CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[Curt Palme]

OK here's one for you guys. I put an aftermarket stereo into my Mazda3 and shortly thereafter, the Bluetooth cell reception stopped working via the speakers. It was strange, using the Bluetooth function to play MP3s and to stream audio was just fine from my Iphone, but incoming calls would mute the audio of the stock deck, but the incoming cellular audio was VERY quiet.

I'm using a speaker to line level converter off ebay that works fine, the stock deck doesn't have line outs of course, and then I go to a crossover/eq and out to two amps.

So I futzed around with it, and ended up taking it to Mazda. They took a look at it and talked with Toronto head office, and told me that they couldn't work on it until I took out the aftermarket stuff behind the dash. I cursed and swore a bit (inside voice), but booked it in again on Monday as I wanted this all working before I went to LA with the car.

So I take out the line level adapter which plugs in, so the stock wiring harness remained stock, and fired up the deck. The damn bluetooth worked.

I put in the line level adapter again, and it went quiet again. Back to stock. Works fine.

Now, in this aftermarket wiring harness which taps off the speaker lines to go to an isolation transformer, then down to line level via a resistor pad, I cut the outgoing speaker wires from the stock deck, as I fed the speaker output of my aftermarket amps to the stock speakers and wiring.

Once I played with it a bit, and grabbed a test speaker from my bench to check levels, etc, I figured it out.

Hint: I blew nothing up, nothing was defective.

Why did I lose the bluetooth function when I put my aftermarket amps and speaker to line level adapter in?

I need to tell Mazda about this, as I'm sure someone will do it other than me.

[Curt Palme]

OK here's one for you guys. I put an aftermarket stereo into my Mazda3 and shortly thereafter, the Bluetooth cell reception stopped working via the speakers. It was strange, using the Bluetooth function to play MP3s and to stream audio was just fine from my Iphone, but incoming calls would mute the audio of the stock deck, but the incoming cellular audio was VERY quiet.

I'm using a speaker to line level converter off ebay that works fine, the stock deck doesn't have line outs of course, and then I go to a crossover/eq and out to two amps.

So I futzed around with it, and ended up taking it to Mazda. They took a look at it and talked with Toronto head office, and told me that they couldn't work on it until I took out the aftermarket stuff behind the dash. I cursed and swore a bit (inside voice), but booked it in again on Monday as I wanted this all working before I went to LA with the car.

So I take out the line level adapter which plugs in, so the stock wiring harness remained stock, and fired up the deck. The damn bluetooth worked.

I put in the line level adapter again, and it went quiet again. Back to stock. Works fine.

Now, in this aftermarket wiring harness which taps off the speaker lines to go to an isolation transformer, then down to line level via a resistor pad, I cut the outgoing speaker wires from the stock deck, as I fed the speaker output of my aftermarket amps to the stock speakers and wiring.

Once I played with it a bit, and grabbed a test speaker from my bench to check levels, etc, I figured it out.

Hint: I blew nothing up, nothing was defective.

Why did I lose the bluetooth function when I put my aftermarket amps and speaker to line level adapter in?

I need to tell Mazda about this, as I'm sure someone will do it other than me.

[barclay66]

Hi,

The speaker output cables on the stock wiring harness are at the same time being used as the bluetooth antenna or they are carrying the power for it?

Regards,
barclay66

[Nashou66]

iso transformer was the issue?

[Curt Palme]

No, but it made sense once I found it. Turns out that for the Bluetooth phone function only. it only comes through the front speakers. While I ran front and rear RCA cables to the back, apparently I swapped the main amp feed to the rear speakers, losing my phone function. Go figure. I could have sworn that the head unit was bad...

[Curt Palme]

No, but it made sense once I found it. Turns out that for the Bluetooth phone function only. it only comes through the front speakers. While I ran front and rear RCA cables to the back, apparently I swapped the main amp feed to the rear speakers, losing my phone function. Go figure. I could have sworn that the head unit was bad...