Dissapointed In Bose Stereo

ace ventura · January 9, 2008

I bought my truck thinking the stereo wouldn't have to be replaced to get some good sound and I have the steering wheel controls to boot. Now to get good sound should I either replace the speakers to begin with or the head unit?

pottercon · January 9, 2008

I bought my truck thinking the stereo wouldn't have to be replaced to get some good sound and I have the steering wheel controls to boot. Now to get good sound should I either replace the speakers to begin with or the head unit?

Replacing the speakers wont do anything for you, unless you put an amp on them.

If you put a high quality head unit in it will make a good amount of difference on the volume, but will distort your factory speakers, if played to loud.

omegafiler · January 9, 2008

When upgrading a stereo with Bose, your best option is to just replace the whole system. You can keep your steering wheel/onstar/door chimes with a harness.

-Devil- · January 9, 2008

when you buy bose ... you are paying for the name ...

conrad1995 · January 9, 2008

I bought my truck thinking the stereo wouldn't have to be replaced to get some good sound and I have the steering wheel controls to boot. Now to get good sound should I either replace the speakers to begin with or the head unit?

What do you mean by good sound. The problem with BOSE if that's what you have is invidual components are nothing by themselves, and are designed to work together, the odds of replacing the Head Unit or the Speakers invidually will result in less than the desired outcome are very high.

What do you mean by "GOOD SOUND", is this a quality of sound problem, or a level of sound problem?

I personally dislike anything BOSE and for the same amount of money an "upgrade" or complete system costs, I can always do better with something else. Been through it both with car audio and home theater. They are good at what they do, and their marketing can't be beat and for most people they are more than satisfactory. But they have their limits.

Do yourself a favor and go to an audio shop for an opinion, a good one will listen to your issues and address them, usually more cost effectively than piece mealing a system, you may not be satisfied with in the end.

ace ventura · January 10, 2008

Good sound I mean quality. I guess once you've had a system with quality sound you can tell the difference. I had a pioneer set-up in my last truck and you could adjust the sound with mulitple controls and my system sounded great. Best buy told me that when replacing the bose system it's a pain in the arse. I think I'm looking at some bucks to get the quality sound I'm after. That's why I'm a dissapointed.

-db · January 10, 2008

Best buy told me that when replacing the bose system it's a pain in the arse.

Please step away from the Best Buy.

Go to your smaller independant shop for better information as well as equipment. Most all shops have equipment in the same price range as Best Buy, but will be better quality.

You will need to replace your radio and all of your speakers, add at least a 2 channel amp for the front components and if you run rear speakers you can either use a 4 channel for all of them or run those off the rear outputs of the deck. I have not confirmed this yet, but you may need to have all new speaker wires run.

conrad1995 · January 10, 2008

Good sound I mean quality. I guess once you've had a system with quality sound you can tell the difference. I had a pioneer set-up in my last truck and you could adjust the sound with mulitple controls and my system sounded great. Best buy told me that when replacing the bose system it's a pain in the arse. I think I'm looking at some bucks to get the quality sound I'm after. That's why I'm a dissapointed.

For the price of the Bose upgrade you can actually get a decent system installed. Personally I would save up and install both a head unit and speakers, since you have the BOSE. I stay away from their stuff so I don't know how much they have it "tweaked" to optimized their "system", but it may be salvageable by doing the amp with crossover to new speakers and sub. The shop I work with would let me run all the wiring and terminate at the kick panels where they would pick up and pull the wires into the doors. The most time they invest is pulling apart interiors to run wires so you may suggest it as an option if it's something your comfortable with.

I always install an amp, and a sub. I don't thump my music, but on a non-bose factory system, even with stock head unit and speakers, an amp with a cross over taking the bass off the stock door speakers and giving them more power makes an amazing difference. This gives me time to decide on a head unit and speakers for phase II or III of the upgrade. Go ask the pros, most of them will listen, if not find someone else. In my experience, they really want you to be happy with your tunes, and the best ones will work with you. Discuss the option of phasing your upgrades and be honest, you will sense whether you found the right shop or not!