Aftermarket Headunit and Bose

[mentalcase]

I received my Pioneer Avic-8000nex yesterday and spent the night soldering up the harness and creating the connections to integrate the OEM backup camera. Well everything went according to plan except for the sound quality. Once I turned it on the NAV guidance nearly blew my ear drums out and the unit had a constant hiss like the volume was too high.

Well the volume is only on 1 and the hiss is unbearable. I've come to the conclusion that the Pioneer puts out a signal that is too hot through the speaker outputs. I'm thinking of purchasing some male RCA to line to use the preouts on the unit instead.

I'm going to test this tomorrow by jumping the wires in the Bose harness. Any one think my hunch is correct?

 

[danieljw]

I can at least corroborate your findings. I installed an AVHX8500BHS a few months back and experienced the same exact behavior. Crutchfield didn't know how to help and there are no installers near me so I ended up returning the Pioneer.

Curious to see what solution you come up with.

 

[RedBaron]

I received my Pioneer Avic-8000nex yesterday and spent the night soldering up the harness and creating the connections to integrate the OEM backup camera. Well everything went according to plan except for the sound quality. Once I turned it on the NAV guidance nearly blew my ear drums out and the unit had a constant hiss like the volume was too high.

Well the volume is only on 1 and the hiss is unbearable. I've come to the conclusion that the Pioneer puts out a signal that is too hot through the speaker outputs. I'm thinking of purchasing some male RCA to line to use the preouts on the unit instead.

I'm going to test this tomorrow by jumping the wires in the Bose harness. Any one think my hunch is correct?

Yes! You are putting an amplified output into the Bose amplifier that is expecting low-level inputs, thus overdriving the Bose input stage, leading to distortion, as well as making everything 20x louder than it should be. You should be using the pre-amp outputs from the Pioneer, NOT the speaker outputs.

 

[mentalcase]

Yes! You are putting an amplified output into the Bose amplifier that is expecting low-level inputs, thus overdriving the Bose input stage, leading to distortion, as well as making everything 20x louder than it should be. You should be using the pre-amp outputs from the Pioneer, NOT the speaker outputs.

Thanks for the confirmation. I've also come to the conclusion that since our audio setup in the CX-5 is wacky (Right Front Dash, Right front door, and so on) the jumper idea is not a very good one. I'm going to call around to a few shops to see if I can find some male RCA to bare wire adapters. Otherwise I'll wait for amazon to deliver. Unless I head to radioshack and make my own.

 

[mentalcase]

Well that was it. I just wired the RCA connectors the installer from bestbuy gave me for free and boom everything works the way it should now.

Check out the pics of the unit installed and the harness.

 

[mentalcase]

More pics to give you guys an idea on how mounted my mic. Luckily my wifes hot glue gun was only a stones throw away.

 

[Beefy]

I'd use silicone instead of hot glue, and its hard to tell whether that is eletrical tape or heat shrink, but that is pretty damn tidy work. Kudos!

 

[mentalcase]

I'd use silicone instead of hot glue, and its hard to tell whether that is eletrical tape or heat shrink, but that is pretty damn tidy work. Kudos!

Silicone required a trip to homedepot and I was anxious to get this done. At least the hotglue will be easy to take off should I ever need to get it back to stock. Most of the solder joints were covered with heat shrink except on one RCA where I forgot to slide it on ahead of time.

Thanks

 

[danieljw]

Silicone required a trip to homedepot and I was anxious to get this done. At least the hotglue will be easy to take off should I ever need to get it back to stock. Most of the solder joints were covered with heat shrink except on one RCA where I forgot to slide it on ahead of time.

Thanks

Looks great. Could you please explain how you fed the microphone cable to the rear of the headunit? Was it easy or difficult? Anything to look out for?

Also, how is the 8000?! Pioneer hinted that they were no longer using Microsoft CE. I'm wondering if it could be Android on these NEX units, hence the better Android integration.

 

[mentalcase]

For the microphone I followed Redbaron's thread. Basically used the stock wiring in order to cut out running your own cable.
http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/show...-Bluetooth-Microphone-with-Aftermarket-Stereo

The 8000 is nice. Back when I had a mazda 3 I put in an AVIC-D3 and Kenwood's top of the line and this blows them all away (those are almost 7 years old though). The UI is great. Very polished and beautiful. If I had to purchase another unit I'd probably just go with then 7000 as the capacitive screen is nice, but it glares pretty bad and I'm not entirely sure for the extra $200 is worth it.

