Just to clarify, for those of you who are still unsure as to what LOC you need to buy. Jeffa and I have gone back and forth on this issue several times, and I still stand behind my findings that the Bose system in the Z is not a differential output system, and that it is a high level ouput. Here is further clarification from the guys at Soundgate, who design loc's for oem head units. Here is the email I received from the Technical Support department at Soundgate (keep in mind that LOCs is all these guys make !):

"Every indication that we have seen is that the Bose system from Nissan actually uses a high level speaker output from the head unit. The last one of these we spoke to a guy about had the LOCB in it and it was way overdriven so we added the LOCHV4A and all was perfect. It was about 6 years ago that Nissan began using a high level output from the head unit for the Bose system and it appears that this is the same. The LOC4 should be about the same as the LOCHV4A except for the level matching ****, two vs four channel, and the DC isolation that the HVA series has. The LOC4 will give you a bit better sound quality but would have a little more chance of induced noise due to placement of the LOC. The LOC4 needs to be as close to the power source as possible, like 6 inches, and then you will usually be better for the noise. Hope this all helps and I would be very interested in hearing how things go."

I hope that this post adds further clarification to the fact that standard locs will work in the Z, and that there is no need to go hunting for high-end diff locs that will not work...

 

Ever find out anything?

 

Mannishboy...

I actually shipped my Bose Head Unit to westpak (another member here) to see if the Bose would work in the stock setup. The harnesses are the same, according to the info I have, and westpak is going to plug my Bose HU into his stock setup to see if it works, and how it sounds.

This will definitely verify whether Jeffa (supposed Clarion/Bose engineer) is correct, or if I have been correct in saying all along that the Bose uses standard speaker level outputs...I am anxious to find out myself...

I will post the results here as soon as I find out.

 

Well thanks for making a simple subject as confusing as possible!! If I want to use the factory HU I need a cheap line level adapter? I think soundgate or whoever should come up with a unit that just plugs into the back of the bose unit!! maybe 4 RCA's? Anyone listening? There must be a manufacture just itching to come up with products for us to use

 

onecoolee:

I'm actually really wondering about the two unused jacks on the back of my HU. I suspect one is for Nav audio, and hope the other might be for steering wheel controls we don't have. The other possibility is for it to control a remote changer, but I doubt that. The only reason they'd do that that I could see would be to keep it similar to the base unit.

If one is audio for Nav, it may be usable for other sources if we can figure out how it works.

 

First of all, it looks like I was right and jeffa, aka "Clarion man" may be too ashamed to respond to this thread, after he most likely found out he was wrong. Who knows, but he seems to have abandoned this thread...

Mannish Boy:
I have the Touring Bose, and one connector is defintely the connection to the nav system for muting control and nav audio. My Z had the factory nav installed and my Bose HU has 4 connector sockets on the back, 3 of which were being used (2 for stereo, 1 for nav) before I removed the Bose HU. The other unused connector is probably there to keep everything similar between models and is probably used for changer control if it were a non-touring model Z. Thats just my guess, but I doubt the Bose HU could control another changer anyways...so its probably just a blank connector bank...

 

Thanks for the info on the Nav, but don't dash my hopes about retrofiting the FX45 wheel controls in my Z!

 

publish the darn manual for the wonder-HU?? We paid good money for it, and if we (owners) want to tear it apart it should be our decision, no?

I am all for keeping my HU. If they publish the specs and diagrams, I can get all the other components I might need to stay happy with it. Makes logical sense to me.

 

I cant agree more slaponte!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lets see that manual. I want to put in my amps!

 

Hey onecoolee:
So, did the Bose radio work in the non Bose Z?
Haven't heard from you on this, so I guess it did not.

Know why? Let me tell you why. The Bose radio for the 350Z does NOT have a high level amplifier in it. I am looking at the specs and schematic for the unit right now:

OUTPUT INPEDANCE: 300 ohms (NOT speaker level 4 ohms)
OUTPUT VOLTAGE: 6 VOLTS (NOT watts/channel)

The schematic shows 4 independant IC's in a differential design feeding the outputs for front and rear channels, one IC circuit for each of the four channels. If it was a high powered speaker level unit, it would be using a single Hitachi power IC for all four speaker outputs.

The reason Soundgate thinks that this unit is a speaker level/powered device is because of the high line level voltage, which most likely overloaded thier LOCB bose interface device. That is why they think you can use a standard LOC. Most of the older Bose units only had between 1.5-3 volts output, but the new Nissan units have 6 volts. I still don't recommend usin a standard LOC, because of the differential output and the 300 ohm impedance. The Soundgate LOCB Bose interface has a high impedance input to match the factory Bose head to an aftermarket amp. A standard LOC looks at a different input impedance, and can cause noise and frequency shifting and distortion when used with this Bose unit.

If you notice, the Soundgate tech says that "from all appearances" it is high level speaker outputs. If he had taken the time to actually measure output impedance, he would have immediatly found that it is not a high power speaker level output. he could have confirmed this by simply calling Clarion and asking for the service manual, which we would have gladly supplied.

If you still don't believe me, I will gladly scan the relevent pages and send them to you.

And that's enough of that....

 

jeffa...
No need to send anything...I will eat my big fat plate of crow, and shut up. Here is the deal though, and I didn't think it was possible, but I ended up getting 2 bad line out convertors from Soundgate in the process of my upgrade. I am not sure if they were just having manufacturing issues at the time, or what the deal was, but I never expected a problem like this from a reputable company like Soundgate. I also got misleading information from Bose, which confirmed that the head was not differential, I also spoke to SOundgate, and Peripheral Electronics, and they confirmed what the idiot at Bose told me. This ended up being wrong info...so, you can't really blame me for not believing all of these people who supposedly knew what they were talking about. Now I know not to trust them...

So, the bottom line is that the Bose HU has differential outputs, and requires special differential interfaces to properly convert the ouputs. Standard LOCs did work for me, but hte resulting sound was not clean, or very desirable.

I was so disappointed with the sound of this head unit anyways, I swapped it out before I actually got convertors that worked.

jeffa, sorry to doubt you, and let's just let this whole thing rest in peace...

 

Jeffa, any news on the plugs on the back? Did you figure out what the other one is (I assume one of mine is for the NAV). It would be nice to see a schematic of both of those, to see if we can rig in steering wheel controls or use the NAV audio interface for other purposes.

Thanks.