I don't mean to add confusion to this situation, but I did run across this post when I was looking into upgrade possibilities with the Metra harness. This is from a guy who purchased the harness at Amazon.com:

"I purchased this item for my 2000 audi A6 with bose stereo so i could install a pioneer head unit. when installed as directed, the speakers all emitted a high pitched alternator whine whether i was listening to the stereo or a cd. i knew the HU worked properly, and so did the factory stereo, so i checked the harness for possible fixes. i found no unwanted noises came through the speaker when, instead of hooking the rca adapters (on the harness) up to the preamp outputs (on the HU), i hooked the speaker level outputs (on the stereo) to the rca adapters (on the harness). so to fix the problem, i cut the RCA adapters off the harness, and soldered those wires directly to the speaker level outputs from the HU. now everything works and sounds great."

I don't know if this will help, but thought it might because the wiring on the harness was not as expected.

 

jdahlen, i think that "could" work but i have a feeling not as well as it could.

the bose system wires up opposite the non-bose.
meaning u use the front RCAs not the back but u DONT wire the front wires, u wire the back.
in my case i dont wire the back just the front.

 

Ok so reading through the manual on page 52 and 53 this is what I've found as I've suggested before.



I don't know if this will solve it or not but what you can do is also test the RCAs on the kit harness with the front RCAs from your head unit instead of your rears due to the above excerpt and connect them to the purple and green RCA's going into the Metra harness to see if you get sound. Let us know how it goes.

Doug

 

its not detecting anything, thus not allowing me to change the "rear speaker" setting. all i can do is turn "subwoofer" on and off but it has no real effect right now.

so ur suggesting un-wire the front speaker wires from the h/u and plug in the front speaker RCAs instead?(into the rear speaker RCA output on the h/u?) thus proving theres nothing wrong with the RCA output on the h/u?

or wire the front speakers to the rear speaker RCAs(being as they aren't amplified) to make sure the metra RCA harness works correctly, proving that it HAS to be something wrong with the amp not getting the right signal/juice?

 

Will the head unit not allow you to run both the front RCAs and the front speaker wiring at the same time? Is it that sophisticated? Most decks will always have signal coming out of the front RCAs all the time without having to switch them on regardless if you have your front speaker wires connected or not. With that in mind just unplug the rear set of RCA's coming from the deck and plug the front RCA into the Green and Purple RCAs cables going into the Metra wiring harness. Once you determine you get sound from this set up, the next step is to figure out why you aren't getting any signal from the rear RCA's which is most likely an internal switch as I've mentioned above.

At this point you can even take a 1/8" jack to RCA and plug them into the wiring harness, turn on your head unit to trigger the amp on, then plug the 1/8" jack into your ipod/phone and play something to see if you get sound thus eliminating the amp out of the equation.

Doug

 

More on the internal switching have you done this to turn on the rear output from page 47?



Doug

 

yes i can use the front RCAs, i get what ur saying now.

and when i get to work tomorrow ill grab the jack/RCA converter(idk why we have one there but i know i do.

as for the subwoofer output, Ive played with that option, it has no effect.

 

dam double post.

 

just had a thought, if you look at this picture

"line out"(circled in red)

pins(numbered for simplification)
1 2
3 4
5 6
(1, 2, 5 ,6 = speakers. 3 = remote on. 4= com.)
number 4 is labeled as "com."
being a black wire(which always means ground) shouldn't that be labeled as "ground" idk what "com." means. what are the chances that this could be my issue? its wired into all 4 RCAs with all black wire, cuz im almost certain my speakers are on, but no sound. could that not be grounding but maybe is suppose to???

[just to reinforce my thought process if you look, ground is labeled elsewhere on this diagram as "gnd"(as it should)]

 

That _+/_ one is the one you need to trace to the remote turn on, I went and chased around my wires, and thats the factory amp turn on control in my car