alex_bell
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Alex
- Joined
- May 8, 2025
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- Location
- Vancouver
- Vehicles
- Taycan 4s
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- #1
Hey folks, as title says I decided to do full Bose -> burmester retrofit. In this post I'll describe steps, show some pics I took during the process. The conversion was done trying to stay as much as possible to factory. That means I used all original connectors, wired +12v to same places as in original factory wiring, etc.
Before I started I actually googled a lot about this type of retrofit but unfortunately there arent that much information. Mostly it's about older Macans, Cayennes and panameras, but not much about taycan. So I started to gather information from parts catalogues, found wiring diagram for Bose and burmester amps, scrolled through thousands of connectors to find matching ones. I decided to split whole process into 3 steps
1. Replace all Bose speakers to burmester
2. Remove component protection from AMP
3. Install missing speakers and rewire amp
1. Replacing all speakers
This was easiest to do. At first I found a guy selling full set of burmester speakers(excluding sub) but when I received them, turned out they from flooded car, so I had to return them because most were in unusable state. Instead I went to eBay to find matching speakers. Here I leaving all part numbers for speakers with breakdown
971035415C(total) - X7 - Midrange speaker, 2 in front doors, 2 rear, 2 rear shelf, 1 dashboard, matching connectors PN - 1J0973119
971035412(total) - X4 - circular tweeters, 2 in rear doors, 2 in rear shelf, Matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1. I didnt find matching VAG PN, so only manufacturer PN available
971035411B - X3 - Tweeter dashboard(sides and center), matching connector PN - 4B0972623
9J1035362 - A pilar surround right , matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1
9J1035361 - A pilar surround left, matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1
971035454F - X2- Woofer front doors, matching connector PN 4e0971942
971035453E - X2 - Woofer rear door, matching connector PN 4e0971942
9J1035223E - Burmester AMP, 4E0971636C - 32 PIN connector, 4G0971636 - 38 PIN connector
9J1035481A - Subwoofer(pay attention to letter A at the end of PN, its the all difference between bose/burmester subs, also make sure you order burmester sub with AMP unit in sub. Its usually sold together, but some sellers might sell separately), sub AMP connector PN - 4F0973712
You will also need A Pillar covers. They all are different PNs depending on upholstery code. In my case its black fabric - so it was PAD867233 6F2 , PAD867234 6F2
I also found speaker covers, they also all different colors, I found brown color and it fitted my black interior very well
Pins - I dont have PN for pins. On some connectors(old vs new) its the same pins, on others its different. In my case I had to made few trips to micro electronics store to find proper connectors, but I think if find original TE spec per each connector you can find matching pins
I started with replacing all speakers I had installed on Bose spec. Started with dash tweeters. I had to make a cut out a circular mount hole for older tweeters, but luckily on dash there's a precut for rectangular tweeters, so just using cut fires you can do that in 30 sec
Then I just added nuts and bolts, replaced connectors and plugged it back. The most complicated part was removing A pillar trims, they have metal clip which is tricky to remove.
Then moved to doors. Nothing too hard. 2 bolts holding door panel, which then slides up. Removed old speakers, replaced connectors and put in new speakers
This part was straightforward but took almost a day since I was first time doing connectors and pins, had to figure out how to remove pins form connectors, use crimping tool, etc
2. Remove component protection from AMP
This step was a bit more complicated. Turned out any taycan amplifier is protected and you need online access to remove component protection(read - make you r car to recognize this new amplifier as the one installed on car. You need someone with Porsche online access to do the job. In theory dealership can do it too, but I never asked. Takes literally 15 minutes to do it. Attention: when you do this, your existing amp won't be working correctly, making it to play only on one side of car(left). In my case I didnt know that and had to drive like that for few days will weekends.
I got myself Rennlist's Porsche Amplifier Wiring Adapter(38 pin) to make a temporary harness to connect new amp to car to remove the component protection. New amp(burmester) has 2 connectors, 38 and 32 pins, and Bose has just 1 of 38 pins. In order to turn AMP on, you need to connect + and - wires on both connectors, otherwise AMP won't turn on. I just added 2 more wires in parallel to my harness(since I didnt intend to play music on it at that time, even thin wires on Rennlist's connector was enough go power it), and then plugged MOST connector.
