parrot bt with oem deck and amp

I am considering getting a Parrot BT system for my car, probably the ck3100. I have the OEM head unit and am using a LOC to run an amp for all of my speakers. I see the Parrot instructions call for wiring the Parrot unit between the amp and the speakers but since I am using the OEM deck could I just use the mute and run the parrot box between the OEM HU and the LOC?

Parrot devices are not designed to handle the extra current of an amplifier. You will need to use the mute output to trigger a transistor to then trigger the relay to interrupt your Amplifier remote turn on lead. Then you will need to find somewhere to install a speaker under the dash so you can hear the Phone. Have you thought about replacing the deck with a BT head unit? Some cars this can be done for around the same money as a parrot.

I don't even want to consider swapping the OEM deck out, I want to retain the factory look of the car and the radio is pretty much a piece of the dash. I have yet to see a kit that makes adding an aftermearket deck look even remotely stock.

Parrot says to install their system inline between the amp and speaker, what I am guessing is that the the mute signal would shut down the amp and the internal amp of the parrot system would send the sound to the front speakers. Since I am retaining the OEM deck and using a LOC to get the signal to my amps then I should be able to run the parrot system between the radio and the LOC. So what I am thinking is that the mute will kill the speaker level signals going from the radio to the LOC, then the speaker level audio would kick in going from the internal amp in the parrot unit to the LOC which would continue to do what it always does and convert a hi level signal to a low level signal for the amp to put the sound out through my speakers.

hi,
a problem you might have is with the rear speakers. the parrot kit isolates and supplies a + and - for each of the front channels. however on the rear channels, it isolates the + leaving the - connected. you may get noise on the rear channels when the parrot kit is playing audio because of this. there is a solution for this issue however.
mark

Ween]h wrote:

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,
a problem you might have is with the rear speakers. the parrot kit isolates and supplies a + and - for each of the front channels. however on the rear channels, it isolates the + leaving the - connected. you may get noise on the rear channels when the parrot kit is playing audio because of this. there is a solution for this issue however.
mark

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Would the solution involve using relays to kill the - on the rear speakers? For the time being I do have the rear speakers hooked up but they are feeding off of the radio, the amplifier only powers the 2 speakers in the dash, the 2 front door speakers, and the sub. I guess I could try it out and if I do get noise out the back speakers I could just disconnect them from the system completely or do whatever workaround that would be necessary to make sure I do not get any noise from them.

The Parrot Mutes ALL 4 speakers and only plays audio to the front 2. If you have more speakers or a sub then you need to use the yellow mute wire to a relay to kill either the ignition to the radio or the amp turn on wire. You can NOT do this with a standard bosch relay though. you need to use a radio shack part 275-0218 spdt plug-in relay . It has a lower pull-in voltage sensitivity than the standard relay and interfaces very well.. We do about 8 Parrot kits a week at my shop and have to use the relay to kill an amp on at least 3 of those... It works..

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Gary Sather

So what I would do is use the mute to trip the relay killing the remote to the amp, then I would tap the speaker wires from the parrot unit into the speaker wires going to the front speakers correct? Pretty much when a call came through the parrot would cut the amp and the Parrot unit would become the amp sending power to the speakers, right?

A question, under normal operation while the amp is powering the speakers wouldn't the amp be sending power into the parrot unit? Would I need to use a diode to keep the amp power from feeding into the parrot unit?

Also would hooking the parrot wires inline with the speaker wires will this affect the impendance the amp is seeing for that set of speakers?

Ok. you have 2 sets of wires from the Parrot. One is speaker wires in and the other is out. PLUS a power ground and ignition wire and a mute wire. You CUT the speaker wires behind the radio. the in side from the parrot goes to the wires going to the back of the radio. the out side wires go towards the speakers. Then Tap the power ground and ignition wires, and it should all work great without a relay unless you have extra speakers. Center channel sub etc. If this is the case when the parrot kicks in it mutes everything but you will still here the radio in those extra speakers. if so then you will have to use the relay and use the mute wire which is a - to trip the relay and cut either the ignition to the radio OR the turn or to the amp. either one will work. everything else stays the same....

