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Ordered new radio from Crutchfield with wiring harness and surround. Simple plug and play,,,not for this guy. Went to do the connections and found this. One the large big black connector there should be all the Bose speaker wires coming in and out to a connector. Nothing........Some jackass prev owner obviously replaced the radio and when selling the car put the factory one back but not sure where the wires are. Does anyone know where the terminus of the wires are or any help in fixing. I did remove a Sirius connector hack job also.........
That's the MOST fiber optic network in the Bose cars (two orange optical fiber "wires"). Looks stock to me. You need a MOST adapter to convert the analog outputs of your new radio to the fiber optic network. Nav-TV makes one. There are eBay clones as well.
Another option is to bypass the fiber network entirely. You need a traditional amplifer to replace the Bose amp, and the traditional wiring.
This is the wiring set up from Crutchfield. At the bottom of the pic is a large black connector. I have nothing to plug into that space and they said the orange speaker connector should be there......
The Bose setup doesn't have speaker wires running to the stereo. All the speaker wires start at the amp in the frunk. The connector in the car with the Orange fiber optic lines should plug into the box in the Crutchfield harness with the C2-MOST-25-MC/PO sticker on it. The Red and white RCA connector should plug in to the front speaker RCA outputs from your new head unit. That box converts the electrical signals from the headunit to optical signals to send to the Bose amp.
I think that the picture that Crutchfield sent you is of a non-Bose car.
There are two types of audio systems in 911s, ASK amplifier, known as the Sound Package Plus system (SPP) and Bose premium amplifier. The ASK amplifier has audio supplied to it from the head unit from the normal speaker ISO connector, a +12v feed turns on the amplifier. The Bose amplifier has a fibre optic connection from the head unit.
The left image is a car with an ASK amplifier, all 4 channels are populated in the speaker ISO and there is an amplifier turn on wire (thin black with red stripe) in the power ISO connector. The image to the right has a Bose amplifier, there are no speaker wires present, the audio is sent to the amplifier via the orange fibre optic cables. Note: the car with the ASK amplifier also has fibre optic cables, these connect the head unit to the CD changer, they do not carry audio to the ASK amplifier.
So the Bose equipped cars on the right do not have individual speaker outputs, only the fiber wire.
OP, does your car have the BOSE amplifier in the front? You need to confirm that first.
If the answer is yes => in which case, the Crutchfield harness should have come with the MOST box, and that box should be all you need to send audio to the amplifier and then to the speakers.
Just ignore the speaker wires that are connected to the ISO harness and connect the vehicle harness only to the part that has the power wires.
If on the other hand you don't have the BOSE amplifier, then you don't need the stuff from Crutchfield at all => you can make the required harness yourself.
Simple logical test
before you took the OEM radio out did sound come through the speakers? If the answer is yes, then your “jackass previous owner” didn’t do anything and you’re looking at a stock MOST Bose setup
So after some tech help from Crutchfield on a Saturday afternoon, we are all installed and working. Some of the confusion was that their harness had the steering wheel control wires, which I do not have. Also the plug for the two copper wires had a protective cover over it, so not intuitive as to where to plug. Thanks for all the helpful hints !
08-02-2019, 10:57 AM
Big Bose Radio Replacement Issue