Then had guy with online remotely to remove component protection and put back old Bose AMP, assembled passengers side back and drove till weekends.
3. Install missing speakers and rewire amp
This part is the most difficult(for me with no experience in such retrofits). At first I wanted to rewire old amp to new to test if the whole idea works(I had no idea if new amp works). As per wiring diagram - new AMP has 2 connectors, where one of connectors has all front speaker connections(+1 rear) and other one all rears.
Started to adding power to new amp. Removed duck tape from around fuse box to see where power comes from(I was also checking wiring diagram and where it's taken from factory). Added new wire, routed it to fuse box(to the exact place where it should be as per wiring diagram, there are 1 50A fuse for Bose, and when adding burmester - next will also be 50A). In the footwell found where to put negative wire.
On photo it looks super messy, but when I duck taped it back it was same as from factory.
Next step turned AMP on and immediately see my PCM changed from Bose to burmester(it was loaded with Bose and then in like 10 seconds changed to burmester)
Next step was to rewire 1 old connector to 2 new connectors. I started to move wires back and forth but made few mistakes and decided to just remove all wires and label them by speaker position and type(front woofer, rear shelf tweeter, etc). It made whole process much simpler and faster. If I'd do it right away I could've save myself at least 4-5 hours of work
After I rewired existing speakers I turned it on to test how/if it plays and it was playing.
Next step were A pillar surround speakers. Car already has bolts, so I just had to use nuts(I think it was m6 or m8) to fix it to car. Then I had to do wiring. Right A pillar was simple, just straight from speaker to AMP, along with other wires. Left side was much trickier. Had to remove some drive side trim to see how can I get my wire to right side. There are plenty of space, but I wanted to do it right, so used few zip ties to tie it to other wiring loom. The central tweeter(it's not present on Bose) was the most difficult. I didnt want to remove dashboard trim so after about 30 mins and back and forth I got my wire.
Next step was - to connect 4 rear shelf speakers. On burmester you need separate channel to shed mid speakers(on Bose they paralleled with rear door woofers). Wasn't hard, just made sure I cut big enough wire to align it with existing wiring looms to make as factory as possible.
Since I was doing rear, I also added 1 wire to trunk which needed for remote control for subwoofer. After that I assembled car back, because I still didnt have subwoofer(ordered one without AMP unit on it so it was useless for me).
Once sub arrived, I removed trunk trim. Same story - added missing power wires to fuse box(as per wiring diagram), added fuses, pinned all new wires into connector and tested it with sub. All seemed to work, so I just had to clean up the wires, attach them to existing wiring looms and call it a day
Summary
After spending few days with burmester I can say I'm happy with outcome. I tested it with other taycan which has Bose music and difference is really noticeable. The sub playing a big less boomy but has sort of deeper feeling. Same as door woofers - they less boomy, but bass feels deeper. Tweeters are super clean, and even at 2 on equalizer, they feel like too much, I might even pull it down to 1.
The car recognized AMP well. After I done the job, I actually changed car configuration that it has burmester instead of Bose, but it wasn't necessary, I just wanted to keep car configuration to match the car.
