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CD player trouble

257 views 8 replies 0 participants last post by  SS'incognito 
G
#1 ·
Hey,

Just installed a new Alpine 7893 in my friends 92 Caprice Classic. Radio works fine but when you change to CD player, the power antenna goes down and no sound comes out of the speakers, but the CD Player stays on and displays that the CD is playing. When you switch back to radio, power antenna comes back up and radio plays fine. Double-checked all the wires wondering and the check out fine. Wondering if there is something tiny I missed. It does have the "wonderful" BOSE system with all the wiring running back to the amp in the trunk. Do I just need to re-wire the whole system?
 
G
#3 ·
Well if all plays fine when in radio mode....use the blue/white amp turn on from the Alpine radio to turn on the amp and actuate the ant...the ant will stay up when in CD and in tuner mode...but it will go down when the radio is turned off. Now as for the Bose system I am surprised that you got everthing to sound alright with out a floating ground to common ground adapter. Every GM Bose system I have worked on I have had to use an adapter from Soundgate or a Scosche FAI-3. I will admit I haven't done a Caprice Bose but on Camaro Bose and early Cadillac Bose the amps are mounted to each speaker seperatly are wired common ground. Good luck in whatever you do...and no your deck isn't faulty.
 
G
#4 ·
What we ended up doing was running new lines for the fronts once they came into the car. For the rears we ended up elimanting the BOSE amp and figured out which 4 wires outta the whole cluster were for the L/R Rear. Did a little snip here, a little splice there and *SNAP* all done. Driver side front was a major pain, the speaker wire were gray and tan, well there was 3 of each running into the door. Not Fun. I dont think his rear speakers were not meant to be used like the are now, because they sound like crap.
 
G
#5 ·
CincyR/T,

Why would the position of the power antenna determine if the CD player output a signal to the speakers unless the signal sent to send the antenna up is also used as a remote for the Bose amps :confused: .

I installed a head unit in a 90 Maxima and it wasn't hooked up that way, but it also didn't have a power antenna.

Any input to further my knowledge would be great. ;)

Cory
 
G
#6 ·
What I think is, when the orig. radio was on the power ant. was of course up but when we installed the new CD player using the original Bose system wiring, the radio part work fine to some degree...you could fade but not balance. When you went to the CD the ant. went down and nothing came out. I think somehow the ant. and the Bose amp might have shared the same power line. When we re-wired everything straight to all the speakers, removing the amp completely, balance/fade works perfect, as it should, and the power ant. went down when the CD player was being used. I dont know if that I something new in the new Alpine decks (Hope so, that'd prevent having to install an ant. switch so the ant. didnt go up when using CD player).
 
G
#8 ·
Heres the thing...in alot of cars the power ant wire and the amp turn on wire are at a common point at the wiring harness for the radio. Alot of radios have a blue wire (to actuate the power ant only when the radio is on ) and a blue/white (amp turn on...outputs 12volts at all times...whether cd or radio is selected...and turns off amps when radio is turned off) Many a time the power ant lead from the head unit (blue) is used to turn the factory amps on in a car with factory amps. Now when the radio is on (in am/fm mode) the amps will be on and the power ant will be up. When the cd portion is selected the ant will go down but the amp will turn off also. So you will see the cd player playing the disc but not hear a thing. A fix for this is to use the amp turn on for both the power ant and the amp turn on( drawback being the ant will be up in cd mode) or you can run a new wire to your power ant and wire it up indepently of your factory amp. Hope this clears things up a bit.
 
G
#9 ·
I have that same head unit (Alpine 7893) in both my cars, but only the Impala has a power antenna. The antenna stays down when playing the cd in the head unit, the disc changer and XM radio. As it should, the only time the antenna extends is when FM or AM radio is playing (very rare). My previous Impala head unit (Alpine CDA-D853), installed two years ago, would also keep the antenna down when playing the cd in the head unit and disc changer. So Alpine head units have been capable of retracting the antenna when unnecessary for at least a couple years. Special thanks go out to HACK for posting that four subs fit on the baffle board.
 
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