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For all you Impala owners with the RDS Radios, I have one too! I had poor reception and sound until this weekend. I had PIONEER 4way 6.5 installed the front doors and 5 way 6x9 in the rear. The sound was better but it was still not getting any power from the factory amp and still my highs were horrible with not much bass. Then this weekend I went in my front doors and cut the wires leading to my factory tweeters located in the doors. I heard an immediate improvement in the sound. I even have better sounding bass @ 1-3 notches to the right of center. So after I noticed an improvement in the sound I had my amp installed to factory unit by tapping into the factory amp like clayton did. Everything sounded good until my amp blew both my subs( I have a very strong amp and the subs were'nt strong enough). But all in all I am pleased to have better sound. Next I'm going to move my radio to the trunk and install a new aftermrket unit and replace my blown subs.
If you have any question feel free to ask
I have a 2000 Impala with a factory AM\FM\Tape deck. I bought a factory CD/MP3 player that I was told would work in my car. I works fine, until you try to start the car. At that point, the car wont start and "LOC" comes up on the radio display. I was told the radio remember the VIN of its last host. So say the deal can reprogram this, some say they can't. HELP!!!!!!!
If you have the time to check it out yourself, you just need a screw driver to remove the instrument cluster front panel, then remove the radio to check that there are no exposed wires. If there is an exposed wire, wrap it in electric tape, and then use a cheap $1.99 plastice wire loom to cover it so it does not become scraped again. hope this helps..
Doing some internet searching lead me to a company that sells car repair manuals online I signed up for the 1 year 1 car deal. They keep an updated list of all the Tech Service Bulletins for my model. One that caught my eye was "Radio has too much Bass. Simply put GM has a radio recalibraton procedure that resets the tone levels to a more neutral level.Only a garage that has a Tech II programer can do this.I printed this TSB off and went to my local GM dealer. They loaded in the new calibration in about 5 min. for free, no questions asked. Even though the car is WAY out of warranty.
Now that the stereo tone is fixed. The stereo sounds much better now.
Hope this helps someone.
I'm writing this as kind of a how to for everyone has been asking about this.
I found online a BHA2003 connector "google it", you need 2 of these, this plugs directly into the factory harnnes, the reason you need 2 is because you have to rob pins from one to have enough wires to complete the job. this make for a nice clean look too.
Here is what I did.
Remove the retainer clips from the back of the plugs. take a small paper clip or screwdriver and push it into the connector from the front of the plug, this releases a metal tang that holds each pin in. This is not easy to do and takes time to figure out the technique. Do not pull too hard on the wire or you will damage the connector pin.
Strip both connectors bare of pins take all of the wires and plug them back in one of the connectors in the following order .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
Pins coming from the head unit, used as line level signals wired to 4 RCA plugs
for the amplifier input signals.
Channel 1 "right front" RCA plug.
A10 right front + grey wire
A9 right front - grey black wire
Channel 2 "left front" RCA plug.
B10 left front + white
B9 left front - white/black
Channel 3 "right rear" RCA plug
A12 right rear + purple
A11 right rear - purple/black
Channel 4 "left rear"
B12 left rear + green
B11 left rear green/black
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----
Connections coming from the amp that feed to the car speakers.
Channel 1 "right front speaker"
A2 right front + grey
A1 right front - grey/black
Channel 2 "left front speaker"
B2 left front + white
B1 left front - white/black
Channel 3 "right rear speaker"
A4 right rear + purple
A3 right rear - purple black
Channel 4 "left rear speaker"
B4 left rear + green
B3 left rear - green/black
The second plug contains an orange and a black wire.
The orange wire is 12 volt always live. Fused at 15 amps you can use it to power the new amp. I would suggest running a larger pair from the battery because most amps draw a lot more more than 15 amps.
the black wire is ground. I couldn't find a mating connector for this one so I just tapped in the sides and soldered wires on.
A5 blue wire use as remote turn on lead connect to amplifier.
A6 "amplifier present" line orange white.
connect this to the battery + through a 10k ohm resistor.
A word about the amp present line.
This will force the radio to output a "line level signal" and disable the "loudness" function that boosts the bass at low levels and chokes it back as you turn up the volume. If you do not force the radio (meaning leave disconnected) into this mode and feed the speaker level signals into the RCA lines you WILL damage your amp. Reserve that mode for the guys bypassing their amps altogether or use line level converters to get your signal down to your RCA levels.
If you want to bypass the factory amp just and run off the head unit, just connect the like colors together.
Also of interest. the factory radio I have outputs a slightly lower signal to the left channels. I' have to move the balance to the left 2 clicks to get it even. I have verified this with an ocilliscope and a test tone cd. I'm guessing that this was programed into the radio by the factory for this specfic car. The dealer told me that the same radio is used in many different models of cars and each one is custom tailored for the vehicle. When they reset the tone on my radio I saw on the Tech II the screen where they can load setups for different makes and models.
I saw in earlier posts that people are saying the factory amp isn't much better that the head unit by itself and believe it.
Try this out and you will be amazed at the results. Even with the factory speakers.
I would like to do this also.
Thanks Jim
Has anyone else had this problem/problems with the radio?? Please help.
