Bluetooth while maintaining the look Options

[stickyfingers]

Hi everyone.

So thanks for everyone with their feedback on whether a PCCM or a Retro radio with BT would be the way to go in my 914. Clearly the PCCM is way too expensive and being in Canada getting one of those Retro Radios that maintain the period look are still very expensive.

So I recall someone saying they installed a small BT amp which is the direction I went towards. I am able to use my radio and pipe music through Bluetooth to my car speakers (OEM). I will never use the radio because there is a lot of static on any FM channels so I wanted to get music playing from my phone. Hope this helps others that maybe looking to do something similar.

I purchased these 2 items:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B074FR4B7H...=UTF8&psc=1

and

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B071YH69GJ...=UTF8&psc=1

which powers the amp. Mounted the amp behind the radio with double sided tape and voila - beautiful sound from my phone.

For $35CDN it's very cost effective.

[pt_700]

could you elaborate a bit for the clueless (like me)?

i gather there are connections for the speakers on the amp. to get started, do you power it up and somehow link your phone and the amp via bluetooth?

have a pic of the installation?

[stickyfingers]

could you elaborate a bit for the clueless (like me)?

i gather there are connections for the speakers on the amp. to get started, do you power it up and somehow link your phone and the amp via bluetooth?

have a pic of the installation?

It was actually very simple. The amp ($25 CDN) has 2 screw downs pins for power which I took using the cigarette lighter adapter ($10 CDN on Amazon as per my links). I cut the + and - wire from the lighter adapter so I could screw in the wires to power the amp. The amp can be powered using 6v upto 47v so thankfully it can handle low and high voltages in case. The amp is left and right speaker screw downs. I spliced the left and the right speaker wires into the amp. Voila. Then use your bluetooth settings and connect to the amp when the key is on. Beautiful sounds from your speakers. See image below for a better look at it:

It also has auxiliary 3.5mm input as well if you want to hook an ipod or another phone rather than bluetooth. This is intelligent enough to decide between BT and 3.5mm inputs. And the connection is immediate. You can also pause and skip songs and change the volume from the board. I just use my phone and hide the amp. I was thinking about hooking up buttons and wiring them but it's not necessary because I wanted to maintain the original look of the interior and not start drilling holes for buttons.

Caveat: I left my stereo in there but I never use it so I actually just remove the speaker wires from it but left them there for easy connection if I ever need to sell the car the new owner wants the radio to play sound through the speakers. The radio powers up. I just don't see a need to connect it. But you could build a Y connected for the speaker wires to go to both the amp and the radio.

I've stuck the amp (it's very small) with 2 sided tape so it's a little challenging to remove and put back but if you really want me to do it I will. lmk otherwise the instructions above are very straight forward.

For the adventurous they can take the power from the radio or another source to power the amp. I just found that I wanted to control the source of the power in case of troubleshooting and the cigarette lighter adapter was a great option for me.

Thanks and lmk if you need further info. For $35 it's a great option.