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2014-2018* Mazda 6 (and 2014-2016 Mazda 3) w/BOSE Full System Breakdown/Analysis

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#1 · (Edited)
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2014-2018* BOSE Full System Breakdown/Analysis​

* This information definitely applies to the 2014-2016 models, I'm fairly certain this information applies to the 2017 model, and am taking an educated guess that this info applies to the 2018 model.


Background:

This is a formal documentation of my findings while investigating the BOSE system on my own 2016 Touring 6 out of frustration over the lack of information online that I could be certain applied to the 2016 model.

I simply want to replace the entirety of the audio system in my car while maintaining the factory head unit since I couldn't find any of the ones specifically made for this car that I was a big fan of, and using any of the generic aftermarket units would mean losing tons of functionality (maintenance status, lock preferences, commander knob, etc.). Supposedly, the 3rd gen 6s with the BOSE system supply straight, line-level outputs from their head unit to the BOSE amp that you can simply tap into directly for the connections to your aftermarket amp; however, after countless days of searching, all I could manage to find were similar anecdotal statements of this fact and poorly detailed diagrams with no clear indication of what vehicle they were in reference to. I was able to find some information that was a bit more definitive, but unfortunately it was for the CX-5, and I didn't want to just assume it would be the same in my 2016 6. Even asking others on this forum for more concrete info on where exactly I could tap this signal from lead to dead ends.

On and off I considered looking into the system myself, but with no real starting point, I didn't want to dedicate too much time to something that could prove to be fruitless and that initially I wasn't completely committed to yet. Luckily, I eventually struck gold by finding one single thread on this very forum by someone else that also happened to have a 2016 6 with the BOSE upgrade who shared some details about how he added a sub to his car while utilizing the "original signal" from the head unit. Annoyingly, he was pretty vague with his descriptions, but there was just enough substance to give me a starting point for my own investigation.

I know some people have tapped into the rear speakers that are supposedly full-range (though possibly not quite) and used a hi-low level converter to add an aftermarket amp, but I too would prefer to use the original signal if it truly is as accessible as others have made it sound. So without further ado, the following is a recount of what I ended up doing and what I ended up figuring out.

This post has a companion video on YouTube. The video is more focused on the process and explanations of my investigation, while this post is more focused on the results and details.


Video:



If you only want to see part of the video there are time stamps in the description if you head over to the actual YouTube site. The video is fairly long at about 35 minutes, but was made so that you don't have to just take my word on how the system is setup and can get a better sense of the process required to determine my findings if you need/want to.


Documentation:

Other than the singular post I mentioned, my only reference point was the 2014 Mazda 6 Workshop manual that you can find pretty easily with Google. I won't be posting a link to it, but will be using various images from select sections of the Electrical Diagrams segment. As far as I know, there doesn't exist a newer workshop manual past the 2014 version (at least not that is publicly available), which initially was a large part of my troubles. You can find places to buy the manual that list it as 2014-2016 or 2014-2017, etc, but it's just the 2014 version and has no updates whatsoever. For a large portion of the car this is a non-issue as most of it has remained the same over the years, but there have been some significant changes from 2014 till now that obviously are not covered in this dated document and therefore are a major frustration point. The headlights received extra chrome trim in the 2017 model, the 2018 model had an entire front and rear face lift, and most importantly for this topic, the head unit changed starting with the 2016 model. Because of this, there are portions of the electrical diagrams in this workshop manual that are no longer correct; however, after having inspected my 2016 myself, I can safely say that enough of it still applies (primarily in terms of the connections going to and from the BOSE amp) that every connection you need to hook an aftermarket amp into the BOSE systems "original signal" is still accurately portrayed for the 2016 (and most likely the 2017/2018) model(s).


Starting Point:

There is a fair amount of raw data to cover here, so I will be very brief in my explanations of why I did something or how a result proves the conclusions I made. Again, if you want a bit more detail into my process, watch the above video. If you are confused or want more info about a particular part, just quote me (though please snip this huge post out lol).

OK, so here we go. This is the thread I referred to earlier that got me started: https://forum.mazda6club.com/3rd-gen/386602-2016-headunit-location.html

The gist of it is that the OP discovered/confirmed that in the 2016+ models the BOSE amp is under the passenger seat and that in one form or another the original signal from the head unit does exist at that point. You'll need to remove two 10mm bolts with a wrench to get to it.

NOTE: If you have a 2016+ you have a TAU (tuner amplifier unit) behind and to the side of the glovebox that acts as a middle man between the head unit and BOSE amp by handling various things like input selection. If you have a 2014/2015 your BOSE Amp is mounted sideways behind the glovebox in the same spot that the TAU unit is located in the newer models and it connects directly to the TomTom head unit. Because of this, the 2014 workshop manual diagrams show the various connectors related to the amp connecting directly to the head unit, which is no longer true from the 2016 forward. Like I said before though, the connections to and from the BOSE amp are still the same so you just need to be aware that in the newer models they first go to the TAU behind the glovebox before going to the head unit. I personally did not check what the connections between the TAU and newer head unit look like since I'm fine taping the lines at the BOSE amp location.

So back to the post... Unfortunately, after he figured out how he wanted to hook up his subwoofer he was very vague with explaining how he did it. Pretty much he just mentioned which of the three cables at the BOSE amp he tapped into and said he used the grey and blue wires present in that cable. No mention at all of exactly what signal was carried over those two wires. Was it a stereo signal before its split into the supposed 4 channels? Was it one of the 4 channels? Which wire was the positive/signal wire and which wire was the negative/reference?