The budget for this retrofit is following:
Speakers - ~$1300 used
AMP - $500 used
Subfoofer - $500, used
Connectors, pins, wires - $250 new
A Pillar covers - $120 each(new)
Speaker covers - $100 each(for 4 doors) , $50(2) dashboard all used
I wasn't doing it all myself, had my friend to help me(he's mostly doing body works) so I paid him $500 for his help too
Pizza, drinks, etc $100
Overall I'm happy with result and while it took some money & time, it was really interesting project and I spend these days really nice loosing almost 3kilo of weight because in my 9-5 I do software engineering, so moving a lot for few days really helped me
Happy to answer any extra questions
UPD1:
Just figured out I wired rear woofers and midranges incorrectly. On Bose - they connected in parallel, on burmester they are separate channels. I will have to run extra wires to rear doors to correctly connect woofers and redo existing door wiring a bit
UPD2
Added extra wires to run to rear doors, rewired AMP. Turned out on Bose your rear mid speakers arent really working and only there for E-sound option(if specced). If not - it's not there. It's not playing music. On burmester it does, so wiring it correctly will make it to play too. When you have E-Sound - there's weird mid speaker with 2 connectors. Originally I had no idea why its there, but then I understood that ESound goes through separate AMP and connected in parallel to rear mid speaker
Before I started I actually googled a lot about this type of retrofit but unfortunately there arent that much information. Mostly it's about older Macans, Cayennes and panameras, but not much about taycan. So I started to gather information from parts catalogues, found wiring diagram for Bose and burmester amps, scrolled through thousands of connectors to find matching ones. I decided to split whole process into 3 steps
1. Replace all Bose speakers to burmester
2. Remove component protection from AMP
3. Install missing speakers and rewire amp
1. Replacing all speakers
This was easiest to do. At first I found a guy selling full set of burmester speakers(excluding sub) but when I received them, turned out they from flooded car, so I had to return them because most were in unusable state. Instead I went to eBay to find matching speakers. Here I leaving all part numbers for speakers with breakdown
971035415C(total) - X7 - Midrange speaker, 2 in front doors, 2 rear, 2 rear shelf, 1 dashboard, matching connectors PN - 1J0973119
971035412(total) - X4 - circular tweeters, 2 in rear doors, 2 in rear shelf, Matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1. I didnt find matching VAG PN, so only manufacturer PN available
971035411B - X3 - Tweeter dashboard(sides and center), matching connector PN - 4B0972623
9J1035362 - A pilar surround right , matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1
9J1035361 - A pilar surround left, matching connector PN - TE 3-1452577-1
971035454F - X2- Woofer front doors, matching connector PN 4e0971942
971035453E - X2 - Woofer rear door, matching connector PN 4e0971942
9J1035223E - Burmester AMP, 4E0971636C - 32 PIN connector, 4G0971636 - 38 PIN connector
9J1035481A - Subwoofer(pay attention to letter A at the end of PN, its the all difference between bose/burmester subs, also make sure you order burmester sub with AMP unit in sub. Its usually sold together, but some sellers might sell separately), sub AMP connector PN - 4F0973712
You will also need A Pillar covers. They all are different PNs depending on upholstery code. In my case its black fabric - so it was PAD867233 6F2 , PAD867234 6F2
I also found speaker covers, they also all different colors, I found brown color and it fitted my black interior very well
Pins - I dont have PN for pins. On some connectors(old vs new) its the same pins, on others its different. In my case I had to made few trips to micro electronics store to find proper connectors, but I think if find original TE spec per each connector you can find matching pins
I started with replacing all speakers I had installed on Bose spec. Started with dash tweeters. I had to make a cut out a circular mount hole for older tweeters, but luckily on dash there's a precut for rectangular tweeters, so just using cut fires you can do that in 30 sec
Then I just added nuts and bolts, replaced connectors and plugged it back. The most complicated part was removing A pillar trims, they have metal clip which is tricky to remove.
Then moved to doors. Nothing too hard. 2 bolts holding door panel, which then slides up. Removed old speakers, replaced connectors and put in new speakers
This part was straightforward but took almost a day since I was first time doing connectors and pins, had to figure out how to remove pins form connectors, use crimping tool, etc
2. Remove component protection from AMP
This step was a bit more complicated. Turned out any taycan amplifier is protected and you need online access to remove component protection(read - make you r car to recognize this new amplifier as the one installed on car. You need someone with Porsche online access to do the job. In theory dealership can do it too, but I never asked. Takes literally 15 minutes to do it. Attention: when you do this, your existing amp won't be working correctly, making it to play only on one side of car(left). In my case I didnt know that and had to drive like that for few days will weekends.
I got myself Rennlist's Porsche Amplifier Wiring Adapter(38 pin) to make a temporary harness to connect new amp to car to remove the component protection. New amp(burmester) has 2 connectors, 38 and 32 pins, and Bose has just 1 of 38 pins. In order to turn AMP on, you need to connect + and - wires on both connectors, otherwise AMP won't turn on. I just added 2 more wires in parallel to my harness(since I didnt intend to play music on it at that time, even thin wires on Rennlist's connector was enough go power it), and then plugged MOST connector.
Then had guy with online remotely to remove component protection and put back old Bose AMP, assembled passengers side back and drove till weekends.
