I’m a n00b, hoping for a little confirmation and advice here.

On one end: BOSE RX-8 headunit
On the other: Non-BOSE everything else
The objective: Integrate the two as economically as possible, retaining use of factory controls (volume, fader, steering wheel controls including MUTE) and (for now) factory speakers.

Here’s what I think I need to do:

Get a LOC such as the Audiocontrol LC6

Tap into the J-01 harness going into the BOSE HU: Take off 8 speaker wires (left front pos and neg, right front, left rear, right rear) and tap into battery (+12v) and ground.

Connect 8 speaker wires plus battery and ground to the appropriate places on the LC6

Buy a relatively inexpensive Amp (suggestions here would be welcome)

connect the 4 RCA outputs from the LC6 to the corresponding inputs on the Amp

Connect power and ground to the Amp (suggestions here would also be welcome – I’d rather not drill any holes if I don’t have to)

Connect 8 speaker wires to the speaker connections

Is that about it? Is there a more economical alternative I’m missing? Obviously not going for an audiophile setup here, just trying to get the BOSE unit to function well.

Thanks in advance.

 

I see a couple of problems with your plan...

first if your going to basically only replacing the amps.. it's more than likely not going to be worth it... especially if your going to use cheap replacements..

If you still decide to do it - a MAJOR flaw in your plan is the front speakers each have their own amps in the front doors.. those amps are also the crossovers for the tweeters.. I don't have any good advice for getting around that.. but thats the first thing I would look into.

I would rethink my plan a little before you wind up downgrading your sound performance..

 

Actually, the front tweeters are in parallel w/ the input of the front amps meaning they are driven directly from the main amplifier. There is a capacitor soldered directly to the tweeter. I think by this post, Likabat is planning on replacing the speakers also.

There are more economical routes to take. Like Wikked said, this may not be worth it if you are going to use cheap components. You will definitely not need a LC6 if quality is not an issue for you.

If you are not trying to achieve an audiophile grade system, I would recommend first replacing all speakers w/ quality ones. This may be enough for you. If not, you will already have the speakers needed to add amp(s) later. Search around some more, there are plenty of posts of every conceivable option.

 

I probly should have described the situation better.
What I have is a non-Bose system with a dead head unit, and access to a Bose head unit as a possible replacement. So it's not an upgrade situation exactly.
I know that the Bose HU's output differs from the non-Bose (though the wiring harness fits both), and that the Bose HU output signal would normally go into a Bose amp in the rear of the car, and from there to the Bose speakers; what I was hoping to do is feed the Bose HU's output into an amp that I would buy, and use that to drive the existing speakers (with the possibility of upgrading to better speakers later on).
From reading other posts I thought I understood that a LOC would be needed between the Bose HU and the amp... Can I really afford to leave that out? (if I do, I will need to get an amp that accepts speaker level input, right?)
Thanks for the help.