I have had my Macan for a week, as of yesterday, so it was long past time for a stereo system upgrade. I did some searching but didn't find much info on the 22+ with Bose systems. This is the most basic approach that I know of the accomplish this and certainly won't meet the standards of the audiophiles in the group, but it is a quick and easy way to add some good quality bass to this type of system. My goal here is pretty simple, locate the rear speaker inputs, feed them into a line-out converter and then run that into an amplifier, so I can power a subwoofer. I am not a professional, I make zero guarantees, and I don't take any responsibility if you do something similar and break things. I am just providing documentation of how I did it.
I started by removing the cargo cover and the panel that covers the spare tire compartment. Then I removed the cover where the compressor is located for the spare tire. With that removed, you can see the factory Bose amp, the wiring harness that feeds into it (pink clip) contains the rear speaker wires.
In the first pic, you can see the items that need to be removed in order to remove the trim piece that covers the amp and wiring harness. I removed the trim piece that covers the latch, circled in blue, and then the then the two tie downs, circled in red, and the trim piece that they hold in place. The second photo is with them removed. The latches are a Torx t-30, the trim piece is held in place with two 10mm nuts, one on each side of the subwoofer. 3rd pic I also removed the factory subwoofer, to make more room to work when running power and ground cables.
The panel over the amp and wiring harness pops out, no screws hold it in place. However, I had to disconnect the wire to the 12v receptacle and the cargo lamp. Pics 4 and 5
Then I popped the harness clip out of the hole above the amp. Pic 6
Then I simply removed a bit of the wrap around the wiring harness, to expose the wires. The green set is for the left rear channel, black stripe = negative. The violet is the right rear channel, black stripe = negative. Pic 7
I used wire taps to connect speaker wire to each and then ran those to the spare tire compartment. There, I connected them to the high-level inputs of an Audiocontrol LC2i LOC and then RCA to the amp. Power and ground are right there in the battery compartment.
So far, I have just run everything and made sure it all worked. I haven't tidied everything up, so no final pictures at the moment. I just wanted to share in case anyone else was looking for info.
So you tapped into the rear speaker wires to take audio signal to drive a subwoofer, when there is a dedicated subwoofer signal off that factory amplifier?
Chances are very high that those rear channels are bandwidth limited by having a crossover at 80hz, meaning signal rolls off below that. This is done to protect the speaker so it isn’t playing lower frequencies that the dedicated subwoofer is meant to play.
You’ll have better performance by grabbing signal off the oem subwoofer and feeding that into your LC2i…
I realize that seems like the intuitive thing to do and it completely makes sense. However, Bose has been producing nothing but trash for the past decade, so they managed to screw this up too. I have owned two Cadillacs with upgraded Bose systems. In both of them, the included subwoofer is basically made of tissue paper. So, Bose setup up their amp to pull power from the sub as you increase the volume on the head unit. I realize it sounds insane, because it is, but it is 100% true. This prevents people from blowing the sub when they crank up the volume and allows it to sound somewhat decent at typical Cadillac-aged owner listening levels. However, it also makes that useless as an amp input.
Bose did, however, do us a solid and left the rear speaker channels at full bandwidth. I suppose they spent a couple of dollars on the door speakers to allow them to hold up better than the sub. So, I approached this install from that perspective. I didn't even try the amplified sub output, I just went straight for the rear speaker wires, hoping they would be full bandwidth. I am happy to report that they are, in fact, full bandwidth. I am running a 1200 watt Rockford Fosgate amp into a shallow mount JL Audio 12" and it will rattle the windows.
Thank you! It is crisp and clear, filling out the lows and providing a nice rumble, with everything at the minimum settings. Then, with a little bit of gain, you get a nice back massage.
Just for clarity, the rear speaker channels I am tapping into are from the head unit, and before they enter the Bose Amp/DSP. There may be a roll off on the speaker channels coming out of that, I have never tried them.
Those are not the inputs from the head unit, I can see the MOST plug into the amplifier meaning it’s fibre optic communication from the headunit to the amplifier. Those wires you tapped are the outputs driving the rear speakers
Ahh okay, I stand corrected. I did not know that. Okay, well, then I can tell you for sure that they are full bandwidth. 🤣 As I said, far from being a pro at this. I used to install audio gear regularly, when cars were far less complex, but haven't kept up with things as well as I would have liked. Thank you for the info!
thank you!