3. Install missing speakers and rewire amp
This part is the most difficult(for me with no experience in such retrofits). At first I wanted to rewire old amp to new to test if the whole idea works(I had no idea if new amp works). As per wiring diagram - new AMP has 2 connectors, where one of connectors has all front speaker connections(+1 rear) and other one all rears.
Started to adding power to new amp. Removed duck tape from around fuse box to see where power comes from(I was also checking wiring diagram and where it's taken from factory). Added new wire, routed it to fuse box(to the exact place where it should be as per wiring diagram, there are 1 50A fuse for Bose, and when adding burmester - next will also be 50A). In the footwell found where to put negative wire.
On photo it looks super messy, but when I duck taped it back it was same as from factory.
Next step turned AMP on and immediately see my PCM changed from Bose to burmester(it was loaded with Bose and then in like 10 seconds changed to burmester)
Next step was to rewire 1 old connector to 2 new connectors. I started to move wires back and forth but made few mistakes and decided to just remove all wires and label them by speaker position and type(front woofer, rear shelf tweeter, etc). It made whole process much simpler and faster. If I'd do it right away I could've save myself at least 4-5 hours of work
After I rewired existing speakers I turned it on to test how/if it plays and it was playing.
Next step were A pillar surround speakers. Car already has bolts, so I just had to use nuts(I think it was m6 or m8) to fix it to car. Then I had to do wiring. Right A pillar was simple, just straight from speaker to AMP, along with other wires. Left side was much trickier. Had to remove some drive side trim to see how can I get my wire to right side. There are plenty of space, but I wanted to do it right, so used few zip ties to tie it to other wiring loom. The central tweeter(it's not present on Bose) was the most difficult. I didnt want to remove dashboard trim so after about 30 mins and back and forth I got my wire.
Next step was - to connect 4 rear shelf speakers. On burmester you need separate channel to shed mid speakers(on Bose they paralleled with rear door woofers). Wasn't hard, just made sure I cut big enough wire to align it with existing wiring looms to make as factory as possible.
Since I was doing rear, I also added 1 wire to trunk which needed for remote control for subwoofer. After that I assembled car back, because I still didnt have subwoofer(ordered one without AMP unit on it so it was useless for me).
Once sub arrived, I removed trunk trim. Same story - added missing power wires to fuse box(as per wiring diagram), added fuses, pinned all new wires into connector and tested it with sub. All seemed to work, so I just had to clean up the wires, attach them to existing wiring looms and call it a day
Summary
After spending few days with burmester I can say I'm happy with outcome. I tested it with other taycan which has Bose music and difference is really noticeable. The sub playing a big less boomy but has sort of deeper feeling. Same as door woofers - they less boomy, but bass feels deeper. Tweeters are super clean, and even at 2 on equalizer, they feel like too much, I might even pull it down to 1.
The car recognized AMP well. After I done the job, I actually changed car configuration that it has burmester instead of Bose, but it wasn't necessary, I just wanted to keep car configuration to match the car.
The budget for this retrofit is following:
Speakers - ~$1300 used
AMP - $500 used
Subfoofer - $500, used
Connectors, pins, wires - $250 new
A Pillar covers - $120 each(new)
Speaker covers - $100 each(for 4 doors) , $50(2) dashboard all used
I wasn't doing it all myself, had my friend to help me(he's mostly doing body works) so I paid him $500 for his help too
Pizza, drinks, etc $100
Overall I'm happy with result and while it took some money & time, it was really interesting project and I spend these days really nice loosing almost 3kilo of weight because in my 9-5 I do software engineering, so moving a lot for few days really helped me
Happy to answer any extra questions
UPD1:
Just figured out I wired rear woofers and midranges incorrectly. On Bose - they connected in parallel, on burmester they are separate channels. I will have to run extra wires to rear doors to correctly connect woofers and redo existing door wiring a bit
UPD2
Added extra wires to run to rear doors, rewired AMP. Turned out on Bose your rear mid speakers arent really working and only there for E-sound option(if specced). If not - it's not there. It's not playing music. On burmester it does, so wiring it correctly will make it to play too. When you have E-Sound - there's weird mid speaker with 2 connectors. Originally I had no idea why its there, but then I understood that ESound goes through separate AMP and connected in parallel to rear mid speaker
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Last edited:
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