Ok, this is the details of my wiring for a 2000 Golf. It should also work on Beetle and Jetta of the same era. 2002 up I believe that details are different so check.

I decided to keep my stock (non-monsoon) HU in place for now as I can't justify the expense of an external amp at the moment, and replacing it with another tape/radio or cd/radio seemed kinda pointless.

There are 2 options, build a separate harness between the car's loom and the Empeg harness, or bastardise the Empeg harness. I'll cover both. I did the second because I was having trouble finding one of the connectors, I was impatient to use my Empeg properly, I intend to keep my golf a while, and I studied electronics so I'm comfortable about working this stuff out and soldering.

In order to use the stock HU's CD input, you will need to buy a Blitzsafe 'VW Aux In' adapter. It's hard to find, but can be ordered direct from Blitzsafe for $108 including overnight shipping. (Wish it was cheaper, but it works). You will also need to visit RatShack and buy 2 male-male RCA connectors, as both the Empeg sled and the Blitzsafe adapter are female.
If you have a monsoon, you may want to use the Stock HU->Empeg->Monsoon Amp which avoids the need for this adapter, but I'd recommend searching for information from other Monsoon owners before doing this.

Option 1: Separate Loom - Recommended
Buy Metra or Scosche wiring harnesses. You need the one that plugs into the VW wiring loom that is fairly easy to find (Metra 70-1784, Scosche VW-01B) and the reverse harness that is a bitch to find that plugs into the stock HU. (Metra 71-1784, Scosche VW-01R.) Ok, in checking the Metra Number, I've just found a source for it http://www.audioonlineoutlet.com/harness.html
I suggest keeping to either Metra or Scosche and not mixing them as they should have consistent wire colors this way.
Monsoon owners should probably find out why Scoshe do a Monsoon version of the wiring harness and what the differences are before trusting these part numbers.

Now match the wires on the Empeg supplied connector to the wires on these connectors according to the wiring chart that should be provided, and solder the connections accordingly, (remembering to slip heatshrink over one of the wires before soldering).
Do NOT connect the Empeg's blue wire (Remote Amp turn on) to the loom. Do connect this Remote Amp turn on wire between the 2 Scoshe/Metra connectors, but do not attach the Empeg's wire. VW do not use Remote Amp turn on, but reassigned that wire for ECM<->stock HU communications.
Note that the main VW loom does not have a telephone mute connection, so you may as well just tape the Empegs green wire out of the way too.
When soldering the ground wire, you also need to connect the Blitzsafe adapters ground wire. What you should end up with is a 4-way loom that is 'straight-through' between the 2 Scosche/Metra connectors, with 4 wires (yellow, orange, black and white) of the Empeg connector joined to the appropiate wires, and the Blitzsafe ground wire connected to ground. Wrap each 'leg' of your new harness with electrical tape to make install easier and neater.

You probably also want to *carefully* trim back the heatshrink on the Blitzsafe adapter at the HU end so that it will flex at this point.

I'm going to put Option 2 in a reply to this post later as my toddler has just woken up and is moaning at me!

This is nice regarding the wiring, the Blitzsafe adapter is a good thing to note.

But what about fitting the empeg in the dash at the same time as the stock head unit? Where is it going?

We want pictures.

2000 golf is a double din

I wish I could have found that adaptor when I installed mine then I could have avoided buying a new head unit (which is ugly ! clarion DXZ615)

Option2: Bastardise the Empeg harness.

Ok, I'm not going to recommend this, even though it works very nicely for the following reasons:
1. Invalidation of sled warranty.
2. It's more complicated than option 1.
3. If you change cars you will have undo your work.
4. It wont be my fault if you screw up

Firstly, Read option 1, as it'll help you to understand some of these instructions better...
Draw a diagram outlining the Empeg loom before you start, describe the changes made and the end result. Put it somewhere safe (like with you Empeg's receipt and book). This will help you if you change cars and have to reverse the mods at a later date. Don't assume that this forum will be here forever to help you out. Yeah, I know it probably will, but I'm CMA.

Ok, we're going to plug the Empeg harness directly into the VW wiring loom, and attach the empeg-supplied pigtail to the loom to connect to the stock HU. Do not plug the harness into the VW loom without these mods as Bad Things(tm) may happen. (Or may not....but I wasn't about to experiment!)

