KJI3jflarryfe93

I wanna rip out the tapedeck on my c43 it's the MB Audio 30 tapedeck.
I wanna replace it with an aftermarket hed unit!
Is it posible to run the Booooooose audio system with an aftermarket unit?
Are there any ISO fit connections to buy as adapters for the new unit and then hook it up with the cars electrical wires?
Thanks

MarcusF

Yes, it's easy, and that part of the HU swap cost me $15.

Bose uses a balanced, differential signal interconnection. Most aftermarket head units produce unbalanced output. A Bose amp will accept an unbalanced signal, but it won't sound as good. Converter boxes exist that read the unbalanced input and produce balanced output. BTW, the price has gone up. Now they're $30. The details of what I did are at Signal to Noise, scroll down on the left to "Changing a factory head unit / radio" and click that.

So, what are you buying?

KJI3jflarryfe93

Thanks for your input buddy.
I was thinkin' about a Kenwood, Alpine or a Pioneer.
I only want the best!
So buying these trickery boxes you linked will be possible to use an aftermarket H.U. with the Boose hifi amp and speakers?
Am I correct?
I asked a radio shack store where I live in Sweden, they told me it's not possible without converters to use an aftermarket cd-deck!
Also they said they don't have these parts for conversion!
It sucks!

Can you name exactly what I need, maybe I have to order the stuff from the US!
Brands name and description of what these parts are?
Thanks a million!

MarcusF

I used an Alpine iDA-X305 head unit. The Alpine will talk to a CD changer, but not the OEM changer. Although once you start using an SSD drive, you may never go back to CDs. Think about this, you can store seven and a half hours of music per GB on an SSD drive. That’s music recorded at 50% higher quality than CD (192Kbs). At those recording levels, a 16 GB flash drive will store 120 hours of music. Since a CD will only hold 80 minutes of music, you’d need a CD changer that holds 90 CDs to match the playback time of a $20 16GB thumb drive. Also, with SSDs, there are no more skips due to bumps in the road. Have a mega music collection? 500GB USB powered hard drives cost $130. That’s 3750 hours worth of music.

Anyway, back to your original question. Pac-Audio, www.pac-audio.com, sells a PAC OEM-2. This allows the Alpine audio output to be fed to the Bose amp in my car. I got mine from Crutchfield (dot com). Crutchfield is based in the states. Go to the Crutchfield website, enter your car, and they’ll tell you what fits. If they don’t ship to Sweden, you can use their site to determine what you need. Shoot them an email though, they just might ship worldwide. Crutchfield is a manufacturer authorized retailer for Kenwood, Alpine, and Pioneer (as well as at least 100 other manufacturers). In addition to the PAC OEM2 (for the Bose connection), I used a Pac Audio SWI-CAN2 and a SWI-JACK to retain my steering wheel controls (it requires 2 boxes, but they’re small). Everything I used plugged into the existing wiring harness – no cutting of MB OEM wires. Crutchfield supplied my wiring harness adapter and the Motorola male to Volk female antenna adapter with the head unit.

SoCalCLK

I really like Alpine Car Audio products. I didn't know you had done this mod on your CLK, Marcus. Now you got me re-thinking about my car audio situation again!

Also, I completely agree with you on the SSD as the way to go in storing music vs. a CD changer.