Just bought a 2004 sedan with the Bose system in it. My previous car was an '01 Passat 4motion with VW's Monsoon system upgrade. I guess I was expecting better sound from the new ride but my VW system blows away this Bose mess. SO.....I spent a lot of time on this site searching for upgarde ideas. I'm not an audiophile by any means but I want better sound in my much improved ride. There seems to be some difference in opinion that you can just replace the stock 2 ohm speakers with aftermarket 4 ohm. The sales guy and installer at a local audio shop said that to replace the speakers, that you must replace the amp, too. Can anyone out there comfirm for those of us who probably spent too much on a car but would like to improve the sound on a modest budget that you can just replace the stock speakers without getting into an amp swap and LOC install.

Thanks!
Stephen Halsey
Richmond, VA

 

Stephen,

If you replace the stock 2ohm speakers with 4 ohm speakers you are going to draw a lot less power(watts) from the current bose amp. Theoretically this means that if the front speakers are being powered by 50 watts each and you increase the impedance by half (2ohm to 4 ohm) you will also drop the power by approx half. So now your 4 ohm speakers are only seeing 25 watts.

Now unless your new speakers have a super high sensitivity rating that will not necessarily play as loud as your stock Bose.

So your car audio shop was steering you in the right direction. If you are going to invest money into speaker upgrades, it is well worth your time to look into upgrading the tiny bose amp (have you actually seen the size of it!!) into a quality amp.

Just some food for thought.

LG