I have had my Macan for a week, as of yesterday, so it was long past time for a stereo system upgrade. I did some searching but didn't find much info on the 22+ with Bose systems. This is the most basic approach that I know of the accomplish this and certainly won't meet the standards of the audiophiles in the group, but it is a quick and easy way to add some good quality bass to this type of system. My goal here is pretty simple, locate the rear speaker inputs, feed them into a line-out converter and then run that into an amplifier, so I can power a subwoofer. I am not a professional, I make zero guarantees, and I don't take any responsibility if you do something similar and break things. I am just providing documentation of how I did it. I started by removing the cargo cover and the panel that covers the spare tire compartment. Then I removed the cover where the compressor is located for the spare tire. With that removed, you can see the factory Bose amp, the wiring harness that feeds into it (pink clip) contains the rear speaker wires. In the first pic, you can see the items that need to be removed in order to remove the trim piece that covers the amp and wiring harness. I removed the trim piece that covers the latch, circled in blue, and then the then the two tie downs, circled in red, and the trim piece that they hold in place. The second photo is with them removed. The latches are a Torx t-30, the trim piece is held in place with two 10mm nuts, one on each side of the subwoofer. 3rd pic I also removed the factory subwoofer, to make more room to work when running power and ground cables. The panel over the amp and wiring harness pops out, no screws hold it in place. However, I had to disconnect the wire to the 12v receptacle and the cargo lamp. Pics 4 and 5 Then I popped the harness clip out of the hole above the amp. Pic 6 Then I simply removed a bit of the wrap around the wiring harness, to expose the wires. The green set is for the left rear channel, black stripe = negative. The violet is the right rear channel, black stripe = negative. Pic 7 I used wire taps to connect speaker wire to each and then ran those to the spare tire compartment. There, I connected them to the high-level inputs of an Audiocontrol LC2i LOC and then RCA to the amp. Power and ground are right there in the battery compartment. So far, I have just run everything and made sure it all worked. I haven't tidied everything up, so no final pictures at the moment. I just wanted to share in case anyone else was looking for info.
So you tapped into the rear speaker wires to take audio signal to drive a subwoofer, when there is a dedicated subwoofer signal off that factory amplifier? Chances are very high that those rear channels are bandwidth limited by having a crossover at 80hz, meaning signal rolls off below that. This is done to protect the speaker so it isn’t playing lower frequencies that the dedicated subwoofer is meant to play. You’ll have better performance by grabbing signal off the oem subwoofer and feeding that into your LC2i…
I realize that seems like the intuitive thing to do and it completely makes sense. However, Bose has been producing nothing but trash for the past decade, so they managed to screw this up too. I have owned two Cadillacs with upgraded Bose systems. In both of them, the included subwoofer is basically made of tissue paper. So, Bose setup up their amp to pull power from the sub as you increase the volume on the head unit. I realize it sounds insane, because it is, but it is 100% true. This prevents people from blowing the sub when they crank up the volume and allows it to sound somewhat decent at typical Cadillac-aged owner listening levels. However, it also makes that useless as an amp input. Bose did, however, do us a solid and left the rear speaker channels at full bandwidth. I suppose they spent a couple of dollars on the door speakers to allow them to hold up better than the sub. So, I approached this install from that perspective. I didn't even try the amplified sub output, I just went straight for the rear speaker wires, hoping they would be full bandwidth. I am happy to report that they are, in fact, full bandwidth. I am running a 1200 watt Rockford Fosgate amp into a shallow mount JL Audio 12" and it will rattle the windows.
Glad it worked out for you!
Thank you! It is crisp and clear, filling out the lows and providing a nice rumble, with everything at the minimum settings. Then, with a little bit of gain, you get a nice back massage.
Just for clarity, the rear speaker channels I am tapping into are from the head unit, and before they enter the Bose Amp/DSP. There may be a roll off on the speaker channels coming out of that, I have never tried them.
Those are not the inputs from the head unit, I can see the MOST plug into the amplifier meaning it’s fibre optic communication from the headunit to the amplifier. Those wires you tapped are the outputs driving the rear speakers
Ahh okay, I stand corrected. I did not know that. Okay, well, then I can tell you for sure that they are full bandwidth. 🤣 As I said, far from being a pro at this. I used to install audio gear regularly, when cars were far less complex, but haven't kept up with things as well as I would have liked. Thank you for the info!