Blown Bose speaker . . .
 

Picked up a 2006 Shinka yesterday and am loving it, but in my test drive I really didn't turn on the stereo and as I was driving home when I was stopped I could tell the driver's door speaker is blown. I've done some research and found that, of course, it's a proprietary size, but I did find these adapters. I wasn't sure if they were to adapt the Bose speaker mount but this page makes it seem like they're exactly what I'm looking for. The only thing I'm not sure of, and pardon my ignorance, but am I to understand the front speaker must be installed in a pair with a new tweeter? Sorry, I was a bit confused by the sticky. Given the issues with replacing a non-Bose speaker, might it be more cost effective to just replace the affected speaker? I know Bose is overpriced, but the idea of a four new speakers and adapters being cheaper than one speaker seems absurd too. Any help?

I havent torn apart the rx8's audio system but I know from my old car's aftermarket audio system that I installed that you dont need to replace the tweeter as well (as long as it's still working).

Generally you have a crossover which the tweeter, the woofer, and the power source wires into (it looks like a little rectangle box). In a normal setup what you would do is purchase the new woofer, take apart your door, find the crossover and disconnect the wires from your woofer, replace woofer, and then wire the new 1 to the crossover. It's very simple.

That is how you would do it on a normal aftermarket audio system. However, I havent done much research into the 8's GT stock system, so I'm not sure if bose's system is as simple as that. Maybe some1 can chime in on that part.

contact RACEROOTS see if he can get you some speakers, he was doing a car part out, and i saw that he still had them.

Are you sure it's the speaker? If it's just dead or intermittent, it's probably the relay in the door amplifier. See firebirddude's sticky.

Is that a member or a vendor?

I suppose I could try it since it's cheap, but there's nothing intermittent about it, just really fuzzy as soon as it has to reproduce any low frequencies. Right now I just have the balance shifted mostly to the right and it's tolerable but obviously not ideal.

If it is blown...

The problem with replacing the Bose 9" speaker with aftermarket is that the Bose speaker is 1/2ohm. The vast majority of your aftermarket speakers are going to be 4 ohm. Higher impedance means less power out of the Bose amp. 1/8th the power at 4 ohm to be exact. Infinity makes some 2 ohm 6.5" speakers, but still.... quite the difference from 1/2 ohm.

Additionally, the majority of the 6.5" aftermarket speakers are full range co-axil speakers. The 9" Bose speaker is a woofer/subwoofer. Even if you were to specifically use a 6.5" midbass/woofer, it's probably not going to give you nearly the low-end bump that the 9" Bose woofer did. The difference in displacement is just too much.

Honestly, I think it's time to do some soul searching. What do you ultimately want out of your sound system? Are you just a casual listener who would always be happy with the Bose system? If so, just buy another Bose speaker and move on. Or are you really into your music and like to rock out? If so, it might be time to forgo the entire Bose system and run all aftermarket. I know you just bought the car, but with the situation details being what they are....now's the best time to do it.

Yes raceroots is a vendor, just send him a pm to see what he has left.

I wouldn't really call myself an audiophile, PM sent, I guess this is the easiest way to go.

Here's a partout for racing offering Bose speakers:

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-parts-s...rt-oem-241373/

Bah, that's $10 cheaper than the one I snagged on eBay this morning! Oh well.

So I got my used door speaker today, and it is indeed a Bose door speaker, but somehow I have a different version with a different connector and a piece of I-don't-know-what riveted on top.

This is what I bought and thought I needed (all the ones on eBay look like this):

Attachment 227948

This is what I just pulled out of my door:

Attachment 227949

What do I have so I can search for one?

Wasn't too long ago we had a thread about the two different types of Bose woofers. I honestly really didn't know the second ones in your post existed until that topic a couple months ago. If I recall, some said that the second one just has the amp built onto the speaker where as the top picture uses an outboard amp.

....or maybe I'm incorrect...

Did a bit more searching and that appears to be correct, the switch was made in 2006. Not seeing any available used in the usual avenues, guess I'll have to keep checking. Bose can suck it.

I just went through this issue a few weeks ago. After pricing a new Bose replacent speaker I decided to just swap out the Bose speakers in the doors with the intention of replacing the rest a little down the road. For pretty much the same price and the single Bose replacement I picked up a set of focal 6.5 components and an amp to run them. The rear deck speakers still put out a decent amount of low end along with the new focals, but I'm going to be adding a sub to make up the rest of the loss.

I just got my new (used) speaker from another member parting out unneeded items from his race vehicle. Keeping my fingers crossed that it works! It was only $30 too, much better than a new speaker or speakers and amp plus install.

Big thanks to yale02 for the speaker, worked perfectly and was very reasonably priced! Grom went in at the same time, so nice to have Spotify in the car. Little things that make the drive much more enjoyable like a properly working stereo.

Posting a WTB for this item in the Midwest area since I cannot post in the general WTB forum. I too, have a 2006 Rx8 Shinka and am interested in purchasing (local/paypal) a front passenger door bose speaker replacement (with amp attached apparently) as I made the same mistake as OP and got the one I saw on Ebay.