Here are the cable/wires he was talking about and their corresponding section of the workshop manual that shows what they connect to:



As you can see, the cable he referred to has 10 wires total. First, lets start with the easiest part. If you look at the nearby section of the BOSE diagrams labeled 0920-5f, you'll see that the brown and black/red wires on cable 0920-515A (pins 1G and 1H) go to the microphone used for the BOSE AudioPilot feature:



With those taken care of, that leaves 8 unidentified wires on that cable, including the two mentioned in the other post. 0920-5d shows these 8 wires grouped together, clearly signifying that they are related in someway, and in addition they are all shielded, as audio cables tend to be. Although, they are completely unlabeled, which nearly drove me insane (how is this information supposed to be useful to Mazda service mechanics if its this mystified?) and required a bit of intuition to figure out. Given that the user in that other post ended up using two of these wires and that he would at least have had to tap into one channel of audio to connect a sub, I surmised this after thinking about it for a bit: With 2 wires per channel, and a total of 8 unknown wires... 8/2 = 4 potential channels. Since I had heard that the head unit does output 4-channel, low-level signals and that for only adding a sub-woofer tapping into just one channel would largely be adequate, I thought that this quite reasonably could be the case. So, I set out to my own car to test out this theory.


Sweet 4-Channel Glory

I started by pulling 0920-515A and manually connecting only the aforementioned blue and grey wires like so:



Then, I turned on the radio while making sure that Centerpoint and AudioPilot were off, and the Fade, Balance, Treble, and Bass controls were are at their neutral positions. And.... eureka! There was only audio coming from the rear right of the car (other than low bass still coming through the front door speakers since they act as woofers/sub-woofers in this car). I quickly repeated the test for the remaining 3 pairs of wires to see if the rest of my theory was correct, and indeed it was. Each time audio was clearly limited to one corner of the car. Here are the groupings:

Front Left Channel - Black and White
Front Right Channel - Red and Green
Rear Left Channel - Pink and Light Green
Rear Right Channel - Grey and Blue

This is great, but still leaves the question of exactly whats coming over each wire in each of those pairs. So, I brought my scope out to my car to find out. I first generated a simple asymmetrical test waveform in Audacity so it would be easy to tell if anything was being read in reverse on the scope, then played it over the system while monitoring one of the audio channels arbitrarily. I believe I started with the front left and had the black wire connected to channel 1 of my scope, while the white wire was connected to channel 2 of my scope. Here are the results:


Left to Right: (1) Source test signal in Audacity snippet. (2) Channel 1 of scope connected to black wire on 0920-515A. (3) Channel 2 of scope connected to white wire on 0920-515A.

These results show that the head unit uses differential signaling, as the signal on the white wire is the exact inverse of the signal on the black wire. The BOSE amp takes the difference of these signals to get the original signal with twice the voltage and any noise common to both lines subtracted out entirely. Again, I'm keeping explanations very short and summarized because while I'd love to relive my university courses (/s), this is already a painfully long post. I will continue hyperlinking relevant pages that give more detailed explanations. Anyway, this means that if you're going to use an amp that accepts differential signals you'll get to make use of the technique's excellent noise rejection, and if not, it isn't too difficult to convert this to a traditional single-ended signal. You can get an idea of how this works from the following scope shot in which I manually subtracted channel 2 from channel 1 (it looks really rough because the resolution of the math functions on this budget scope is poor):



This means that the black wire is the non-inverted signal of the front left channel, while the white wire is the inverted signal of the front left channel. Checking the other channel pairs revealed that this arrangement was consistent for all of them so that all of the non-inverted signals are along the top of the cable and all of the inverted signals are along the bottom of the cable. Nice.

Here is a summary of what we've learned so far:




But Are They Good Signals?:

We've confirmed that direct access to the head unit's 4-channel, differential audio is available on this car and that you can hook into it without the need of a hi-lo level converter, which by itself is pretty rad. But how usable even are these signals? Well that is what I set to find out next.

First, I wanted to make sure there were no issues in terms of level-balance and time-alignment, and that the left and right channels were truly separate with no weird mixing or other funny business going on. So I fired up audacity again and made a stereo version of the test signal I showed previously, utilizing a square wave so that the left channel of the stereo signal could easily be distinguished from the right. Then, I played it through the head unit while utilizing all 4 channels on my scope to monitor the non-inverted signals of the front left, front right, rear left, and rear right channels simultaneously. Here is what that looked like:


Left to Right: (1) Source test stereo signal in Audacity snippet. (2) FL Channel on scope channel 1, FR Channel on scope channel 2, RL channel on scope channel 3, and RR channel on scope channel 4

