Hi,
I have an '05 with the Bose and Onstar options. I'm somewhat of an electronics amateur and have some basic installs under my belt. I'm planning on installing the following:

Pioneer AVIC-X920BT deck
Peripheral GMAH24B Connector with the GMAHCH chime
Metra Double Din kit
GM Antenna adapter
Somep decent 'plug & play' aftermarket speakers - single dash speaker (BA S-35), two rears (Infinitys), and the two door mids (Polks).

I realize this should only make a marginal sound difference without an amp upgrade and replacing the 10" speakers in the doors according to other posts.

My questions are:

1) Is this something an amateur can complete?
2) Am I correct in assuming that the Peripheral adapters take all the wiring guess work out of the install (will handle all the Onstar and Bose amp connections for me)?
3) The only miscellaneous wire connections I'd need to worry about would be the VSS and parking brake wires (for the GPS)?
4) What are the specs for the stock Bose amp (is it any worse or better than the Pioneer's deck rating of 14W RMS / 50W peak)? Is there any advantage to using the deck's amplifier with a crossover?
5) I've heard grounding the parking brake wire will override the annoying 'must be stopped' safety feature for the GPS. Is this true and does anybody have a detailed explanation for performing this?
6) I eventually want to install sound insulation (ie. Madvette kit or similar). Is the bluetooth/voice features realistically usable with the noise level in an non-insulated stock '05 vette with the Z51 option while the car is in motion? Challenging to use, unusable altogether, not too bad?

Sorry for all the questions. I just want to make sure all the bases are covered prior to taking on such a project.

Any other advise or tips would be most appreciated. Thanks.

 

the first tip would be to scrap the pioneer head unit, if it requires a VSS connection then it means you cannot program it while driving! major suckage for that.
i do not know the exact procedure but i thought i heard on a pioneer you have to change out some pins in the power plug to bypass it.
youll find the kenwood units to be more feture packed and for a pice point thats hard to compete with. they are garmin based systems and very easy and affordable to upgrade maps.
you might look into the cost and procedure of upgrading the pioneer, it may change your mind.

i have voice activation in my c6 z06 and it works perfectly at highway speed, i cannot comment on the pioneer unit.

the rest of it should be pretty straight forward, i do not know if the system in your car has a factory amplifier, if so youll need to scrap all of that and use speaker power from the pioneer or add an amplifier. i would choose the latter if it were me.

 

Forget the dash speaker. It will screw up the staging in the front.

 

oh another suggestion, i just realized you had a C6 if your looking for an upgrade i would actually tell you that just replacing the factory HU with anything will make a notable improvement just using the stock speakers and amplifier. most of the lack of sound seems to be comming from the factory head unit.
i have enough bass fromt eh bose speakers and amp to rattle my pantleg and shake the mirrors with no problem from the stock setup.
however a tip for you, you need a head unit with a high voltage pre out like 4 volts at least. you need to buy the NON BOSE adapter with onstar. you need to wire the RCA's directly to the input of the factory amp and wire the dash speaker to the onstar out of the adapter.
if you use the Bose equipped adapter you will have to connect it using your pioneer speaker connections. it will attenuate the volume considerably and will distort the sound if you turn it up much. (been there and done that)

 

I have to disagree with that. The HU only puts out the signal. The lack of sound is the fault of the Bose amp.
I kept my factory Nav HU and replaced the speakers. I tapped into the HU wire harness with a GM24 and added pre-amp outputs. I bypassed the Bose amp and added an aftermarket one to power the door speakers and another amp for a sub. The sound is a HUGE improvement. The factory HU does in fact provide a very clean signal. The Bose amp just didn't know what to do with it. The Bose speakers would not have know what to do with clean power from an aftermarket amp. Plus with the factory HU the OnStar sound comes from the door not the center dash speaker. So that one can be tossed without loss of anything.