The only other unit I'd consider is the Alpine with the 8in screen, but the install would require a ton of custom work that I just wasn't ready to do.

 

[tibimakai]

Microphone cables, don't require shielded cables? The factory harness has shielding in it?

 

[RedBaron]

Microphone cables, don't require shielded cables? The factory harness has shielding in it?

Yes, it's shielded. The 5 wires shown in my thread all are contained within a separate grounded common shield. (The factory mic needs a shield too, remember.)

 

[capnmorganxx]

I'm getting ready to install an 8000 nex as well. Is that the only modification you made to the RP4 kit is adding RCAs? So far based on all the threads I've researched, I have to do the following:

1. Modify RP4 kit and harness for RCAs to hook up to the preamps on the 8000
2. Get a 12V to 6V step down converter for the camera. Use PC headers as shown in other threads to retain the stock backup camera
3. Use existing microphone wiring harness along with single row pc headers to connect new 8000 nex microphone

Any specific instructions/hazards I should watch out for when installing the 8000 in a '13 grand touring? I see you cut some wires on the bottom right harness in the picture. What's going on there? I'm waiting patiently and doing as much research as possible while UPS delivers all the parts to do this install.

 

[danieljw]

I'm getting ready to install an 8000 nex as well. Is that the only modification you made to the RP4 kit is adding RCAs? So far based on all the threads I've researched, I have to do the following:

1. Modify RP4 kit and harness for RCAs to hook up to the preamps on the 8000
2. Get a 12V to 6V step down converter for the camera. Use PC headers as shown in other threads to retain the stock backup camera
3. Use existing microphone wiring harness along with single row pc headers to connect new 8000 nex microphone

Any specific instructions/hazards I should watch out for when installing the 8000 in a '13 grand touring? I see you cut some wires on the bottom right harness in the picture. What's going on there? I'm waiting patiently and doing as much research as possible while UPS delivers all the parts to do this install.

Just one note about the factory mic wiring in your 3rd point. After digging through the service manual a little bit, I learned how simple it would be to feed a mic wire up the A pillar and under the headliner. Basically, it's possible to loosen the A pillar without removing it (which dislodges some single-use clips) just enough to get a wire in there. I decided to do this rather than taking the time to make connectors for each end of the factory wiring, and cutting up my aftermarket mic. Took about ten minutes to do and, in my opinion, much simpler.

 

[capnmorganxx]

Ok I'll plan on doing that for the mic. Always easier to use that 99999999ft cord pioneer includes with their mic. I had my old Mazda 3 wired up and it's amazing how easy it is to route wires in a Mazda.

 

[capnmorganxx]

Ok I'll plan on doing that for the mic. Always easier to use that 99999999ft cord pioneer includes with their mic. I had my old Mazda 3 wired up and it's amazing how easy it is to route wires in a Mazda.

Just did the mic install today while waiting for my RP4-MZ11 to show up (arggh amazon prime not making their delivery date of Friday). Wanted to let everyone know that removing the stock mic, then routing the wire is DEFINITELY the way to go vs trying to reuse the stock wiring. Took me all of 15 minutes start to finish to install.

 

[mentalcase]

Just did the mic install today while waiting for my RP4-MZ11 to show up (arggh amazon prime not making their delivery date of Friday). Wanted to let everyone know that removing the stock mic, then routing the wire is DEFINITELY the way to go vs trying to reuse the stock wiring. Took me all of 15 minutes start to finish to install.

LOL. I wouldn't say it's the way to go. It only took me 6-7 minutes to solder on pins to the mic wires and another minute to slide them into the connectors. Plus the majority of the work was done inside as I was soldering the harness together.

 

[marcusx123]

Thanks for sharing this!
How much did everything cost you?

Also, how difficult was the whole process?

 

[lhendricks92]

Just installed a Pioneer NEX 4000 in my Mazda6. I was able to program the SWC to my liking except for Voice Recognition. Has anyone been able to get that work? I'm using the PAC RP4-MZ11.

 

[lhendricks92]

Just did the mic install today while waiting for my RP4-MZ11 to show up (arggh amazon prime not making their delivery date of Friday). Wanted to let everyone know that removing the stock mic, then routing the wire is DEFINITELY the way to go vs trying to reuse the stock wiring. Took me all of 15 minutes start to finish to install.

I did this, too, but I did run into a bit of snag. There isn't much daylight under the steering column looking up at the back of the head unit. I ended up taping my mic jack to the end of a cat toy (long, flexible stick!) and pulling it through. Crisis averted! haha