I have the Premium Bose Package in my car, however I'm getting a 10" JL 10w3 installed. Now i'm wondering what you guys do about all that bass. I was going for a strong more acoustic bass rather than bass you can hear me down the street. Since i'm not upgrading the stock speakers should I not keep the Bose sub in there? I know its weak but its still better than nothing and thinking that with the JL sub would be just too much and all I'd hear is bass and I thought the Bose sub may disrupt the clean hitting JL.

What do you guys do about the stock sub? Just leave it in and if so, what are your adjustments on the stock head unit to make it sound good? Thanks.

'04.5 Coupe 5AT
D. Graphite/Graphite | Premium | Splash | Clears | Drilled Pedals | 35% TINT | Z-Tube Waiting to be Installed.

 

i would just put the bass down on your HU and increase the gain on your amp...

04 / BO / G / aero / splash / prem / perf / cc / 22%tint
z-tube / k&n drop-in / Eclipse AVN / side-blinker mod

 

Yeah, I'm thinking of doing the same thing (adding a sub) and taking it from there if it sounds bad with the bose. I'd agree and say turn the bass on the bose down a little or maybe even remove the rear deck subs, it will allow the bass from the trunk to travel better into the cabin that way.

6MT DG/DG, aero, nav, premium = hotness
North Jersey

 

Having a lot capacity to produce bass doesn't automatically mean you will be overwhelmed with bass. It's simply a matter of adjusting and tuning the system to use your resources effectively. Instead of driving the 6x9 "subs" to their lowest limit, you can have them re-enforce the midbass in the music which may help keep the more realistic "acoustic" sound you're looking for. You may find, however, that with a strong low end, it highlights the stock Bose system's inability to produce a quality high end, regardless of what you do with the 6x9s. The 6x9s should not "interfere" with your JL sub assuming you've properly crossed your system over.

So, if you do keep the 6x9s, you really want them playing midbass and not the sub-bass frequencies that your JL's will be handling. It's difficult to fully acheive this with the head unit alone. You could decrease the bass level and increase the sub amp gain. A better way is to use an aftermarket amp to drive the Bose speakers, and enable its high-pass crossover. Alternatively, you could insert a capacitor after the Bose amp to prevent them from receiving sub-bass frequencies.

Note that if you do leave them in there, just as with your front speakers, it's critical to get the phasing right if you want a natural sounding transition from your subwoofers to the rest of the music. If you find you get what seems to be "more bass" with the 6x9s disconnected then the sub and 6x9s are probably phase-reversed. Try reversing the phase on the sub by switching the + and - connections on the amp and listen again.

I had an EQ and an aftermarket amp between the stock speakers and the stock head unit which gave me much more control over how it sounds. I later replaced the front components with better aftermarket ones to get clearer highs, but have no plans on replacing the factory rears.

So much of it is trial and error and deciding what suits your taste best.

 

I would def. take out the Factory subs. The JL will play all of the notes nec. It would degrade your sound quality if you used both. The factory subs will start distorting before the JL. Also, you will get some muddy bass with both subs trying to produce similar frequenices.

 

i left both in and it sounds fine.. the key is fine tuning... i turned down the bass on the HU so the stock subs are not trying to hit the lower notes.. then i turn up the gain and bass boost on my JL amp for the 10w3.. this way the sub only hits on the very low notes while my stock subs take care of the mid bass..

04 6MT DG Coupe: Pop/Z-tube, Nismo Ti Shift, Borla TD Exhaust, UR pulley, 35% Lumar Tint, Custom Box w 10w3v2 w. JL 250/1