects it fine in VAGCOM and turns on to show the 'DIAG' diagnostics mode.

So I just wana get the VW one working instead as its got the same colour coding as the audi and fits better,

so how do I get that one to work??
radio code?

thanks for the help once again!