The on-screen cursors highlight that all four channels are in perfect alignment in terms of phase so you don't need to worry about adding any delays via a processor for your aftermarket amp. Additionally, all four channels are shown to be balanced in terms of amplitude, particularly by the peak-to-peak measurements at the bottom of the shot, so no volume differences need to be made per channel. The reason the right channels (teal and blue) are measured to be a bit higher in potential than the left channels and are slightly different from each other is due to the overshoot oscillations that you can see occur every time the wave switches from high to low and vice versa, known as "ringing". This distortion is primarily because of what is known as Gibbs effect and is an entirely normal phenomenon that in part occurs when performing digital-to-analog conversion, and doesn't at all indicate an issue with the BOSE head unit. Since the oscillations spike above intended height of the square wave (hence "overshoot") the peak-to-peak voltage is read to be higher than the sine wave equivalents. While performing this test I used the vertical cursors to measure a rough fit of the square waves without the fluctuations and confirmed that they had the same amplitude as the left channel sine waves; except.... I somehow failed and moved them before taking the above screenshot. So this one thing you'll have to take my word on <img src="http://forum.mazda6club.com/images/Mazda6Club_2014/smilies/tango_face_grin.png" border="0" alt="" title="Big Grin" class="inlineimg" /> . Even so, you can tell at a glance that they're roughly the same and can compare the pixel height of the waves in the screenshot in a photo editor if you really want.

The next big check was to see if the BOSE head unit performs any kind of equalization (hopefully not) or if it all occurs at the BOSE amp (hopefully so). I accomplished this using white noise, since it, if reproduced properly, should have a flat frequency response curve. The video goes into this in more detail, but here's the short version: With the help of Audacity, Spek, MATLAB, and the Fourier transform I generated uniform white noise, played it through the headunit from my laptop and then analyzed the output along the headunit's 4-channels. The finite memory of my scope means that I was only able to capture samples that were 24 seconds in length while using all 4 channels, so I compared the results to an input of the same length. So, here is the input I used:


Left to Right: (1) Spectrogram of input uniform white noise stereo signal. (2) Input uniform white noise time signal and its single-sided Fourier transform, left-channel (the right is the same)

The nearly uniform appearance of the white noise spectrogram is due to the same property of white noise that gives it a flat frequency curve: an even distribution of signal power across the frequency spectrum. The snow like effect in the spectrogram is another view of the slight hills and valleys you can see in the frequency curve of the signal in the MATLAB plot. At first you may wonder what good this signal is if it already doesn't have a perfectly flat frequency curve before its even been played through anything that has a chance of distorting it. But if you stop for a moment and look at the Y-axis scale of the MATLAB plot you will see that it is quite small, and so those minor imperfections aren't nearly as significant as they seem at first. Put simply, this is completely normal for white noise that is this short (white noise's frequency curve asymptotically approaches a perfectly flat appearance as more samples, and therefore a longer duration, are/is used in it's generation). So, this input reference point should be considered to have a flat curve within the scope of these tests.

With that out of the way, here are the output results:


Left to Right: (1) Spectrogram of the white-noise headunit output FL and FR combined into a stereo signal. (2) same as 1, but for the RL and RR channels


Left to Right: (1) FL white noise output. (2) FR white noise output. (3) RL white noise output. (4) RR white noise output.

First off, no two generations/reproductions of white noise will look exactly the same. Second, the minor color differences between the spectrograms are simply because I did not record these tests at quite the same exact volume. Unfortunately, it takes over an hour to dump this short data from my scope to a flash drive so I really did not have time to redo these once I realized this. Regardless, its the overall pattern of the output spectrogram and slope of the output frequency curve that are important here. Finally, yes there is a slight droop in the output frequency curves at the very top of the shown frequency range, but if you look closely at the spectrograms where it's most noticeable, 90% of the droop occurs above 20kHz, which is well outside the upper limit of audible frequencies for most people. Additionally, from further experimentation I believe this to be due to limitations of the laptop I used and not of the BOSE headunit. It is also worth noting that because of the memory limitations of my scope I couldn't record the output from all the channels at the same time (since there are 8 wires to monitor and I only have 4 channels), so the samples captured for each channel are not exactly the same, which resulted in further variation between the appearance of the above channel plots. But again, these variations are expected and are of no concern.

Aside from those minor points of note, these are solid results. If there was any deliberate equalization going on it would be very obvious, so yes, again the minor peaks and valleys in the frequency response of the output are not of any concern and the output signals are effectively flat.

If the tiny part of the slight droop that occurs just below 20Hz turns out to not be due to my laptop and is caused by the BOSE head unit and it bothers you, this is easily corrected by a correspondingly slight positive slope in equalization at the location the droop starts in order to cancel it out. Even a very basic processor would be capable of accomplishing this.

I did find one post on a forum for the CX-5 that suggested the headunit may have a bass roll-off curve at the low end of the spectrum based on how their system sounded to them. It would make sense since most stock speakers can't handle loud, lower frequencies without damage, though one would hope that this would occur at the BOSE amp and not the head unit. Well, while I can't speak for the CX-5 and I cannot be certain about 6s other than the 2016, I can say for sure that this is not the case for the 2016 6, as shown in the below frequency spectrum zoom in:


Base range close-up of the uniform white-noise output for the front left channel

The result is the same for the other 3 channels. I've also seen speculation that as the volume of the system is raised, the lower frequencies increase dis-proportionally to the the middle and higher frequencies. This is another realistic possibility, but again if it does occur it seems to happen within the BOSE amp and not the head unit. I say this because the white noise output results you see above were all performed while the head unit was around a volume level of 40 which is fairly high, certainly at the point where I'd expect this adjustment to take effect, and as you can clearly see there is no droop in the base frequencies whatsoever.

