Pardon me for not being very "radio-active" but, like many others, I'm looking to upgrade the Bose system. I have two primary objectives. First, I'm just looking for solid, good quality sound--nothing competitive. Second, I'm wanting to upgrade in phases so as not to break the bank.

Would this be a viable approach (in this order)?
1. Replace the front speakers (mids and tweets)--but still use the factory amp. I've heard there may be issues with ohm ratings but if the replacement speakers were fairly efficient, would this work okay for a while? BTW, what actually happens if you replace the factory speakers with aftermarkets of a different rating? Is there distortion? Are they not as loud? Can it damage the speakers and/or amp?

2. Place a Soundgate LOCB right after the head unit and add a 2ch amp to drive just the front speakers. The rear fills and subs would continue to run off of the factory amp. This may be a stupid question, but does anyone know if the front channels on the Bose could be bridged to provide more power to the subs?

3. Add a Basslink sub (disconnect factory subs) and leave the Bose amp to drive the rear fills only.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

 

There have been many posts about
1. changing door speakers,
2. using an LOC, and
3. Basslink

do a search, (or several), for pete's sake.

"God, Schmod, I want my monkey man!!"
------
Craig Ramseur
03.5 G35C/BlkOb/
Graphite/5AT/Bose/Alpine/17"
Z-Xtreme Grounding/Alum Pedals
vroom vroom

 

i would suggest you to save your money and do it everything at once as this will be more convenience. If all else, you can perform step one and two at the same time and leave the basslink later.

g35mt

 

Yea, steps one and two should be done together. There is really no point in changing out the stock speakers with the stock amp. It will still sound like crap so save your time and money for now. The basslink can be done at anytime so dont worry about that.

 

hmm...this is what i've done so far...not really trying to suggest it but its doing good for me for now, i have a 5ch amp running to my stock bose speakers i.e. front door & rear side panels and then i removed my rear deck speakers to vent through my 12" (sealed) sub off my sub channel, i bypassed/removed my bose amp completely and it sounds pretty damn good everyone around me loves it and they can't believe i'm using the stock bose speakers...but i do plan on replacing them in the near future, this is just a temporary solution...i would maybe suggest buying them piece by piece until you have all the parts then get it all installed at the same time...quick question, just curious whats your budget like if you had to buy all the parts right now? so i can try and suggest a good budget system maybe

John H.
2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe 5AT-Ivory Pearl-Premium Pkg-Performance Pkg.

 

I did the reverse of what everyone is suggesting. I changed my door speakers first. The improvement was great (I used the Bose tweeter feed into a passive crossover which fed Alpine SPX components).

I then added a Basslink. Now I'm going to switch the amp and rear arm speakers and disconnect the 6x9's.

I'm doing the work myself, and might not have to do the amp/rear spkrs, except for my perfectionist/compulsive tendencies. There was a SIGNIFICANT improvement with just the door spkrs and the Basslink.

BTW I'm putting Focals in the door and moving the Alpines to the rear arms. The Alpines sound goo, but there is a drop at about 1kz which is annoying the hell out of me. Looks like it has to do with the nature of the crossover.

"God, Schmod, I want my monkey man!!"
------
Craig Ramseur
03.5 G35C/BlkOb/
Graphite/5AT/Bose/Alpine/17"
Z-Xtreme Grounding/Alum Pedals
vroom vroom

 

Do not know what your budget is, but I did mine each in pieces. The first piece was just MBQuart QSD up front. The sound was better, but not much. Then added a JL 300/2 amp. Whole new ballgame. Highly recommend doing the speaker upgrade with the amp, whichever speaker/amp combo you choose. It is like night and day differnence. Next, I did 2 Kappa Pefect 12DVQ with 2 MRD 500 amps in a custom box in trunk while removing the 6x9 speakers to vent sound into the cabin. This made another huge difference, but lead to me having to get two dynamat bulk extreme kits for deading. This also made a huge improvement. Next came BA 6.5 ProSeries for rear. I went BA because their midbass is better than the MBQuart and I wanted more midbass. This was paired with a MRD-F540. This really completed the system. My last step (coming up soon) will be either the DD swap and the 9815 HU with a hard drive unit. Or, if I can't do the DD without losing my Dual Climate Control, I will put the DVA-7996 below the current stock HU and have CD/DVD/MP3 player. A DVD can hold 1000 MP3's . Plus the DVA will integrate nicely with the stock navigation and the tv-tuner upgrade mentioned elsewhere and it can be adapted for steering wheel controls.

Doing it in pieces worked great for me and my current system sounds very nice and is very unobtrusive.

I hope there are not to many spelling errors, but this is way to long to read through and check

Pics so far http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290936425

 

Thanks for the replies everyone. A friend of mine has been recommending CDT components (CL-61). I'm skeptical, though, because the price ($150 at thezeb.com) just seems too good to be true. Yeah, I know price doesn't alway equate to quality (can you say "Bose"?)--but I hadn't even heard of CDT before. I have checked around the net and it have found quite a lot of positive reviews, though.

Anyway, he installed them in his brother's car and said they sounded great (not sure what they were connected to). In fact, he ordered a pair to replace the stocks in his wife's car. He offered to let me install them in my G first and, if I like them, just keep them and order him some new ones--I guess I have nothing to lose so I'll give it a shot.

I'll probably have to wait until after Christmas for a new amp (or maybe suggest it to my wife as a gift idea). If I don't like the CDTs, I guess I'll save some $ until I can get the speakers and amp together since that seems to be the consensus here.

Since I'm going to audition the CDTs, I have an installation question about the speaker wires in the door. Is the signal going to the midbass and the tweets the same? I know the factory tweets have the capacitor but does the midbass receive the full signal? I guess the real question is, do I connect the midbass feed to the xover, then on to the new speakers? I just want to make sure the signal I use doesn't already have the highs removed.

Again, thanks for your help.