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Hi Guys, I recently removed my OEM Bose unit so I could install my aftermarket Sony head unit. Audio was working fine until recently where I've encountered a distortion from the base seemingly coming from the left large door speaker. From what I got toldx the head unit goes to an amp then into then speakers.

The Bose runs under 1 OHMs where as my standard (along with any other one) is 4 Ohms. Now if the head unit sends a more powerful signal to the amp, it shouldn't have a direct effect on the speakers?

Need a bit of help, really need to know if my speakers are busted or not.

I don't mind spending money on a Clearwater Audio system for the NC... Maybe that's the only way?

Ditch the Bose speakers, they're rubbish. Don't even get me started on that, but 4 ohms into 1 ohm speaker will do that, you've probably cooked them. For around $200+ pretty much and decent 6" splits will sound 10 times better. Pioneer, JBL, Alpine. If you want to spend a little more I highly recommend Crescendo Opus. Even the entry level for $250 is amazing.
Add a little sound deadening yourself to the door skin and a few pieces to the inner door and you will be hearing nice deep base and non distorted high range in around 2-3 hours.
Richard.

Ended up ditching the aftermarket HU.

The speakers werent blown. Couldn't handle the aftermarket HU output.

Just ordered an xcarlink. Hope it works :/

bear2230 wrote:Ditch the Bose speakers, they're rubbish. Don't even get me started on that, but 4 ohms into 1 ohm speaker will do that, you've probably cooked them. For around $200+ pretty much and decent 6" splits will sound 10 times better. Pioneer, JBL, Alpine. If you want to spend a little more I highly recommend Crescendo Opus. Even the entry level for $250 is amazing.
Add a little sound deadening yourself to the door skin and a few pieces to the inner door and you will be hearing nice deep base and non distorted high range in around 2-3 hours.
Richard.

I doubt its been cooked.
The headunit sends signals to the AMP from there it sends signal to the speakers.

ANd I don't think it's that easy to replace the speakers either. You'll need to run new speaker wires from the headunit to the doors to bypass the Bose AMP otherwise you'll be sending 1ohm into 4ohm speakers

Ahhh, I thought you did bypass the amp when wiring up your HU.
All good in the end then.
I have heard the Xcarlink unit works well on the Subaru forums. I have an AdvancedIce unit in my Subie which integrates quite well with the factory HU and still lets you use the steering wheel controls. Only drawback is the songs/artists don't display on the HU and you have to use the iPod to change Artists/Albums unless you have pre-made playlists.
Interested to see how the Xcarlink turns out…...

Richard.

TieNN89 wrote:

bear2230 wrote:Ditch the Bose speakers, they're rubbish. Don't even get me started on that, but 4 ohms into 1 ohm speaker will do that, you've probably cooked them. For around $200+ pretty much and decent 6" splits will sound 10 times better. Pioneer, JBL, Alpine. If you want to spend a little more I highly recommend Crescendo Opus. Even the entry level for $250 is amazing.
Add a little sound deadening yourself to the door skin and a few pieces to the inner door and you will be hearing nice deep base and non distorted high range in around 2-3 hours.
Richard.

I doubt its been cooked.
The headunit sends signals to the AMP from there it sends signal to the speakers.

ANd I don't think it's that easy to replace the speakers either. You'll need to run new speaker wires from the headunit to the doors to bypass the Bose AMP otherwise you'll be sending 1ohm into 4ohm speakers

I did try playing around and drying out the speaker as i told you before, my friend said there is still some distortion. To save the speakers and not spend $500 on a clearwater audio set, i scrapped the HU for the stock and bought the xCarlink. Apparently it works well on 06 Bose model NC's. We'll see how we go with that. I didnt have to spend much on my Sony HU. It was taken out of my old Corolla; i just needed to buy a harness and facia which cost me around $120. So learnings

You can get the Focal IS 200 eight inch speakers in oz... $315 ish (North Parramatta) so it is not the $500 bucks... but you would need to bypass the bose amp... in a roadster you really need a bit of grunt to get around the ambient noise so that means amp... and things start going north in a hurry...

The bose speakers themselves are massively weird inside out things, I pulled one out of the shoe box the other day to get a pcd of the screw holes... It is not obvious which end is the front by looking at them...

I went the full bosectomy... I couldn't handle the weird bose sound as much as I tried to... in the end got what I wanted whilst stopped at the lights... with a polk set up (6 1/2 component DXi int he doors and low passed 6x9 DXi in the cubbies behind the seets, Polk 4ch amp) and a pretty standard JVC (for the red dash-light matching) 2din DVD head unit, however driving down the Cumberland Hwy between B doubles in the roadster with a cloth roof ain't the best, drop the roof even worser, drop the windows (loosing the seal on the doors) it changes again... not the best platform for modest car audio.

If I had my time again I would probably leave the bose stuff in there, but I really wanted seamless Ipod, USB, Bluetooth, Bluetooth audio etc with full phone-book as I was using my car for work, even with an adapter the standard stereo seems painful to get all that in...

Anyway too far gone now... having blown a tweet, I am deciding whether to replace the Polk Tweets at $100 , or put in the Focal IS 200 for $315 (for the better bottom end) and ripping out the interior and judiciously dynamatting doors and cubbies... I might look at that about a month from now.

Mess with the BOSE system at your peril... evil as it is... could be a slippery slope to rippingeverythingoutsville...

Or Pay someone else a lot of cashola