As a double check, and in part for fun, I repeated this test with a random song from my library and the following are comparisons of the input and output. I arbitrarily chose to show the rear left and right here because the results were the same as the front:


Left to Right: (1) Input 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Stereo. (2) Output 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Rear Stereo


Left to Right: (1) Input 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Left. (2) Output 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Rear Left. (3) Input 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Right. (4) Output 24 segment of Nirvana - In Bloom Rear Right

I synchronized the output with the original input file and made slight adjustments to the volumes of each to try to match them as close as possible (to which I got fairly close, but it's not perfect). They aren't exactly the same, but the only major discrepancy is the slight volume difference at the top end of the shown frequency spectrum, a detail that I already touched on with the white noise. Again, this is most likely more related to the equipment I used rather than issues with the head unit. Otherwise, a large majority of the spectrograms and frequency curves are nearly identical.

To wrap this section up, the following are examples of the white noise and the Nirvana song being observed via the head unit/TAU outputs:


Left to Right: (1) FL Non-Inverted & Inverted Signals, and FR Non-Inverted & Inverted signals while playing white noise. (2) RL Non-Inverted & Inverted Signals, and RR Non-Inverted & Inverted signals while playing In Bloom.


Finally, for the heck of it, here is the same 24 second segment of In Bloom dumped from my scope and formatted into a WAV file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RFvEMxT4f-9g3SpUFO44nsZhP8KE_dn4/view?usp=sharing.


There's more?:

At this point we've seen everything we need to for hooking up an aftermarket amp to this system in the best way possible, but there are still a few unknowns about the connections to the stock BOSE amp that I figured I'd look into while I was at it.

I've already covered everything on connector 0920-515A, so now lets take a look at cable 0920-515B



The following pins are straightforward connections to speakers (that for once are nicely labeled), which are shown in the summary section of this post, but for now will be skipped since there is no mystery in their purpose: 2O, 2P, 2M, 2K, 2I, 2G, 2E, 2C, 2A, and 2B. This just leaves:

2N - Red wire
2L - White wire
2J - Black wire
2H - Yellow/Black wire
2F - Brown/White wire
2D - Red/Black wire


Let's start from the top. 2N and 2L are connected to the High Speed CAN Bus of the car, with 2N being the low wire and 2L being the high wire. Nearly everything entertainment related in this (and most) vehicle(s) is connected to the Medium Speed CAN Bus, so what business does the BOSE amp have being a part of this network? The fact the amp is connected to the more essential CAN bus that carries data related to fuel level, oil level, passenger seat occupancy, etc., alone makes some people hesitant to remove it even if they are replacing all of their speakers. While I do have a logic analyzer, this car's High Speed CAN bus is notoriously traffic dense and it would take a ton of time to isolate exactly what the BOSE amp does on that network; however, I honestly don't think such a thing is necessary and instead a little bit of intuition can solve this mystery for us. Here is a segment of an article talking about BOSE's AudioPilot feature:

Officially known as Bose AudioPilot Noise Compensation Technology, the feature detects ambient noise levels and analyzes vehicle speed to continuously monitor and adjust the audio volume.
For me, that right there says it all. The only reason the Bose AMP is connected to the Hi Speed CAN Bus is so that it can access information broadcast by the vehicle's speedometer. Additionally, as a test I've driven around for quite a while with the Bose AMP completely disconnected and noticed no issues/oddities whatsoever other than the obvious lack of sound.

2J on the other hand is easy if you just look at the workshop manual schematics. Its a connection to chassis ground. Wooh.

2H and 2F are grouped together in the workshop schematics but are also completely unlabeled. Stupid... Fortunately, I was able to figure out their function after playing around on the headunit with my scope probing the wires. It seems to be that their only purpose is to act as a medium for very simple serial communication between the head unit and BOSE amp that is for sharing whether or not Centerpoint and/or Audiopliot are on/off. Nothing else has any effect on the signal these wires carry. Here are shots from the scope:


Left to Right: (1) Just Centerpoint on, 2H & 2F. (2) Just AudioPilot on, 2H & 2F. (3) Both on, 2H & 2F

There was supposed to be fourth picture of the signals while both features were off, but somehow my scope screwed that up and just saved a blank image, that I again, didn't realize until much later. The scope is actually pretty good in most respects, but my god are the USB functions a disaster (supposedly its a known issue and I'm not the only one who's noticed). It was the same as the third image with both features on, except that the order of the signal going high and then low was reversed (so low and then high instead).

Anyway, this seems to just be a simple 2-bit signal that tells the BOSE amp if it needs to employ either or both of these features. The curves of both signals are indicative of an RC circuit charging and discharging, which is quite common for generating signals in serial communication, or even more specifically, when trying to recreate square waveforms. This is clearly the case with the top signal, though the lower signal is classical of an RC differentiator for whatever reason. I'm not sure why the latter signal takes this form, but its spikes always follow the falling and rising edges of the top square-wave like signal. Additionally, the signal isn't produced if the BOSE Amp isn't powered, so its safe to say that the yellow/black wire on pin 2H is the head unit transmit and BOSE amp receive line, while the brown/white wire on pin 2F is the BOSE transmit/head unit receive line. Given these two facts, I'm guessing that the lower signal is simply feedback from the BOSE amp to the head unit to confirm it has changed modes. If you've ever sniffed the main serial Tx line of the 2016+ head unit (like when installing Mazda AIO Tweaks via the serial method for example) you'll known that the head unit really likes to log a shit ton of information, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