 

I'm stuck with the Pioneer deck as I bought it on Ebay and it can't be returned. I was debating between Kenwood & Pioneer for a couple of weeks before settling on the Pioneer (got favorable reviews and I came across a really good deal on Ebay).

With regards to the VSS, the Pioneer installation manual states the VSS (and even recommends tying into the 'reverse gear signal input') connections are meant to 'reduce' location errors. I just a supplement to the GPS to help keep the system honest.

I did see a you tube video which discussed a bypass for the safety that involved cutting the plug in the back of the deck and relocating one of the wires to an another location in the plug. However, another forum member, Nomad, did a write-up on a Pioneer install and he described another method where the parking brake wire connected a certain way to achieve the same thing.

From what I understand, the factory system has an amp under the passenger side of the dash (and two mini-amps on each of the 10" door speakers). The specs for the deck state it has 3 RCA preouts (2V each) so I guess that disqualifies me from your last suggestion as I've already purchased the HU and the Bose adapter

Thanks for the advice so far.

If anybody else has any tips / suggestions, I'm all ears.

 

first off you do not need to hook up vss wire and even with you can still program nav while driving if setup right.

ditch center channel

that radio plus the 3.5s in doors will be a noticable upgrade in sq

fyi u have the proper adapter listed gmah24b is what you want to use

 

For the x920BT you need to move the pin to do the bypass

Don't worry about the voltage output of the AVIC, it's RCA's can easily supply the oem amp (or ANY aftermarket when you decide to upgrade).

If you're not installing a real sub in the back, then you'd probably be best off replacing the 3.5" twiddlers with 2-way 3.5" aftermarkets and keeping the door subs and oem amp as-is. With the new HU and all of the adjustments that can be made to the sound it will be tons better than oem. For what they are the door subs aren't that bad, they'll easily blow away non-amped 6.5" components. If you remove the door subs to install components the HU will have trouble driving them.

Replacing the rears with aftermarket isn't a bad idea, but you could leave them for later after seeing how just the door speaker swap sounds. I posted a thread on how to replace just the rears, it only takes an hour or so (look near the bottom of the C6 audio FAQ thread).

If you can splice wires you can handle this install with minimal help from the forum. This thread shows 90% of what you need to see, plus a lot more.

Contact Rick at RAAMaudio via the forum for the best deal you'll find on sound deadening. His 1 box & 3 yard package is hard to beat

With the sound deadening installed and windows up you can easily talk via BT (my mic is glued at top of A-pillar pointing directly at me). With the windows down it gets a tad muffled, but if you raise your voice a bit it isn't too bad.

Disconnect the center speaker at a minimum. Depending on your interface adapter you may need it for the onstar. If unused, remove the speaker itself so it isn't in the way of signal for the GPS and/or sat radio antennas (if you put them on top of the center HVAC vents).

Re. oem amp vs internal amp of new HU, if you keep the door subs then stick with oem amp, if you pull the subs run everything off the HU speaker outputs.

 

Thanks for the additional information.

I looked at Rick's website and RAAMaudio has some great prices on their BXT II material. It's a lot thicker than Madvette's kit and cheaper. So 40 sq ft should all the panels in a C6? Madvette's kit is attractive since it's pre-cut (pulling the interior is enough of a job in itself) but the bang for the buck of the BXT has me thinking. Does the considerable difference in thickness create any problems when putting things back in place?

This might be a dumb question (like I said, I a bit of an amateur with automotive audio) . As I understand it, the RCAs are used only with an external amp (bypassing the internal deck's amp). However, the Peripheral GMAH24B adapter has connections to the speakers without use of the RCAs. Since the OEM deck is not amplified (?) how is this going to work (or am I missing something)? Will the system work without use of the Pioneer RCAs & just the Peripheral adapter or do I need to use both the RCAs only some of the adapter's connections given that the Bose system has three external amps?

Two replys to this post state I should remove the center speaker? Might be another stupid question but I'll take the heat. I can understand it might block the GPS antenna but how does it help the sound system otherwise?

