Aftermarket stereo

[chris444cat]

Hi all,
Can anyone shed some light on what seems to be a simple problem? I am installing an aftermarket stereo in my 2001 B6 A4 2.5 TDi. The original is a Chorus system. I want to get a harness adaptor so as not to get involved with cuts and snips anywhere! However the leading companies (off ebay) are all contradicting each other leaving me wondering.... Help!!!

 

[head]

you can get the harness you need out of halfords its the lead with 2 black conns & 1 red conn,i got 1 the other week for mine it cost £29.99.

 

[chris444cat]

I tried Halfords but had to return it as i was the wrong one. They were one of the experts!! Do you have the same car?? If so what was the part number of your adaptor??? Ta:thumbsup:

 

[paul20v]

Dont forget you will loose the side light live and the switched live when fitting after market H/U also quite often the sound is not so good ,
also you may need an aerial adapter and booster mod .

 

[slepy]

Dont forget you will loose the side light live and the switched live .

eee? can you explain what do you mean by that?

 

[mattyboyc]

That's it, when i fitted my kenwood i had to add a ignition live as the original only has a permenant live also a aerial addaptor and booster and you do also loose your stereo illumination when side lights are on but stereo is not, also the sound is nowhere near as good as the original, but as the unit i used has alot of sound features i got it to sound half decent.

 

[slepy]

It depends what kind of build you wanna have. I wouldn't swap headunit if I wanted to keep all the rest of system. Simply can't see the point of doing it. Unless... you want to get mp3 player.
But if you want to go big time (like me) than there is not much play with standard headunit. I will be trying to get fiber optic from standard HU and put alpine F1 processor on top of that. And then the rest of fully active system. But thats next year

 

[Nutkin]

well I just did the perm live to the switch live mod and mine works fine, I have an Alpine unit and the sound quality is better from my original chorus one.

The Alpine 103BT cost me 149.99 and 18 for the ipod lead.

So now i have a cradle in car that i slip my iphone into, the stereo then plays all music off my iphone and connects automatically via bluetooth so i can control everything from my stereo.

Much better imo and cheaper and easier than getting all the bits for oem stereo.

But im also going to put my audio kit from my old car into this one seeing as i have some very high end components and plans for a lovely SQ instal to the boot.

 

[chris444cat]

Cheers guys, i did try and speak to the boffins about the switched live and all said that adaptors would deff fit (according to thier database!!!). Needed hands free and ipod connection so bought Alpine iDA-X305 HU with the Alpine KCE-422i parrot/bluetooth otherwise i would have stayed with the standard HU. I bought the BOSE speakers off ebay for a steal and simply swapped them over and this improves the sound quality quite a bit. I do have an ariel adaptor/booster of some kind off my old audi system (aftermarket) but it seems like my reception has suffered big time. Is there a specific booster which will help??

 

[J7USS]

Thats the prob I had when I wanted to change mine but sound quality for me was Bob when I just swapped over the Unit for my Pioneer....

....So what I did was ripped out the microwave from the dash, installed a Pioneer USB headunit. I then went to the Back of the car to where the Bose amp is, disconnected the plug from it then traced the wires for all of the speakers in the car, I then fed my own wires from the connector for them speakers back to the front for my headunit, Amp lead/Amp + goes down the passenger side whilst my Speakers go down the drivers side, all nice and neat - Job done.

I changed my front Tweeters for Cewin vega's as ive always rated them. The Bose play well with my headunit, loud enough for what I need, Stuck a Cerwin Amp in the Boot along with my Cerwin Sub and away I bounce!!!

Ive always been into Installs and theres nothing wrong with having a few 1000watts smacking you in the head!!

 

[AndyMac]

Just bear in mind that you can't run Bose speakers directly off any HU. They are 2 ohm impedance and will fry your HU's amp over time, especially if driven hard.

 

[Nutkin]

Thats the prob I had when I wanted to change mine but sound quality for me was Bob when I just swapped over the Unit for my Pioneer....

....So what I did was ripped out the microwave from the dash, installed a Pioneer USB headunit. I then went to the Back of the car to where the Bose amp is, disconnected the plug from it then traced the wires for all of the speakers in the car, I then fed my own wires from the connector for them speakers back to the front for my headunit, Amp lead/Amp + goes down the passenger side whilst my Speakers go down the drivers side, all nice and neat - Job done.

I changed my front Tweeters for Cewin vega's as ive always rated them. The Bose play well with my headunit, loud enough for what I need, Stuck a Cerwin Amp in the Boot along with my Cerwin Sub and away I bounce!!!

Ive always been into Installs and theres nothing wrong with having a few 1000watts smacking you in the head!!

Know exactly what you mean

I picked up some $900 A/D/S comps for a steal price a while back so have plumbed them into every car ive had so far, they are amazing run from a genesis p2 amp. So i am eager to get them in the a4. This time i shall probably settle for a JL audio sub setup unless i can get something a bit nicer second hand for the money.

In my last car i had two alpine type rs on 1000wrms each in the back hehe, was a tad overkill but good for db drag events.

 

[slepy]

Nice one

In my last car I had 3 old skool soundstream reference amps (one class A for tweeters) with rainbow platinum woofers, morel supremo tweeters and soundstream da vinci 10" sub all cuts were made fully active from clarion 958 headunit

I'm sure that tweeters will be the same in this car. For the rest of system I'm planning something very special. Just hope will have enough cash to do it
Will be trying to get into EMMA competition next season. We will see how it goes

 

[iyrix]

well I just did the perm live to the switch live mod and mine works fine, I have an Alpine unit and the sound quality is better from my original chorus one.

The Alpine 103BT cost me 149.99 and 18 for the ipod lead.

So now i have a cradle in car that i slip my iphone into, the stereo then plays all music off my iphone and connects automatically via bluetooth so i can control everything from my stereo.

Much better imo and cheaper and easier than getting all the bits for oem stereo.

But im also going to put my audio kit from my old car into this one seeing as i have some very high end components and plans for a lovely SQ instal to the boot.

Hi when you did this, what happened with the dash display?

Thanks
Graham

 

[Nutkin]

Hi when you did this, what happened with the dash display?

Thanks
Graham

It ran away with the wiper stalk


Not sure what you mean :/ i have full dis but now it displays nothing fm the stereo, wasn't fussed tbh rather have all my mp3s/iphone running etc and a good install than a oem 6 disk system .

 

[iyrix]

Thanks, thats all i wonder if it wouldn't show on the dash. Im going to do the same.