The order is a bit weird (the one feature seems to be normally high, while the other seems to be normally low), but it appears the 2-bit value is communicated as follows:

00 - AudioPilot on, Centerpoint off
01 - AudioPilot on, Centerpoint on
10 - AudioPilot off, Centerpoint off
11 - AudioPilot off, Centerpoint on

or individually:

AudioPilot - 0 = on, 1 = off
Centerpoint 0 = off, 1 = on

For connector 0920-515B that just leaves 2D or the red/black wire. Lucky for us, this one is actually labeled again. The wire is connected to the "ACC" or Accessory line going to the fuse box, which means that it is most likely a turn-on wire that receives power once the car is in ACC mode or the engine is running. Useful to have for your aftermarket amp if you need it. I checked this out with my multi-meter just to make sure, and indeed this was the case:


Left to Right: (1) Car completely off, (2) Car in ACC mode with engine off and car in ACC with engine started

Now for the last connector, 0920-515C, which has the least number of connections and is the most straightforward:



Like in the second connector, the following pins are straightforward connections to speakers: 3G, 3H, 3E, 3F, 3C, and 3D. This just leaves:

3A - Red Wire
3B - Black Wire


3A is connected to the 25A BOSE fuse in the Fuse Block, and as is probably obvious is the general 12.5V power line that is available even when the car is off:



As for the black 3B wire... you guessed it! Just another connection to chassis ground.

And there you have it, the whole BOSE system mapped out (at least in terms of audio, i.e., excluding Nav, back-up cam, and other entertainment system features).


Feature Retention:

The last major concern when bypassing any stock equipment is the big question of "will I lose any features?". Well, be concerned no longer! You lose absolutely nothing!... other than the obvious loss of BOSE Centerpoint and Audiopilot, but if you cared about those you wouldn't be replacing the system in the first place lol. But yes, it really is that simple.

The small volume knob near the commander wheel and all of the sound controls in the head unit (fade, balance, treble, and bass) manipulate the signal before it reaches the BOSE Amp. All inputs, including bluetooth, are handled by the head unit/TAU and all call, Google Assistant/Android Audio/Apple Carplay/Mircrophone based features are handled pre-BOSE amp. Lastly, all notification sounds within the car such as the seatbelt chime and the blindspot monitoring system are all on their own dedicated circuits with a dedicated buzzer and were all tested to work with the BOSE amp unplugged entirely.

I had tried to save a clip of me checking my voicemail over bluetooth in both the Mazda software and Android Auto, but my scopes save function failed me AGAIN. Just trust me, it all works.

If you want a bit more concrete proof, just check out the video. I go into this a bit more deeply there.


Summary

In the end, things look pretty great in terms of audio upgrade potential for those that have a 6 with Blowse.

- Easy access to relatively clean, 4-channel audio directly from the head unit/TAU
- All channels are transmitted via differential signaling for great noise rejection if your amp supports it
- All channels are in-phase and balanced with the head unit at default settings
- No equalization performed on the signal pre-BOSE amp
- No features lost by tapping pre-BOSE amp (other than the BOSE processing obviously)
- 12.5v turn on wire available if you don't want to run your own. You most likely can't make use of the 12.5V power wire though because the fuse will blow if the line exceeds a mere 312.5W (25A fuse at 12.5V)
- You can safely remove the BOSE amp in its entirety if you are replacing all of your speakers (99% certain).

Just touching on that last bullet real quick: Like I said before I have driven the car around for quite a while with the amp totally disconnected and nothing stopped working correctly except for the obvious loss of entertainment system sound. Additionally, now that all connections to the amp have been mapped and their functions are known, we also can be reassured that you lose nothing other than the BOSE processing features even if you completely disconnect and remove the BOSE amp. Because of this, I am VERY confident that removing the amp outright as long as you don't want to keep any of your stock speakers hooked up is completely OK.

For your convenience, here is a pin-out of all the connections to the BOSE amp that I covered throughout the thread:



Additionally, here are some other helpful images:


BOSE amp once the 10mm bolts are removed from its cover plate and its taken out from under the passenger seat.


BOSE amp connector locations


BOSE Amp speaker locations (with English translations)

EDIT: Fixed various typos.
 
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#10 · (Edited)
First off, sorry for the delayed response, apparently the new site doesn't show you an alert badge until you actually click on your profile so I had no idea there were more replies until I happened to expand that menu.

Huge thanks for this wonderful post.

Can you just replace the 25A bose fuse with something bigger e.g. 35A and use the wires to run your own amp?
You could get away with this, but there is certainly a line and I overall wouldn't recommend it unless you're doing light modifications. While the OEM fuse is obviously set to blow at what the manufacturer considered to be excessive for the stock system and increasing the value would solve that end of the problem, that doesn't at all take into account the power line running from the fuse block to the end of the connector I noted. I don't know the exact gauge of the stock wire because I knew I'd be running my own line and didn't bother checking, but it is most likely somewhere around 8-12 AWG and if I had to guess its more likely its 10 or 12 so that Mazda could save as many pennies as possible. The wire itself is rated for a certain max current that it can safely maintain before it burns out or the insulation starts melting. While those ratings do have some headroom in them, it is only so much. So if you're only going to use a 500 - 750W amp and NOT push the system very hard (not cranking it up much) then you may be able to get away with that. 500W and a bit of pushing is probably fine, but more towards 750W and playing the system more than moderately loud would be a really bad idea as you'll have a serious fire hazard on your hands. So if you want to do an extensive upgrade and/or like to crank your system then you absolutely need to run your own cables. Still not recommended for SQ reasons, but it is much easier to get away with using the stock speaker wiring than the power line for the amp though.