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Gary Sather

Here is how everything is set up now

Front speaker wires from OEM deck go to a LOC. From there the RCA's go to my amp's Front inputs and speaker wires come back to hit the 6" speakers in the doors and the 3.5's in the dash.

Rear speaker wires from the OEM deck go to a seperate LOC. From there RCA's go to the Rear input of the amp witch is bridged to the sub.

My OEM deck has a mute wire going into the radio, well atleast the wiring diagram shows a mute wire going into it.

The way I am understanding all of this is I should be able to hook the mute from the parrot unit into the OEM deck mute wire, when a call comes in it should mute the sound coming out of the OEM deck. I cut the front speaker wires and go from the OEM deck to the parrot unit, then the output wires from the parrot unit would go to my LOC. If the OEM deck's mute input works I should be in business at that point as it would mute all sound to all of the speakers and the parrot unit would output the call to the LOC which would then put the sound through my amp and back to my front speakers.

ETA: Based on this https://www.carxtc.com/servlet/the-20959/Nissan,-ALTIMA,-08,-2008,/Detail

the brown wire is a phone mute.

Then the input and output wires of the Parrot wire between the deck and the loc(s) and you can just tap the yellow mute wire to the decks mute input if it works. and still tap power ground and ignition. the male plug on the parrot is the input side which wires to the wires coming out of the deck and the female plug is the output side which goes to the wires headed towards the loc(s). do NOT tap these. the wires between the deck and the loc(s) need to be cut and the parrot wired in line.

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Gary Sather

So I am pretty much looking at about 8 or so wires to hook it all up.

Don't plan on tapping the wires, I bought a normal harness and a reverse harness when I installed the LOC's so that I did not have to tap or cut wires pretty much making the install of the 2 LOC's plug and play. I would just have to take that out the car, reconfigure the front wires to include the parrot wires and put it back together.

Hopefully the mute input to the radio works.

After looking at all of the schematics I can find on the parrot units it seems the parrot box has 3 mute wires coming out of it, am I correct in assuming that they all do the same thing(one might be + trigger, one - trigger, ect.) and I just need to use the one that will make my stereo mute.

Sorry for this late reply, the yellow wire is the Parrot's mute output, the others are different positions for the mute on OEM ISO European radios, e.g. Benz or VW-Audi, they all have the mute at different positions on the ISO power plug.
There are two ways to do this.
Just plug the Parrot mute wire into your head unit and connect to front speaker wires, the backs will automatically mute.
Ignore the speakers, simply mute the head unit and use an old Nokia or Motorola speaker in the dash.
Wiring between the h/unit and the LOC will cause lots of grief, the gain might blow your speakers + lots of noise.


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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

howie ll wrote:

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Just plug the Parrot mute wire into your head unit and connect to front speaker wires, the backs will automatically mute.

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So with this method I would just run the speaker wires off of the parrot unit directly to the back of the speakers?

Considering under normal operation the speakers would be recieving power from an amplifier would I need to use diods in the parrots speaker wires to prevent the amplified signal from running back to the parrot unit?

No, use the reverse harness to break the front speaker wires.
The mute wire will silence all 4 pairs of speaker wires.
See diagram:-parrot.bmp

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.

Following that diagram I would be sending the signal from the amplifier to the parrot, then from the parrot out to the speakers correct?

Will the parrot unit be able to handle the current coming in from the amp??

Yes, think it through, the amplified output goes straight through the Parrot black junction box, a straight line to the signal path. It only triggers the switching relays during a call, hell I spent hours wiring up 4 pole CO relays to do this with Nokias, Motos etc. in the good old days.
Here's a work around if you DO (unlikely) get any amp induced rear speaker noise:-parrot_2.bmp
You're simply cutting the trigger wire from the H/unit to the amp, hence "turning" off the amp during a call.
You can use a standard Bosch/Tycho automotive relay or a SPCO mini PCB relay from R/Shack etc. only about 200milliamps power.

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Amateurs assume, don't test and have problems; pros test first. I am not a free install service.
Read the installation manual, do a search here or online for your vehicle wiring before posting.