First step. Find and unbend a paperclip. You need to swap the yellow (constant 12V) and orange wires (ignition) in *both* connectors. This is because VW have them reversed in the main loom. (In option 1, the aftermarket connectors would have been colored and labelled correctly so this step gets worked out when the wires got matched up).

The second thing to do is to fix that blue wire issue. Layout the loom so that the sled->connector wires are horizontal, and the tuner connector bundle is vertical.

You will note that there is one blue wire running from sled to connector, and one from main connector to tuner connector. ie, 2 wires coming from the main connector, and then one separates and goes north (or south) to the tuner connector. Cut both at the point where they separate - which is about 2 inches out from the main connector. *Carefully* snip one of the blue wire stubs from the connector. You still need one.
Now solder the sleds blue wire to the tuner connectors blue wire (don't forget the heatshrink). This will enable the Empeg to power the tuner module (should we ever be able to get them!).
The remaining blue stub gets soldered to the blue wire on the supplied pigtail where it passes ECM->HU information completely unneeded by the Empeg, but required for the stock HU to work.

Step 3.
I mentioned earlier that the VW loom doesn't have a telephone mute wire. We're going to use this to our advantage. The stock HU needs another signal that isn't connected in the Empeg harness and supplied pigtail connector. As supplied both connectors are 2 wires over 4 wires. Using your trusty paper clip, remove the green wire from *both* connectors, and re-insert it next to the blue wire so the connectors are now 3 wires directly over 3. Be careful removing the green wire, as it is thin and breaks from the connector pin easily (although it can be resoldered - trust me). On the harness, cut the green wire at about the same distance out from the main connector as we cut the blue wires, and solder it to the pigtail connectors green wire. Tape the end of the remaining green wire hanging off the sled - we have no further use for it.

Ok, that's the complicated stuff done. All that remains now is relatively simple.
Cut the remaining wires (yellow, orange, black and white) and splice them back together along with the pigtail wires. If you make the cuts at the same distance from the main connector as the previous cuts, the loom will end up being neater. Remember to add in the Blitzsafe ground wire to the black splice, and don't forget the heatshrink!

Finally, hairdry the heatshrink. and then wrap the various legs of the loom with electrical tape to make installation easier and neater. Oh, and don't forget to store that diagram safely.

genixia, I have a few questions about your install as I'm about to install my empeg in my 2000 Golf and alter the install in my Corolla to a similar setup.

In both cases the I'll be using the existing OEM headunit and a PIE CD changer adaptor, and tapping the ISO adaptor into the OEM harness (reversing the yellow & orange wires) in order to leech power & signals for the empeg.

Can you see a reason why this would not work? The reason I ask is because it differs greatly from the thinking behind how you approached your and I'm and wondering what your reasoning behind doing it that way was.

Thanks.

I'm not totally sure whether I'm understanding your proposed method.

The PIE CD changer adapter may or may not work. I don't know. The VW stock radio needs to think that a CD changer is installed before it will allow you to switch to the CD input. It finds out by sending a serial line command to the changer, and waiting for the changer to reply. I'm not sure if the PIE adaptor deals with this directly, or relies on the Panasonic CD changer as well. I'd bet on the second though which would mean that it won't work without the changer being attached. I know that some people on the vortex have actually used this method to get an Aux In, and if you already have the changer sitting there doing nothing then it has some merit.
Otherwise it's better to go with the blitzsafe adapter IMO, now available from www.rcainput.com for about half of what I paid ( )
As for leeching signals, if by 'the OEM harness' you mean the car's harness, then I'd recommend against it. VWs (and most cars today) use highly integrated looms and they are very pricey (~$2.5k IIRC). Better to solder/tap something that plugs into that loom rather than the loom itself.

Maybe we should get together for a beer soon.

Beer is always good. Maybe we can convince Matt to organise another meet.

Unfortunely the blitzsafe adapter is priced at $98.95 from rcainput and everywhere else is seems, and as I'm buying two I went with the PIE for $69. Based on the description & pictures it appears to be the same thing.
I'll know more tomorrow when it arrives, and I'll test it with a walkman or some other sound source. Fingers crossed.

I'll print out your option two, and sit out in the car with the sled and stare at all the wires, maybe then I'll figure out how it is you did it.
While I'd really prefer to do option one, I've been unable to source the into radio Metra/Scosche wiring harness, hmmmm maybe a trip to the junkyard is in order....