I feel like I should pay a tuition fee.
Well yea, tuition is 50k a year, pay up XD.

What a fucking geek! Thanks!! This'll help when i tear into my 3 soon.
So good new for you, the guy that bought my BOSE amp after I put it on eBay actually has a 3 even though I listed the amp as only being compatible with a 6. I warned him of this, but also figured I'd look into it a little: I pulled up the 2014-2016 workshop manual for the 3 (also guessing 17/18/19 are pretty similar if not exactly the same in this aspect) and found the same sections for the BOSE system that I used in the 6 manual. Lo and behold, the wiring at the BOSE amp is 100% exactly the same as it is for the 6. The 3 has 2 less speakers but on the 6 the front tweeters share the same output line as the as the front "Twiddlers" and are separated by a passive high-pass filter so they don't add two connections to the amp over the 3 like you'd think they may at first. The wire coloring isn't the same, but the pinouts are a 1-to-1 match so you can use all of the diagrams in this thread as long as you account for the color changes. I can't promise that the audio production is exactly the same since I have only analyzed my own 6, but there's little reason for it to be different.

P.S. Did you ever get that CD player hacked in?

One of the best posts I have ever seen for a break down of an OE audio system. Nicely done and thank you for all the time you have taken to measure and explain the front end of the OE system! It would be really interesting to see the post Bose amp measurements to see exactly what the amp is doing. I know there is a lot going on in there between the upmixing and phase adjustments to try and get a decent stage for multiple seating positions.

I'm currently on the hunt for connectors to build my own T-harness after the Bose amp. I plan to keep the Bose OE head unit to take advantage of the OE amps upmixer. I haven't found anyone who makes such a harness. So, if anyone knows where to source the pieces (even if it means cannibalizing another harness to build my own) let me know.
If my scope wasn't a POS and didn't take 20 years to maybe save data over USB I'd have checked that out too. Even if I wanted to know though I can't as I don't have the amp anymore so you'll have to find a way on your own. As for the connector, I just ended up having the aftermarket amp splice into the cable but it would have been nice to keep the stock wiring intact. Unfortunately, the only harness I know of that has useful connectors for splicing to make your own adapter is the PAC AOEM-MAZ2, but that is for connections between the TAU/Headunit and the BOSE amp. Post BOSE amp I know of nothing, other than the female plugs within the amp itself. You could buy extras of 0920-515B and 0920-515C and splice those into your speaker lines (or capping them with RCA end) and power lines and then plug that into the BOSE amp, but for the non-speaker connections that still need to remain connected (i.e. the headunit serial connections and CAN bus lines) you would still need to splice those into the original cable :/ . The only thing I can think of is getting a busted amp cheap online or from a junkyard, cracking it open and soldering the plugs from the PCB so that you then have the female end of the connectors available for your harness. You would then plug the stock plugs into those ends and splice everything together into those ends as needed. Sounds like a massive pain that would also be pretty expensive for what it is though.

For anyone, I will post a followup in the OP but the short of it is that I have a 1000W JL VXi amp with full 2-ohm speaker replacement, other than the rear deck twiddlers as I used coaxials in the rear doors and hooked the twiddlers into the same line just to act as rear fill, and it works perfectly. Sounds great after moderate tuning to account for the car acoustics (despite the original signal being balanced, the rear door speakers sounded a lot louder than the fronts due to their positioning in the car and how the seats sit so some balancing and EQ really helped) and there are no problems what so ever (BOSE amp totally gone, everything works), except that I do feel like that Google assistant has a harder time understanding me if there is ambient nose in the vehicle as I guess Mazda's AA made some use of the BOSE mic for noise cancellation, but its a minor gripe that is well worth what I gained otherwise.
 
#7 ·
What a fucking geek! Thanks!! This'll help when i tear into my 3 soon.
 
#8 ·
One of the best posts I have ever seen for a break down of an OE audio system. Nicely done and thank you for all the time you have taken to measure and explain the front end of the OE system! It would be really interesting to see the post Bose amp measurements to see exactly what the amp is doing. I know there is a lot going on in there between the upmixing and phase adjustments to try and get a decent stage for multiple seating positions.

I'm currently on the hunt for connectors to build my own T-harness after the Bose amp. I plan to keep the Bose OE head unit to take advantage of the OE amps upmixer. I haven't found anyone who makes such a harness. So, if anyone knows where to source the pieces (even if it means cannibalizing another harness to build my own) let me know.
 
#13 ·
@oblivioncth - I registered to this forum so I could personally thank you for how elaborate and perfect your breakdown is.

I had some work done at an audio shop for my 2018 Mazda 6 (full scale upgrade to all speakers, adding a set of subwoofers). The manufacturer of the DSP (Audiocontrol) stated that the speakers have to be tapped into AFTER the Bose amp, and I have been battling a range of issues such as obnoxious hissing, popping, and the overall fact that the high-end speakers I upgraded to never sounded quite right. Before you thoroughly investigated how this car's amp, and head-unit interact with one another, I had no ground to stand on and now I know I'm not crazy!

The world needs more people like you - I cannot thank you enough!!!
 
