BFHK

After changing the speakers and installing a new head unit in my '01 CL-S, I found that the sound was still pretty poor and quickly learned this was due to the stock Bose amp. Some people have even reported that after changing the head unit they had no sound whatsoever.
After some searching I found the wiring colour codes for both the radio harness and the amp harness and lots of mention about bypassing the amp, but I could not find any instructions on how to actually do it. So here it is....


1. Disconnect the battery positive terminal.

2. In the trunk, locate the amp inside the passenger side wheel well near the tail light. You need to remove the carpet or at least peel it back to access it.

3. Remove the wire harness from the amp and cut off the connector.

4. Strip and connect the wires in the following order:

5. You should now have 4 wires left over: WHT/YEL (constant 12V), YEL/WHT (switched 12V), larger gauge BLK (ground), and light GRN (shielding). None of these are used when bypassing the amp, but make sure to tape them off each individually so you do not risk shorting anything.

6. Connect the battery and test out the sound.

7. Wrap everything in a good amount of tape and tuck the cable back into the wheel well and you're done. You can also remove the amp with 3 10mm bolts since it's now pointless.


I've found the sound is immensely better with my aftermarket speakers being powered directly from the new head unit and not going through the 12yr old amp (that never really worked all that great anyways).

Hope that helps some other audio do-it-yourselfers out there!