2009 Accord Head Unit Upgrade

Hi All,

I've picked myself up a 2009 Accord Euro and I'm trying to upgrade the factory stereo to something more functional - in this case a pioneer Android Auto head unit.

I've already got the dash apart and installed a fascia kit, but the problem is that this one appears to have a factory amplifier (premium audio option, I think) and the line-level audio is on a separate connector - the smaller of the two dark grey ones in the pictures attached.

So my understanding is that I need to connect line-level output from the head unit to this smaller connector, and also connect a power on signal. Can I do this without cutting into the factory leads? Is there an adaptor/harness that I can buy? Am I totally wrong so far?

None of the car audio stores near me have been particularly helpful. I've searched this forum and done some pretty thorough googling and all I can really find is the opposite scenario - people using aftermarket amplifiers with the stock head unit, rather than an aftermarket head unit with the stock amp.

If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated.

Pics of the connectors are attached:
Attachment 29469Attachment 29470

Thanks!

Does this look similar?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/like/2006...&ul_noapp=true

Hi Dr Frakenstien, just encountered the same issue - did you get around it and how. Some car audio guys want to install a new amp but there must be a solution.

Hi Dr Frakenstien, just encountered the same issue - did you get around it and how. Some car audio guys want to install a new amp but there must be a solution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Honda60

Hi Dr Frakenstien, just encountered the same issue - did you get around it and how. Some car audio guys want to install a new amp but there must be a solution.

---

Hi - unfortunately no. I wasn't able to get the factory amp working with the pioneer unit. I actually did manage to get audio from the new head unit coming out of the speakers (had both the new unit and the factory unit wired in at the same time - should have taken pictures because it was a ridiculous mess of wiring) but basically the amp volume was being digitally set by the factory stereo and when it was unplugged the amp would reset to 0 volume. Not useful.

At that point I got really frustrated and just replaced the amp with a new one.

It works great now, but I'm still annoyed that a perfectly good amp had to by bypassed just because it would only talk to the factory radio :(

Sounds like the amp volume is being controlled by the ie-bus.

A hardware mod to the amp should be possible to fix the volume level to a specified level. I suspect there would be a digitally controlled potentiometer (one per channel) that might be able to be bypassed/replaced with a resister.