Steve Dallas

LOL! I think I'll just KISS (assuming I ever get around to doing anything more at all).

kickerfox

In my Cougar I put a whopping $83 worth of cheap Pioneer replacement speakers and added a DSP. Initially sounded like complete ****. Kicked on the DSP and I had it sounding better then the RX8 in 10 minutes. I'll never do an install without one now that I've heard the difference. I have to order another for the 8 now. Can't wait to hear that.

Steve Dallas

I have a Tacoma for a daily driver. I only drive the 8 on the weekends and at the track.

As it turns out, I bought an '04 Mazdaspeed Miata as a replacement for the 8. If I like the way it handles, I'll give it the Flyin' Miata treatment and put the 8 up for sale. I wonder what the stereo is like in that thing...

kickerfox

If it has the Bose system, it's the same disaster the 8 has.

Got my DSP88.R last week. Had a chance to bench test it. You can make anything sound good with a 8x 31-band EQs and time alignment. I have it configured for 6ch/2ch for 6x 31-band parametric to each of the four interior speakers (2 unused, maybe I'll bi-amp the doors) plus 2x 7-band from 20-250hz for the other two outputs (sub outs). The programming software is real-time. Can't wait to get it in the car. Not that I can really enjoy it on road trips until I get the engine swap finished.

Scott, do you dabble in electronics like amplifier design?

Steve Dallas

I do some tube guitar amplifier circuit design and prototyping on the side for several boutique companies. There are probably 100 models that I designed currently on the market from 5 to 7 manufacturers.

Yep. The MSM has a Bose stereo. I'm just going to leave it alone. I'll spend my time and money on making it faster.

So, when exactly are you going to finish that ill-advised engine swap?

kickerfox

That's interesting. I have a sweet tooth for tube gear.


I'm sure my swap would be getting done a lot faster if I could control myself from buying audio equipment. Other delays are waiting for 3rd party parts like the intake flanges. I have a friend helping me draw them up.

Lunchietey

So I know this is a thread dig but had a couple of points that no one seems to consider when tweaking the Bose system.


Firstly, a considerable amount of vocal range comes from the door mid/tweeter. Yet no one puts a damping pad behind it on the reflective metal behind it... It's a small speaker with an open frame meaning plently of sound is being bounced off that flat steel and back through the paper cone. Only has a slight effect, but seemed to clear it up a bit.


Secondly everyone attacks the equalisation curve from the bose amp as to being some form of failure. Bose have not equalised the speaker as such, but the whole speaker AND car etc. Take the rear 6x9 (which is a WOOFER ONLY), the odd dip around 250hz will be to reduce boomyness from the fact that it is essentially mounted in a corner firing straight at a piece of glass. Changing this speaker will mean significant issues as not only will the new speaker have much more high end, but also wider dispersion from the tweeters.


Third fail most seem to make is turning up bass and treble and complaining that there's no bass. Try putting a song with deep bass lines in, and have bass set to maybe 1 at most. I have it set to 1 with treble at 1 and on songs with a dropping bass line at normal levels, it drops plenty low enough. Stop expecting bass like a set of dual 12's with 1000w of power from OEM door speakers and you will be much happier.


Another failure is that people don't realise how LIGHT the whole system is. DO you think Mazda wasn't telling bose to keep the weight down after fitting the RX8 with a carbon drive shaft and aluminium panels? The door woofers and amp weigh almost nothing and perform fairly well considering. And just to add from the OP's comments, the speaker doesn't have a passive radiator on the back. It's basically a normal speaker but has the small neo magnet mounted in the front of the cone with the suspension at the back just like normal. Just looks odd without a magnet being in the way. The frame is also on the other side of the cone. Same stuff as a normal woofer just rearranged to keep is shallow. Some slimline car subs are very similar like MB Quart's RSH slimline subs. They just make theirs pretty.


Just remember, Bose aren't amazing overall but have done a fairly respectable job for a system designed in the early 2000's in such an odd shaped car cabin. Don't think of it as an amp and speakers, think of it as an entire system tuned together. There is some clever engineering to get a reasonable sound from a well integrated package for its day.


Best bet is smart damping of the door woofers, a soft absorbing material behind the door tweeters and sane use of the bass/treble and realisation it's a light and low powered system not designed for 130db or impressing girls from half a mile away with Dubstep


Am going to try some other full range drivers for Bose tweeter replacements too, like Visaton's FRWS 5 and FRS 5X which are very similar in size when corners are trimmed.

Machbuster

If you sold those on ebay a few years back, those Kappas, maybe I am using it now. I bought it on ebay and using it in my RX8 R3 and they seem to work great. I do have the NAVIGATION/GRAPHICS interface equipped car so maybe the bose for this series 2 can be slightly different than yours - I doubt that but... (European R3s had this option of DENSO NAVTEQ navigation unit and the latest BOSE in R3 trim). I can change BASS, TREBLE AND MIDRANGE levels on a screen and for me it is enough even with the kappa midrange gap you mentioned - I am not seeing any loss in midrange when put on +2, the series 2 RX8s without the screen only got BASS and TREBLE options - you got the DENSO version of Navi/Audio controls also as I have seen your interior pics... Maybe it is just I am not that HiFi as you are :-)
Great in my case, only mod to BOSE system and seems OK for me. Almost (but of course only almost) matches my LEXUS IS-F Mark Levinson system which is really nice for a stock system. Only one better I ever heard was Burmester in Porsche...
Let me know if those are really possible to be yours you sold some time ago. :-)
Great posts, inspiring and helpful. Thanks.

Ian_D

Interesting point on the weight. I had a full aftermarket set-up on one of my R3s, a legacy from the previous owner, that I uprated with a sub of my own design (he kept the sub-the-size-of-the-boot he had in). Making as much as I could removable was a priority as I wanted to keep weight down for track days, where my being one of the slowest out there was already depressing me. Weight remains an issue for me even though I'm doing fewer track days now, which is one of the reasons I still have the stock system in my R3 and aftermarket amps, speakers and sub (including some Morel Elate 3-way separates) in the loft.

As you mention car projects, I was keeping that system for my 13B REW swap, now in limbo whilst I have a Greddy turbo S1, where weight would be far less of an issue. Alas, all turbo RX8s are noisy, so making any sound improvement worthless except when the engine is off.

Good point also about the rear 6x9s. I didn't think about that much as I already had some quality 2 way separate speakers for the stock rear location after getting rid of the speakers in the ski hatch (each just screwed into a big hole in the plastic!).

Pensive

Sorry for the necroposting....but...

First off awesome thread - thank you! Glad to see the RCA feed is nice and flat before the bose gets its hands on it. I'll be changing the tweeters, adding dynamat and adding a sub and nothing more.

I have a rockford fosgate P1000X5D 5ch amp. I plan to only use the subwoofer output for the record (I have it lying around) - but how do i check for decoupled RCA inputs? Is this describing a lack of continuity between the ground of the right and left RCA inputs? If I find this to be an issue what exactly do i do to fix it? Wire a capacitor between rca positive and ground?

the techsheet says it's input sensitivity if 150mV to 5v but this talk of balanced inputs sounds wierd. coming from a studio space (total amateur btw) for balancing the signal needs phase inversion on one channel at source, to be recombined at destination, negating the noise in the signal. Unless balanced means something entirely different in the vehicle audio space...which I suspect it does.

Also just to be clear - we can tap off the amp in the boot for these R/L RCA signals and 12v remote?