#14 ·
@oblivioncth - I registered to this forum so I could personally thank you for how elaborate and perfect your breakdown is.

I had some work done at an audio shop for my 2018 Mazda 6 (full scale upgrade to all speakers, adding a set of subwoofers). The manufacturer of the DSP (Audiocontrol) stated that the speakers have to be tapped into AFTER the Bose amp, and I have been battling a range of issues such as obnoxious hissing, popping, and the overall fact that the high-end speakers I upgraded to never sounded quite right. Before you thoroughly investigated how this car's amp, and head-unit interact with one another, I had no ground to stand on and now I know I'm not crazy!

The world needs more people like you - I cannot thank you enough!!!
Thanks for the kind words!

I am most glad that this information helped someone in a situation like yours as I faced a problem similar to yours and knew others may as well. Everywhere I went to ask about getting work done (I obviously have no issue with the electrical end of the work but I'm crap when it comes to pulling large amounts of trim up and making custom mounts/adapters) everyone kept telling me I would have to go post BOSE amp since no one makes a harness for the car, but from the scraps I could find online it was clear to me that it was very likely possible to go pre-BOSE amp and that simply no one had really taken the time to delve into testing the electronics to make sure you could without issue (or at least anyone that shared such info around).

I figured that shops were simply saying this to be on the safe side (not be held liable if they did try to go pre-BOSE and something didn't work right), save themselves time and money (just do it the way that's known to work and not take chances), and because they had no idea of my background and assumed I was just some snobbish customer trying to be a know it all so they'd rather not commit to a method that there isn't a known write-up about or that hasn't spread by word of mouth (there seems to be a lack of information on the Mazda entertainment systems since their a bit more niche and the general public is probably satisfied with the BOSE system). Though, to be fair I'm 25 and look like I'm freaking 17 (ugh) so I guess I can't blame them entirely.

I actually had to share this thread with the shop who took care of the installation for me before they were willing to commit to go pre-BOSE haha. They did good work at least and it was worth it because there was a decent amount of custom adapters that needed to be made for several of the speakers to mount correctly.
 
#15 ·
Why isnt this stickied yet?
 
#18 ·
Not sure if you're viewing the thread through a different theme or something but it is stickied as far as I can tell:
238146


Not sure how i missed the video, but i just watched it and im glad you dont lose anything and that its a truly flat signal (more or less). I had suspected as much based on earlier Bose systems having a line level output with no processing, but its great to know for 100%. Plus, it allows me to add the amp and my speakers to my friends CX-5 since her 2016 has WEAK bass.
It is more or less supplementary but yea I do talk a bit more about each part than I do in the post so its useful, especially for showing my reasoning on somethings and as proof, like with the feature retention as you mentioned, since I know people aren't going to want to necessarily dive right into using a different hookup method that one guy mentioned when they're playing around with possibly thousands in equipment; though, I think I've proven credible enough at this point hehe.

And yea, based on the little bits I could find before delving into this and Mazdas track record with having it set up this way in their older cars it was reasonable to suspect these findings were the case. Just glad I could confirm that 100%.
 
#16 ·
Not sure how i missed the video, but i just watched it and im glad you dont lose anything and that its a truly flat signal (more or less). I had suspected as much based on earlier Bose systems having a line level output with no processing, but its great to know for 100%. Plus, it allows me to add the amp and my speakers to my friends CX-5 since her 2016 has WEAK bass.
 
#17 ·
Saw you post this and the message you sent to us (which I replied to, hopefully you got it).

I said it in the message but I'll say it again - incredible amount of information here and thank you very much for all t he hard work you put into this.
 
#28 ·
I'd imagine that the wiring for the regular stock speakers is quite different and I'm not even sure that the mounting points for all 11 speakers are present in your car (you may need to replace some trim pieces or hack apart your current ones) though if you have the touring model then the mounts are most likely there at least. The non-BOSE system doesn't have a separate amp and may even have a different TAU, I have no way of knowing without access to a non-BOSE Mazda 6 because like I said in the OP there are no manuals publicly available that show the updated sound system wiring other than the connections to the BOSE amp since those were the same. Unless, do you have a 2014/2015? Because then the all of the wiring is completely accurate.

You would need to go onto a parts site and try and locate the cables that have the 3 connectors I mentioned in the OP and route them to the correct places. The 3 cables would need to go from under your passenger seat (16+) or from the behind the right side of the glovebox (14-15) where the BOSE amp needs to be mounted (you would have to source the mounting plate as well) and then have each cable go to where it needs to. The wires from each cable go all over the place and they aren't entirely grouped either. 0920-515B and C have some lines that go to all 11 speakers, as well as connections to chassis ground, the battery + and ACC line, and 0920-515A has connections to the headunit or TAU depending on your year. The cables are also different depending on your year (14/15 vs 16+).

You would need to locate the correct cables (including the cables between the speakers and connectors mentioned previously as they are likely separate), purchase a BOSE Amp and all the BOSE speakers, pull up tons of trim as well as your seats and a bit of the flooring to run the cables to the correct locations, possibly buy a TAU/different TAU if you have a 16+ as I don't know if the regular system even has one or if it is the same if it does and possibly buy a different headuint as again it may be a separate variant. There are headunit controls only present with the BOSE system so while it may be possible the are handled through software and detection of the BOSE AMP/TAU unit, there is a good chance the headunit is a separate model entirely.