On a side note, I have an older Infinity Basslink self-amped woofer but have lost the gain control which is normally remotely located under the dash somewhere. Although it wouldn't make a huge difference in sound, it did give a little more boom in a car I had years ago. Does anybody know if I can make this unit work given that the control is missing?

Thanks again.

 

the gmah24b handles not using the rca's it steps signal down. the center channel muddys up the stage its a summed channel not a true center.

i believe basslink still works without the bass ****

 

Thanks for all the great info. You've 'schooled' me quite a bit.

So just to recap...

1) Peripheral adapters (GMAH24B & GMAHCH) truely create a 'plug and play' scenerio with simply installing the Pioneer HU and non-amp'd speaker upgrades. Don't worry about the RCAs on the deck.
2) The AVIC-X920BT doesn't require the VSS or reverse gear signal input to be tapped for the GPS to be highly accurate. However, the parking brake wires for the GPS need to be connected.
3) The moving of the pin in the back of the connector (as described on the web - aka You Tube - is a valid workaround for elimination of the car-in-movement safety feature.
4) Bluetooth is usable with this deck in the relatively noisy C6 cabin albeit that some sound insulation would help improve things.
5) The center dash speaker muddles the stereo sound/staging and can interfere with the GPS antennna (if it's installed on top of the front, center vent ducts).
6) The Basslink unit should operate without the dash control installed.

Once again - thanks for the great info.
I feel much more confident about getting through the install myself.

 

i cannot let this go, sorry I AM telling you! you need to get rid of the BOSE compatable adapter and get the NON bose adapter you MUST wire the rca's directly into the factory amp using this adapter! i dont care what these guys say, will it work the way your doing it? absolutly but you will have about 75% of the actual volume you get now with the factory head unit! as you turn the pioneer up past about 60% volume the output will distort! been there and done that!
there is a couple other threads on this forum that explain exactly this issue!

the reason is because (and i personally spoke to the technical team at PAC)
they are taking the speaker output from the aftermarket HU and attenuating it down to a pre amp level using a resistor load, then sending that signal to the pre amplifier input of the bose amplifiers.
they did it this way because every aftermarket HU has different output levels. they really should have included an adjustment on the unit so it could be adjusted based on the output level of the aftermarket HU.
however their comment was valid by saying "if we installed an adjustment then everyone would just max it out" they built the adapter this way to make it simple and easy.

if you get the NON bose adapter you can wire the pre outs directly to the pioneer therefore bypassing the junk amplifier in the pioneer and send a clean un attenuated signal to the bose amplifier.
i have found that a high volt preamp is best because it will allow you to drive the factory amplifier to its full potential.
the factory head unit has a high voltage preamp to begin with. they do this because it helps to eliminate noise between the preamp stage and the amplifier itself.

you can go ahead and wire it up with what you have but just remember what i have said here. and after you get it all done youll be wanting to re do it with the adapter for a NON bose system. TRUST ME!

 

If I was to use the non-Bose adapter, (and this might be another dumb question) what would be the easiest way to bridge the HU RCAs to the OEM Bose amps/speakers? Is there an intermmediary adapter of sorts available to mate the two in a painless manner? There are 3 RCA preouts from the HU at 2V each (meant for F, R, and sub).

 

do what you want... but i have installed a number of different stereos in c6 bose and non bose cars as well dennis aka c5bearsfan has sold tons and tons of these adapters and no issues

Hell PM Dave Chalk (Chalky) or Brad (tobasco) on the forum they both have gmah24b adapters in there cars with zero issues and it gets loud

 

its simple the adapter will have added wires to the factory plug that are paired white, gray, green, violet i took a short RCA cable and cut it in 2 and spliced the rcs cable to the respective front left right and rear left right connections.
its the same connections that would have been powered by the speaker output bose equipped adapter. if you PM me with your contact info i can walk you through it.