I bought a 2003 coupe a few weeks ago and was shocked at how aweful the oem bose system sounds. It sounds clear and the base sounds smooth so no speakers are blown...it just sounds dull as hell. The highs aren't all that high and the lows aren't all that low, doesn't matter how much I play with the settings....it's as if the whole system ran on radio shack full range speakers.

The sad part is that it's not just infiniti...I had two Pontiac Grand Prix's in the past ( a 98 and an 00 ) and one had the AC Delco sound system while the other had the Bose. The delco system sounded AMAZING! It had strong bass and clear highs. So amazing in fact that I switch speakers to infinity kappa speakers with amps and what not and the sound system barely improved....yet the Bose system on the other GP sounded lke CRAP!

Bose home sound systems sound amazing...yet car systems like crap? What's up with that?

Rant over....I just wanted someone to listen ( or read anyways...lol ).

 

^ I agree with you... the monsoon 6 spkr system in my grand am dominates the crappy bose system in our Gs... and yea, there is no distinction on the bose system, it's all muddy. even the bose system on the cadillac cateras was better than this..

but one explanation i have heard is that car manufacturers will make a contract with a speaker company (in this case, bose) to design a system for a particular model car... but they will have a limited budget to design that system around. maybe nissan just cheaped out and didn't front up much for the system but just wanted to get the name?

 

sounds better then my RSX bose system

 

My friends Trans Am has the OEM Delco system and it too sounds amazing. I can understand them limiting the budget, but is it more limited than the budget GM has on their Delco systems?

 

man, i totally feel your pain....as much as I try, until I get my system supplies and start installing, I can't seem to make any of my music exciting....as much as i try with the treble and bass control (i can't believe that's all we have), there is no joy. "absolutely lifeless" is the best way that I can explain the music that comes out of those "high-end" POS speakers. It's gotten to the point where I just listen to the exhaust note from the mufflers....IMO, 10x better than the "blows" system....

 

i thought it sounded pretty good for stock equipment, if you are pissed about the bose in our G dont even try and listen to a BMW E46 with harmon Kardon < absolute garbage

 

I couldn't even imagine....probably so bad I'd scratch my ears off...

 

I can understand the pain. But the Bose system "can" sound good. It took me a few weeks and a lot of stressing to do it though. But experience is something you get after you need it. Even with high end speakers in place of the Bose speakers and an afermarket amp pushingthem, it still sounded like complete @ss. Mids completelty missing from the front. Didn't matter if I grabbed the signal pre or post Bose amp. What it turned out to be is Bose in their infinite wisdom removed the mids from the front speakers and put them in their "subs" in the back. Which is why stock Bose has no bass or life. What I did was use a AudioControl LC6i and summed (put the two signals together)the sub signal and the front signal and there it was, full range kick @ss sound and that is post Bose amp. Used that unsummed sub signal for my subs and the system sounds amazing. Everyone that sits i the car is shocked at how good it sounds, myself all the time included. So there is hope. If you want a more detailed explanation of my trials PM me, I will be happy to share so you dont suffer as I did.

 

The only BMW I've heard was a newish 750 ( 2006 I believe ) and it sounded outstanding...heck, it sounded better than most home sound systems I've heard. This was on a $100K car though...lol.

 

can you explain here so that everyone can read and maybe learn something?

 

lol for 100k+ it better be audiophile grade, my dads porsche is outstanding also but in the cheap porsches the system sucks worse then the G

 

I thought the Monsoon system in my 03 Jetta sounded a lot better, plus when I switched the headunit (which was EASY) for an aftermarket one, it sounded amazing.

I just live with it because its such a hassle to modify. I used to have a 94 Audi S4 with a Bose stereo, and that car was even more difficult to modify.

Bose FTMFL. Hopefully my next car will sound better, or be easily upgradable.

 

Sure thing. Here is the post I orignally did when I was having issues.

Audio Tune-In Issues

At first I only replaced the Bose speakers with Focal CA1's in the front and A1's in the rear with an aftermarket amp and disconnected the rear deck subs. The sound was terrible, no mids at all. I listen to rock and such so all the distorted guitars had no depth or heavy crunch to them. Sounded drown out and far away. Bass guitars were not even perceptible. This was taken straight from the Bose stereo, with just a LOC. Sounded terrible. Tried post Bose amp, same scenario. Was looking at getting a JL Cleansweep following Troy's advice but was instead assured the AudioControl LC6i was what I needed by the local audio dealer. Had the audio place hook it up, but something was still not right. So I read the manual, consulted with AudioControl (awesome company by the way, very helpful) about the summing feature and applied it with the front and rear speakers. But it still wasnt right, mids still not present. So late one sleepless night I think about the possiblity of using the rear deck subs signal for the summing thinking maybe that was the key, since they put out the mid and low range freq's and that was what was missing from the front. And it was, when I summed the front speakers signal and the rear sub signal together it gave me the full signal. Mids were there and it sounded how the music should sound. The LC6i will only give you one summed signal so I used that for the front, rear speaker signal is unsummed and so is the sub signal. The sub signal I used for my sub amp. If there is more interest I can post pics of the install or whatever is requested. Just let me know.

 

i might be missing something here....you took the lc6i and plugged it in pre amp or post amp?

What i don't understand is what you tapped into, as the bose HU provides balanced differential outputs that are full range and not eq'd, maintaining a flat curve throughout the spectrum. (you shouldn't be getting partial signal from the front outputs TO the amp) So what exactly did you connect and what year was your car...maybe this has some difference.

 

The most simplest answer for this is... Bose engineered the audio setup in the G35 to have a flat sound.