ould

Well after having people tell me it couldn't be done an I would have to replace all the speakers in the car I got ready to tear up my car and replace all the speakers. Once my JVC MP3/CD(KD SH99, sweet unit BTW) player arrived I couldn't wait for some time on the weekend to replace all the speakers and just wanted to see it powered up and play around with it a bit.

So I got my harness, trimplate and everything all ready to go and plugged her in. It looked sweet. I figured since I was just playing around anyways I would try and jack in one of the RCA outputs on the JVC the the inputs to the BOSE system just for kicks. So I rigged it up temporarily along with the remotes turn on lead and low and behold I had sound. Sounded pretty damn good too.

BUT on turn on there was a loud THUMP and same thing when changing tracks on the CD or Stations on the radio. Hmmm that's no good I thought. At first I thought maybe the JVC cuts power to the remote turn on momentarily during these operations thus causing a turn on thump from the bose amp. So I went to my work truck and grabbed a capacitor and wired it between ground and the remote lead to try and minimize the thump. No dice still the same. So now I think obviously it is coming through the RCA's somehow.

I go up to my trusty tool box from my installation days which has a whole drawer full of misc. wiring and such. I find one a those Isolation transformers with RCA's on both sides. SWEET just what the doctor ordered. I go back down to my car and slap the puppy in between the JVC and bose amp, and guess what. Works Mint!! Unfortunately I only had one of them transformers but I just split the output from the front RCA's on the JVC to the four inputs of the bose. So I lose fader control but I never use the fader anyways. If I really needed to I could pick up another one fo them isolation transformers to get my fade back.

Now I know most of you have bad things to say about the BOSE but I really didn't want to rip apart the whole car and fork out a fair bit of cash replacing the speakers and adding an amp and in all honesty the BOSE sounds way better than it did with the factory head unit, good enough for the car. All I really wanted was a cd player in the dash. Also I have had to many big stereos swiped in my days to think twice about that. And besides that I have more money to spend on some mods. If anyone would like more detailed info don't hesitate to contact me.

GregA

Ould, good information. I wonder if I could impose on you a question?

I have a portable drive-based MP3 player (NEO Jukebox, http://ssiamerica.com/products/neojukebox/). I'd like to find a way to port its 1/8" stereo plug into my factory BOSE system (their solution, the cassette adapter, really blows.)

So, might your discovery work? I had also given thought to trying the line-in from the CD rack in back, as I don't use it (my 2000 S4 came with the in-dash CD player.)

Thoughts?

Greg Amy
Milford, CT

Bob Fred

Use the Blitzsafe CD adapter with the changer plug in the trunk

ould

Hmm, I could see it working if you rigged up some sort of switch to swicth sources. You would likely also need a decent sized relay so that you could switch all 5 wires at a time(FL, FR, COMMON GROUND, RL, RR). That way you could switch what the Bose sees as an Input. Either that or make sure you don't have them both on at the same time. But then you would run into the problem of the remote turn on lead for the Bose. Hmmmm, Maybe bob fred's suggestion would work out better. I am not too familiar with the Blitzsafe he is referring to. Just buy the JVC head unit I have and toss your Neo. Good Luck in any event.

sloe-pohkA4

did you ground the RCA outs that were coming out from the isolation transformer? some people seem to have taken the 4 sheaths from the RCAs and combined them to 1 ground plug. Others have simply cut those wires off and not bothered to ground them. I'm trying to get this bastard to work before I pull all my hair out. Once this is done I'm going to put together the diffinitive explanation of how to replace the headunit in an A4 with bose AND not get the thump! lol.

thomas paris
97 2.8L A4 Quattro.