With how many new components are needed and how much teardown is required to retrofit a non-BOSE system I agree with Talon that at that point you'd be better off just installing an aftermarket system. If your primary goal is to save money by getting used BOSE parts off ebay, shops, or junkyards while still coming out with a system that is better than the regular one, I understand your goals but be aware that due to some design flaws the BOSE speakers do not age well at all. Personally I would just look into buying a lower end aftermarket system with a total cost around what it would cost you to buy all of the BOSE parts and an as good if not superior system could probably still be had.

It is definitely possible to retrofit the car to using the BOSE system but it takes a lot of work hunting down the correct parts (and like I said I can't be of much help there since I don't have a non-BOSE 6) and it gets even more complicated depending on your year and if you have the Sport or Touring.
 
#22 ·
Why the hell would you WANT it? You cant simply install Bose into a non Bose car...
 
#24 ·
Because its shit compared to aftermarket stuff?
 
#25 ·
this guy was able to install, but he does not give details
 
#26 ·
The time and cost of doing so will FAR exceed just putting an aftermarket system in since you dont have to remove the Bose to start with. I promise you, NO one on this forum has ever put BOSE into a car.
 
#29 ·
Hi Oblivioncth,

(I was not able to send this on a personal message - It states it as spam)

First of all, I must say I am greatly impressed with the work you did on figuring out how the Bose amp is connected.

The reason why I am writing to you, is I have just bought a late 2018 (The latest version) Mazda 6 Optimum (European maximum specs) with the Bose Amp.

Before the Mazda 6, I had a Nissan Qashqai. But not a stock one :).
I had the car taken apart, filled with 35kg of noise insulation and a MATCH (Audiotec Fischer/Helix) 8 channel Class D amplifier with DSP and all speakers replaced by Focal speakers and a MATCH subwoofer in the spare tire department.
I had calibration microphone available and it was a REALLY nice system and I must say I can't live with the Bose when I had that.

The MATCH system can receive input by SPDIF/Optical, Hi-Lo level input and standard line in.
I used the hi-lo level on the Nissan Qashqai since the load of the amplifier was only 1/20th the sound was clear and really good. My main goal was that nothing was altered - I had full functionality and you could not see that anything was changed - But it could be heard.
With the MATCH system, you can buy an ISO adapter, and you are good to go. Unfortunately, they have not developed anything for the Mazda with the Bose AMP. Only for the cars without the Bose amp.
I am in dialog with them (It is a German company, and I am living in Denmark 7-8 hours away from them) and looking into having this equipped in the Mazda.

Do you know the MATCH system?

Would you be interested in doing some "consultancy" on this? I will happily pay for your time. I think that this could be an exciting project.

I hope to hear from you.

Regards,

Jean
Denmark
 
#30 ·
Hi Oblivioncth,

(I was not able to send this on a personal message - It states it as spam)

First of all, I must say I am greatly impressed with the work you did on figuring out how the Bose amp is connected.

The reason why I am writing to you, is I have just bought a late 2018 (The latest version) Mazda 6 Optimum (European maximum specs) with the Bose Amp.

Before the Mazda 6, I had a Nissan Qashqai. But not a stock one :).
I had the car taken apart, filled with 35kg of noise insulation and a MATCH (Audiotec Fischer/Helix) 8 channel Class D amplifier with DSP and all speakers replaced by Focal speakers and a MATCH subwoofer in the spare tire department.
I had calibration microphone available and it was a REALLY nice system and I must say I can't live with the Bose when I had that.

The MATCH system can receive input by SPDIF/Optical, Hi-Lo level input and standard line in.
I used the hi-lo level on the Nissan Qashqai since the load of the amplifier was only 1/20th the sound was clear and really good. My main goal was that nothing was altered - I had full functionality and you could not see that anything was changed - But it could be heard.
With the MATCH system, you can buy an ISO adapter, and you are good to go. Unfortunately, they have not developed anything for the Mazda with the Bose AMP. Only for the cars without the Bose amp.
I am in dialog with them (It is a German company, and I am living in Denmark 7-8 hours away from them) and looking into having this equipped in the Mazda.

Do you know the MATCH system?

Would you be interested in doing some "consultancy" on this? I will happily pay for your time. I think that this could be an exciting project.

I hope to hear from you.

Regards,

Jean
Denmark
I guess you dont understand the implication of what his conclusion was, simply unplug the Bose amp and you have a non Bose car. So... you get a clean 20-20 signal to work with straight from the stock HU.
 
#32 ·
Oh ok, i get ya now, but theres really no point as you dont need anything added to the car if you keep the stock HU and upgrade everything after it in the chain. In other words, you could unplug the Bose amp and cut the plug off and solder in RCA plugs and go from there.
 
#33 ·
Hey Oblivioncth!


If you don't mind me asking, what kind of setup are you using?

I have JL C7's wired to Alpine amps, all routed to an Audio Control DM-810 and I'm battling some crazy hissing/pink noise...shops have sworn up and down everything is solid with grounding, so I'm curious if you're hearing anything similar on your end.

Situations like this make me wish someone would have made an aftermarket head-unit upgrade worth a damn. ?
 
#34 ·
You have hissing from your subs? How do you have it wired in?
 
#39 ·
What? I cannot understand that run on blurb. Ar you asking if you need to tap the front speakers with a line out convertor?
 
#43 ·
I highly doubt it, but you can get a DMM for cheap and measure it.
 
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