2004 Audi A4 Convertible

Yesterday I began replacement of the Symphony OEM radio with a DVD/GPS unit I bought from ebay. You may have seen these Head units all over ebay..they look OEM and claim to be plug and play. They may be on some systems but as for the standard SYMPHONY radio, there was nothing plug and play about it. But I am going to try and guide you through the install so if you buy one of these units, you will not have to spend as much time as i did trying to figure out where everything goes so you can fabricate your wiring harness.

The first pictures I am going to post is of my OEM symphony headunit and the back showing the plug configuration. Apparently, there are a few different configurations depending on the radio you have..mine being just the plain symphony, requires CAN-BUS to control the radio.

You would think this would not be a problem when replacing the head unit, but it is a problem unless you buy a radio that has the capability of Can-Bus. This new head unit came with a Can Bus Decoder with Audi software in it. The Can-BUS controls the radio turning on when you turn ignition key forward. Without Can-bus, there is no accy wire to power up your aftermarket radio. You have only a Hot wire that remains hot from battery all the time. In short, CAN BUS decoder will power on your head unit, it will control lamp illumination when you turn your lights on, it will sense your emergency brake, and reverse, and othe functions by using data transmission between car and decoder box. I don't think all audi a4's use Can BUS for the radio but the plain symphony radio does. Yes you could completely bypass the Can BUS but you will go fishing for an accy hot wire through switch, you will have to find a lamp illumination wire to feed your unit, and find your ebrake wiring, and you will be running wires everywhere. If you maintain the CAN BUS, you will not have to run ANY of these wires down.

First pics here are of symphony front and back and key removal of radio and of the new head unit with accessories. I will post more pics with further discription in future posts. I apologize for the headunit picture being upside down..
Notice the rear of the symphony. The top plug in contains the Can Bus high and low, and the front and rear speaker line out and terminal to power factory amps. The plug in the car that fits in that slot will have to be spliced into in order to gain access to can bus and the factory amps and line outs to speakers because there is no pigtail that comes with this dvd/gps unit to plug into the factory harness. The other factory harness plugs will plug into the harness you are going to make from the two harnesses given in the kit.

 

Ok, the first picture on this post is directly off the top of the Audi Symphony OEM radio so you can see what each pin purpose is on your oem plugs.

The top connector on the diagram is your black connector harness in your car and the second one down is the Brown connector in your car, the third bottom one down is a black 20 pin connector that contains your can bus and line out speaker wires going to factory amps. You will need to splice into the wires on the back of the bottom 20 pin connector as previously stated.

The second picture is of the connector end on one of the supplied harnesses with this kit. If you have the symphony radio, you will NOT use this plug as pictured but you WILL be using the harness attached to this plug as this is the Can Bus harness. You will need to Cut each wire from this plug so you can use the harness with the correct included connector shown in the third picture. The third pictured connector will be used after you cut the harness away from it. Make sure you leave about 3 inches or more of wires coming out of the back of this connector so you will have something to solder to. So lets rephrase what we have said..The harness that has the 2nd pictured plug on the end of it will be our harness but we must cut this connector off and throw it away, it is useless to us. The connector in the third picture is the one we need but we must cut the harness away from this connector and discard that harness, but make sure we leave about 3 inches to solder to the other said harness.

Now, in the first picture, the top plug shows a + terminal and a - terminal. That is the only two terminals you will use on this plug. you will need to move the pin that has the yellow wire on third picture connector so that it lines up with the + on your car factory black plug..that wire will be Red in your car. Then move the black wire pin on third pictured connector to line up with the - terminal on factory black plug in car..that wire is brown in your car..black on connector. Thats it for that connector it is done! You can see the finished plug in on the third picture..see the two pins for power and ground..and for the other side..these are for your front speakers on dash..This is simple..just take the Can bus harness that you have cut away from the other plug and match the purple to purple, white to white, dark green to dark green, and gray to gray and the the striped colors to each other likewise. Solder those to the third picture connector. you are done with that harness now so heat shrink or tape up your solder. You should have TWO wires left coming out of the CAN BUS interface box that are light green and light green with black stripe. These are the Can BUS L and CAN BUS H you will use to tie into the 20 pin black plug in your car.

 

Lets talk about the 20 pin black connector that we are going to have to splice into in the car. Notice on the photo of the diagram in the previous post that shows the Three plugs as they would plug into the OEM radio. The bottom plug in that diagram is the black 20 pin connector. The plug is broken down into three sections. The entire left section is for a factory CD changer which I don't have so it is not used at all on this application..that is the 8 pins marked with "CD" under that section. Now the middle section marked "Can bus" will be utilized to an extent. you will need to only splice into two wires in this section.. Remember the light green and light green with black stripe wires coming from the Can bus interface that we discussed last post? Well those are Can bus H and can bus L. The solid light green will go to the Can bus H, and the light green with black stripe will be spliced to Can bus L terminal. No need to cut plug off, just splice in behind it to preserve factory plug should you ever decide to go back to factory radio.