Since this radio has Bose amplifier, the Head Unit just send out low level audio signals to the Bose unit. This unit, in turns, amplifies the sound. Since you could hear noise in all modes with radio muted, the cause of this problem could be:
1. The low level audio from the head unit is contaminated with vehicle noise due to cable bundling (audio + data bus,...). Shielding of audio cable from other noisy cable should help here.
2. Head Unit itself generates noise that coupled onto the audio line (internal)
3. The Bose module makes this unwanted noise or fails to cancel out vehicle noise coupling to the audio cable. To cancel out the noise, each input must be truely differential input (two wire, for example Left Front + and Left Front -) inside the Preamp block.
I suspect you have to wait until GM radio engineer find the root cause of this problem before dealer can fix it
On the Turn Signal connected to the speaker: it is likely the radio that produces the turn signal sound and sends it to the speaker. Whenever you activate the turn signal, a message is sent on the vehicle bus to the radio and tell it to make the sound. The volume should be calibratable if they chose to do so: but who know?
JT
If the radio works in CD, CA modes all the time without problem then you are probably right.
One way to check if you have antenna problem: tune to a AM station at least 100 miles away and listen to it during daytime. If you can hear it, then your antenna connection is OK. AM is very picky about good antenna connection. With FM, you could receive local stations (within 5- 10 miles ) even if the antenna connection is bad. You can try to listen to FM stations about 40 miles away. If not possible, then the antenna connection is bad.
Your vehicle AM/FM antenna is on the rear glass (wire imbedded in glass): near the rear defroster. There is connection between this wire pattern and an antenna module near it (in the trunk likely). Another connection is between the antenna module and the antenna coax cable that goes to the radio. That connection could be loose. The final connection is between the coax cable and the radio itself. Any of these connection could be bad (intermitten in and out).
Good luck
jt
there must be away to use different wheels.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance,
bud
ps i love my 2006 impala ss. highly recommend it.
I am interested in your tire problem as well but think I will just buy chains.
I own a 2000 Impala and jut recently stumbled onto your post for the amplifier by-pass procedure which I am going to try soon. Before I do, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions. Does disconnecting the power to the amp effect any other operation of the car since the entire system seems to be tied to the radio. And, after the by-pass is complete and the radio is on, can the treble, bass, fade and other sound adjustments still be made from the radio knob?
Thank you.
jberd
Tampa
I have not yet done the bypass either, but am thinking fo replacing the entire amp. Don't know how possible that is.
However, to your questions, if you disconnect your amp you will lose anything that would be coming through your speakers. So, the chimes that you hear when you get a low tire, or when it's time for an oil change, etc, will not be played. However, you will still see those messages in the yellow display in your dash.
As to your second question, from hat I've read, there will be no issues with using your treble, bass, fader, etc after the bypass.
Cheers,
Matt
But what I haven't really read here is why can't the amp just be taken out completely and replaced by a new aftermarket amp? And if done, what is the impact on the system?
Any help would be appreciated.
Matt
jt
Thanks.
Thanks.
This head unit is kind of unique: it has its own internal amplifier and is capable of outputing decent audio power to the speakers. The whole reason for it was GM wanted to use the same head unit for vehicle with or without external amp.
There has been a lot of complaints from old Impalla owners about their radios sounded too boomy. It turned out that the cheap external Panasonic Amp has been causing this problem. And adding insult to injury, this external amp does not provide any perceivable advantage in power output in comparison with the built-in one. Normally we all assume that when you have an external amp, and if you do not like it, you have to buy an aftermarket replacement. Otherwise, the head unit could not drive the speakers directly (typically in most cases). That was the reason for bypassing the amp and use the radio to drive speakers directly.
jt
3 Fixes for this. The all involve the Dealer or someone with a GM Tech2 programmer.
1. Serial interface is not transmitting VIN correctly. Dealer Replace.
2. Current Radio is damaged, will not read or receive VIN to unlock radio. Replace Radio at dealer.
3. Have Dealer connect programmer and "build" cars computer again, after reading and saving current settings. Then have them "reset" the radio to the new build.
Someone had mentioned a way of disabling the class2 serial reading to allow universal unlocking of the radio. Search this and the other Impala newsgroups to find which pins need to be shorted to ground to accomplish this.
I took it to the dealer this past week for both problems, they said they fixed both, or rather, they didn't say they didn't fix either. But when I picked it up the hiss was still there, so far the FM issue seems fixed but it was intermittent so its hard to tell. I didn't realize the hiss wasn't fixed till I left and have yet to confront them about it.
I think in the case of your radio, they probably either replaced radio or just unplugged the fuse feeding the radio. In the case of latter, they basically did the radio "reset".
The hissing noise is a design problem. Unless they replaced offending component (radio or Bose Amp or speakers) with the newly designed part, the problem will always be there. Unless it is simple software update or hardware rework, I doubt that they have a solution soon.
jt
Good Luck
Some older Chevy radio design, you have to enter 3 digit Theft code to secure radio. If battery is ever disconnected from radio (like someone steal radio from you and put in his car), then he needs a right theft code to unlock it.
jt