I've never seen that particular PIE interface before, only the CD changer interface that's designed to mate 3rd party CD changers to the stock stereo. The interface that you've just linked should work fine - it looks like it is designed to do exactly the same thing as the blitzsafe.

Yeah, I did option 2 for exactly the same reason. BTW, it is a PITA to get everything in there and all the wires hooked up. It's far less frustrating to remove the whole center console, although it's a little time consuming.

I've only had the car for a month and you want my to rip it apart???

Sounds good to me!
I'll post about the PIE interface tomorrow/thursday and later about the wiring.

wiring adaptors.....lots of them

Thanks to genixia for the above instructions.
I went with option one as option two utterly confused me, and I was orignally planning on tapping directly into the car harness for the needed signals. Thankfully genexia slapped me around and made me cop on.

I sourced the two harness from Ebay user stereoinstallparts for less then $20 shipped.
The auxiliary input converter came from Logjam Electronics for $76 shipped.
A quick visit to RadioShack for some connectors, heat shrink and RCA male-male connectors, and some time at the kitchen table, and I had a nice rats nest of wires that actually did something useful.
Do pay attention to which connectors go where on the back of the radio, I didn't and had to dig out the info.
And do have the radio code handy, it probably in your glovebox, or else you'll have to drop by your friendly dealership.

The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the rats nest in behind the radio and empeg sled, espically the converter, but there is some space below and also to the right.
And "hey presto" I've now got music!

I still need to replace the lense with a clear and add add this filter, hopefully it will be close enough for goverment work.
And I need to fix the fascia blockage.

This is probably one of the easiest ways of adding an empeg to any car if you can source the relevent aux adaptor to fool your head unit and have a free DIN slot.
I'll be re-doing my '97 Corolla this way once I find a Toyota head unit with CD changer controls on Ebay.

Hi

I am new to Empeg and will soon be installing one in a MkIV Golf with stock Gamma HU. I will use a cd emulator for aux in as suggested.

One thing - since this will be just an audio connection, I assume the Empeg will have no way of knowing to pause when the HU is in radio/cassette/traffic report mode like the VW cd player does (I assume the serial data line tells the CD to pause).

Has anyone found a way around this ?

Thanks.

I do not know what features your Aux-in adapter gives you.

If the aux-in adapter does not put out a signal line specifically for this purpose, then you might be out of luck.

However, if the adapter *does* have a signal line that goes high when the "CD Changer" option is selected on the stock head unit, then yes, you're golden, just hook that up to the ignition-sense line on the empeg (instead of hooking the real ignition-sense line to the empeg) and you should be good to go. Make sure the yellow (constant power) line on the empeg is still connected to the car's constant power line of course.

Another option would be to use the empeg's phone mute line for this feature. There are some configuration tricks that will allow the empeg to pause when its phone mute line goes either high or low.

Thanks that's a great idea. I have surfed around and can't see any units which offer this feature, but the one I have ordered has a multi-pin connctor labelled 'not used' so I'll get the multimeter on those pins when it comes.

Hm, wouldn't that remove the power to the player when the other HU turns on? Cycling the power that often seems detrimental.

I don't think so. Can you be more specific?

"Ignition sense" = switched 12v, right? So, if a special wire gets power when the "CD changer" is selected, and that's hooked up to the switched 12v, then the empeg will only have power when the CD changer is selected. So, switching between empeg and another source will cut power to the empeg. Right?

Seems detrimental to the empeg to cut power, especially if you're just flipping to the radio to hear the traffic for a few minutes, then flipping back to the empeg. I have my source switcher set to always give empeg the power but yank power to the low end Alpine headunit which I use for radio and CD. In order to switch to the Alpine, I have to put the empeg in standby, which effectively pauses it, which is the goal if the above question. I wonder if that would work.

The empeg would still have power from the 12v constant wire. The ignition sense wire just puts it in and out of standby mode. Pretty much exactly what he wants.

... if he sets the standby timeout to a large value, that is.

Exactly right. Sadly, the aux adapter arrived and I can't find any signal that goes high when the CD input is selected on the HU. Oh well, I don't even have my unit yet, I'll just see how it works in reality. Thanks everyone.

If anyone knows of an alternative aux adapter with the required signalling, please let me know.