Now, the black 20 pin connector third section labeled "line out" below the diagram is where you will get all your factory amped speaker connections. You will need to splice into these wires and hook them up according to the diagram on black 20 pin connector, to the "RCA line outs" on a seperate plug coming out of back of radio..this harness is part of the can bus harness and you can use the plug explanation on top of the new head unit to know which wires to connect..it is simple..a left and right front line out, a left and right rear line out, and a common ground for fronts and rears. The last wire to power the factory amps should be spliced into this section also, right in between the LF and RF is a picture on the diagram of a normall open switch..Run your AMP CONTROL wire from your harness to this terminal to power factory amps. Plug in your antenna adapter included with kit and your done.

I have dummy wired this entire setup and tested and it all works perfectly, but i have to make my splices yet and slide unit into dash to finish. I hope this helps anyone that attempts this install. If you need any help, ask and I will try to help you.


Three more pics below. First is a better shot of new head unit. Second is the back of the black 20 pin connector in your car showing the two can bus wires tapped into the harness. the third picture is the complete modified harness with the can bus interface unit.

 

After much review and talking with the GPS DVD unit manufacturer, this installation issue should not happen for ANY Audi A4 B6 unless it is the Cabriolet (convertible), However, I have not verified that and don't believe it. The reason I don't believe it, is the wiring diagram for the Symphony system shows the black 20 pin connector with CANBUS wiring, and that plug is unaccounted for on all the installation accessories for this aftermarket headunit. But if you have an Audi A4 with Symphony and want to change to this unit, I will gladly help you make your harness, heck, if you desire, you can buy the unit, send me the two harnesses and let me purchase a metra bose harness, and with those three I can make you a perfect plug and play harness. I AM VERY PLEASED with this Head Unit, it does everything! And looks OEM

 

Looking to upgrade my system also. I have a couple of questions for you. Where on e-bay did you find that head unit? DVD & Navi.? Did you have to purchase an installation kit for the surrounding area, or did it fit like stock? I was looking at getting the Alpine DVD/Navi. soon! Appreciate your post! Oh, and how about a pic of the finished install!

 

Be glad to help you.I would not recommend buying an alpine when you could by this unit that fits like OEM. Here is a link to the ebay auction..the auction has ended but they relisted it. I am going to send you a PM telling you how to get that unit for less money. No installation kit will be needed..this unit is made for the audi a4 only, 2002-2008 I believe. Read auction description it will tell you. It fits like OEM and looks OEM when you get it installed. If you have radio removal keys, slide the head unit out and take pictures of your current wiring harness plugs and post them here for me to look at them. The unit I bought will plug and play with most a4's. Mine was a convertible and had a symphony system and I had to make my own harness from the two they supplied and some creativity. But it wasn't that bad. When you take those pictures, unplugg your antenna and take a picture of the end of that plug also. Here is the link to ebay..and I am sending PM also.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...K%3AMEWAX%3AIT

 

It's been few weeks now, how do you like the Dynavin GPS unit. I haven't bought a TT yet but found one I liked with all the features except Nav. I googled Ebay and found the Dynavin aftermarket unit, by the way the link to Dynavin: http://www.dynavin.com/. Their asking $649 for a plug and play unit for the TT's. What did you pay? How does it work with the Bose speakers? How is the Navigation software? What about bluetooth? Anything I should know?

Thanks, ron

 

Hi Immusicman. Excellent thread. I have the same DVD player as you that I ordered off ebay. I had an issue where there was no sound, but with their advice, I moved the orange AMP control wire from the DVD unit to the cars Switched Positive for BOSE amp the top block. Everything now works except that when zero volume is selected or volume 1 or even if a track ends, I get a loud pop/thump through the BOSE AMP. I have asked the company who supplied the DVD player for advice, but they said they are stumped. Any ideas how I can get passed this, as it it putting me off using it!
Cheers
Steve

 

a thump when u turn on the car or off might be a ground wire problem. I cant remeber excatly what was the culprit but i had a friend that had this problem with his aftermarket amp and it turned out to be wiring. Ill have to check with him on it.

 

Hi Pa4ul. Thanks for your thoughts. I have spent ages googleing this issue. There are suggestions that it is because there are Capacitors within the BOSE amp. These caps are accounted for with the Audi HU, but an aftermarket HU just grounds the line causing the pop/thud. That make sense!
Suggestions however are to either replace the AMP for an aftermarket one or replace all the speakers and just connect them directly.
As I have spent a fair amount already on the HU, I would prefer to resolve this without excessive costs.
I was hoping that there would be alternative wiring I could buy that would compensate for this, although I have not come accross this yet.

Any other suggestions gratefully received.

Cheers
Steve