my Bose bench test-setup.
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Team Owner
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 54,204
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From: S.W. Ohio. . . . . . NRA Life Member
my Bose bench test-setup.
My brother is a Cadillac Allante fanatic. His latest - a 1989 - has the Bose system similar to the C4's. He had 3 speakers not-working in this recent Allante.
He brought me all the bad enclosures. I needed a way to bench test the speaker/amplifier combos - and I needed a source of voltage and audio during the repairs. Here is what I came up with; a 12v power cube, and a cheap old transistor radio for the audio source:
I have seen 3 Allante amp&speakers, and another one from a 1991 Corvette ZR1. Of the four wires going to each, two were the same colors on all... Black for power negative, and orange for power positive (12 v).
The other two are audio feed wires, and with my test setup it doesn't matter what wire from the radio's jack goes to whichever Bose audio input wires.
I placed female spade terminals on all 4 test wires to make an easy connection. I'd like to someday find the mating plug to the Bose 4 connector shell.
to make the post short, I bench tested all of them . One of them had me fooled because it seemed to play just fine at first, but then started to squeal - pop - then finally went silent.
The 3 Allante and the one ZR1 had good speaker drivers, it was the amp that was failed in each.
Having a bench test-setup sure helped in the repair of those amp modules.
One note, be certain the DC power cube puts out no-higher voltage than 15.0 with no load. The Bose amplifier modules can't tolerate voltage much higher than that. The particular supply I used is a regulated version - always puts out a constant 12 v regardless of the load (within reason, of course).
Also, be certain to use a battery powered radio (not one that plugs into 120vac). This helps avoid grounding problems.
Hope this helps someone wanting to troubleshoot their factory Bose speaker systems.
He brought me all the bad enclosures. I needed a way to bench test the speaker/amplifier combos - and I needed a source of voltage and audio during the repairs. Here is what I came up with; a 12v power cube, and a cheap old transistor radio for the audio source:
I have seen 3 Allante amp&speakers, and another one from a 1991 Corvette ZR1. Of the four wires going to each, two were the same colors on all... Black for power negative, and orange for power positive (12 v).
The other two are audio feed wires, and with my test setup it doesn't matter what wire from the radio's jack goes to whichever Bose audio input wires.
I placed female spade terminals on all 4 test wires to make an easy connection. I'd like to someday find the mating plug to the Bose 4 connector shell.
to make the post short, I bench tested all of them . One of them had me fooled because it seemed to play just fine at first, but then started to squeal - pop - then finally went silent.
The 3 Allante and the one ZR1 had good speaker drivers, it was the amp that was failed in each.
Having a bench test-setup sure helped in the repair of those amp modules.
One note, be certain the DC power cube puts out no-higher voltage than 15.0 with no load. The Bose amplifier modules can't tolerate voltage much higher than that. The particular supply I used is a regulated version - always puts out a constant 12 v regardless of the load (within reason, of course).
Also, be certain to use a battery powered radio (not one that plugs into 120vac). This helps avoid grounding problems.
Hope this helps someone wanting to troubleshoot their factory Bose speaker systems.
Team Owner
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 24,337
Likes: 25
From: San Diego , CA Double Yellow DirtBags 1985..Z51..6-speed
I tried just hooking everything up out of the car, I forgot what I used for my 12v source, I think it was a DC adapter like the one you show there.
The headunit powered up but the damn thing just hissed and i couldn't get any sound out of the speakers. I sent 12v directly to the amps in lieu of a power relay.
No luck, so I installed em into the trashcan.
The headunit powered up but the damn thing just hissed and i couldn't get any sound out of the speakers. I sent 12v directly to the amps in lieu of a power relay.
No luck, so I installed em into the trashcan.
Team Owner
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 40,156
Likes: 45
From: San Pedro CA
Originally Posted by Mike Mercury
My brother is a Cadillac Allante fanatic. His latest - a 1989 - has the Bose system similar to the C4's. He had 3 speakers not-working in this recent Allante.
He brought me all the bad enclosures. I needed a way to bench test the speaker/amplifier combos - and I needed a source of voltage and audio during the repairs. Here is what I came up with; a 12v power cube, and a cheap old transistor radio for the audio source:
I have seen 3 Allante amp&speakers, and another one from a 1991 Corvette ZR1. Of the four wires going to each, two were the same colors on all... Black for power negative, and orange for power positive (12 v).
The other two are audio feed wires, and with my test setup it doesn't matter what wire from the radio's jack goes to whichever Bose audio input wires.
I placed female spade terminals on all 4 test wires to make an easy connection. I'd like to someday find the mating plug to the Bose 4 connector shell.
to make the post short, I bench tested all of them . One of them had me fooled because it seemed to play just fine at first, but then started to squeal - pop - then finally went silent.
The 3 Allante and the one ZR1 had good speaker drivers, it was the amp that was failed in each.
Having a bench test-setup sure helped in the repair of those amp modules.
One note, be certain the DC power cube puts out no-higher voltage than 15.0 with no load. The Bose amplifier modules can't tolerate voltage much higher than that. The particular supply I used is a regulated version - always puts out a constant 12 v regardless of the load (within reason, of course).
Also, be certain to use a battery powered radio (not one that plugs into 120vac). This helps avoid grounding problems.
Hope this helps someone wanting to troubleshoot their factory Bose speaker systems.
He brought me all the bad enclosures. I needed a way to bench test the speaker/amplifier combos - and I needed a source of voltage and audio during the repairs. Here is what I came up with; a 12v power cube, and a cheap old transistor radio for the audio source:
I have seen 3 Allante amp&speakers, and another one from a 1991 Corvette ZR1. Of the four wires going to each, two were the same colors on all... Black for power negative, and orange for power positive (12 v).
The other two are audio feed wires, and with my test setup it doesn't matter what wire from the radio's jack goes to whichever Bose audio input wires.
I placed female spade terminals on all 4 test wires to make an easy connection. I'd like to someday find the mating plug to the Bose 4 connector shell.
to make the post short, I bench tested all of them . One of them had me fooled because it seemed to play just fine at first, but then started to squeal - pop - then finally went silent.
The 3 Allante and the one ZR1 had good speaker drivers, it was the amp that was failed in each.
Having a bench test-setup sure helped in the repair of those amp modules.
One note, be certain the DC power cube puts out no-higher voltage than 15.0 with no load. The Bose amplifier modules can't tolerate voltage much higher than that. The particular supply I used is a regulated version - always puts out a constant 12 v regardless of the load (within reason, of course).
Also, be certain to use a battery powered radio (not one that plugs into 120vac). This helps avoid grounding problems.
Hope this helps someone wanting to troubleshoot their factory Bose speaker systems.
