Difference in Standard Head Unit and Bose
 

To make a long story short, I just purchased a new head unit for my car. I believe the one I purchased was from a bose system. Everything hooked up fine, but the volume is real low.

What are the differences? Is it possible to make it work with my non Bose system?

Slim

If you originally had the base sound system and bought a Bose head unit, I'm surprised that actually you have _any_ sound.
The Bose uses three separate amplifiers while the base radio has a built-in amp.

The connections are all the same and there really isn't anything distiguishable abut the units so it is understandable to mix them up. Like Tamas says, the Bose unit is designed to work with the Bose amps. Therefore the outputs from the bose are low level which goes to the amp which amplifies the signal then powers the speakers. The base radio outputs are speaker level so the wires go straight to the speakers from the radio. Right now you have a low level signal powering the speakers so that is why the volume is so low.

I don't know if there is a simple fix for this, I would try and get a Base radio and be done with it instead of rigging up something to make it work.

Either you put the original stereo back, or get one of those converter boxes, a 4-channel amp, and new speakers.

Or you could just live with what you have right now.

Wait- you have a carputer setup? Why don't you just use the stock headunit and get amps / new speakers. You already have a sub so that would work well together. Not sure why you got a bose headunit.

Thanks guys. Like I said, it's a long story. I am one of the co-owners of CarMediaConcepts.com. I recently decided to remove the CarPC and return it to stock. I purchased a head unit from a guy not knowing it was a Bose. I saw the center dash piece, but thought there wasn't the center speaker.

That's how I finally noticed it was the Bose. It took me about 15 seconds before I said... well, I'm sure you can imagine.

Thanks again for your help. It looks like I will be selling and buying a new one.