I just picked up my car from my install late on Thursday night, and I must say I am VERY happy wth the work done on my car. Ron and Co. @ Street Effectz in Rahway, NJ know their stuff like none other. Ron, if you are reading this, thank you for all your help.

Ron achieved exactly what I was looking for with my car. I was trying to keep my stock BOSE HU, while upgrading my amps, speakers, and adding XM radio. The key to this install was keeping the car looking completely stock, and returnable to original condition.

Ron was able to, despite what has been seen on this board, connect up my new amp to my BOSE unit, without the use of LOCs, or the infamous AudioLink PD4 (and it sounds great without either of them). It was an invloved process, which I can explain a bit, but am not going to get into detail here. My new amp was placed in the glovebox behind the passenger seat. Diamond Audio HEX S600s's were placed in the fronts (cascade on the inside of the doors), and Diamond M3 6-1/2" Coax's were used for rears.

The only part of the install which can be seen is the XM system. A new enclosure was molded and installed in the place of the sunglass holder which I never used (rattled). It is built out and angled toward the rear so as to have it at the perfect angle for the driver to reach and see the display. Here's a few pictures:





The new enclosure was sprayed black and textured to match the black plastic in the rest of the car (eg: the rearview mirror housing). It matches perfectly.

The XM antenna is on the strut tower bar, and the wiring is run inside of the black plastic housing to give it an incredibly clean look.



While I was havigng this done, I decided to have an auxiliary input into the system installed. A switch is located completely under the dash, and when fliped, it changed the audio between the XM Commander, and an 1/8" phono jack that is run under my passenger seat. Simply plug into your ipod headphone jack and voila... bye bye ugly casette adapters.

The audio for these two inputs is currently run through two RF modulators run in series. This helps the sound quality a bit (for RF Modulators, its not bad). Ron and I both agree that it could be better, but as we all know, Blitzsafe and the others have no kit for our car. He has it on good word, from another manufaturer that it will be ablout 2 months till their kit comes out. Since he was so disapointed with the sound out of the XM and the ipod, Ron has told me that he will make a custom adapter, just like the Blitzsafe unit in operation and quality. He has done them for Acura's since before Blitz and the other were making them, so with a few wiring diagrams, he says he will have no problem doing this for me, in time.

Sound is impressive. The HEX's have a very flat response, which is a BIG change from BOSE's funky amp tricks. Diamond Audio makes some great equipment. They produce large amounts of bass from component speakers. I am loving my first few days on XM here as well... deffinately a good addition.

I know this has been a bit longwinded, but I am just very pleased with the way my project has turned out. I do possibly see a sub in my future, but that will be figured out as my HEX's break in and I do some critical listening.

 

That's a tight way to mount the XM controller! Everything looks well done, but what's a Blitzsafe?

 

well please explain what you can, cause it would be a big benefit to alot of people who still have their oem recievers.

 

its a device that connects oem and aftermarket audio equipment.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/xmfanstore/bldico.html

 

After reading on this board that it was impossible to use the stock BOSE head unit without LOCs, or the PD-4, I went to talk to my installer about my install fully expecting to have to use one of these methods. When he told me that they weren’t necessary, I was very skeptical, so I had him explain fully what he was going to do. Conceptually, I understand his method, but physically, I did not see any of this, so I do not know details of the parts, etc. That said, here’s what I was told:

Bose does not make head units themselves. All their HUs are made by a few other companies. I am not sure who does the Z’s, but I want to say Alpine. Bose head units are constructed of two parts. One half is essentially a standard head unit, which produces line level outputs. The other half is a box which converts those outputs into the funky outputs which the Bose amps are looking for. Wires connect the two parts. My installer simply found those two wires between the pieces, stripped away the insulation, and soldered a wire that leads to my amps. This gives you the line level outputs you need.

The AudioLink PD-4 is basically a box that is the inverse of the second part of the Bose HU. While it works well, the way this was explained to me I had to question why my installer’s method would not be better than taking a good signal, converting it to Bose standard, and then un-converting it back to its original form. Seems like there would have to be losses in that process.

When I want to remove my system to sell my car at some point, all I need to do is cut or unsolder the leads which were added, and my HU and amp are back to stock. I thought this was pretty slick.

 

I'm researching this topic because this is where I am with my mods. I'm looking at doing the same set up with the XM install. It seems that no one else has reported to have NOT used a LOC while retaining the BOSE system. Has anyone else tried BriA5's method and if so care to tell/show us how to access these two wires? Thanks.