Due to my ever inquisitive nature, and the fact I am generally not impressed by the Bose sound system after hearing previuos and present cars I own, well, I've started to take my car apart already!

Hopefull this thread can share ideas of speakers and other improvements possible for the RX-8 and new sources of equipment as they come on line and are available. So...

Did some serious listening today and found that (I like) what sounds best is Bass +4, Treble +6 Fader R3 (rear +3). Volume is actually pretty good, with minimal distortion, bass is so-so OK even at high db levels....it's just that overall there really doesn't seem to be any presense, any pizzaaz, that feeling like you are "there', it's simply flat and unimpressive.

I LIKE impressive sound, wheather it is loud or soft, IT'S GOT TO SOUND GOOD!! This stock system just doesn't SOUND great, sorry to say. So what I want to do is upgrade what is easily possible, without hacking away at the car or just replacing everything.

So then I started looking at these little tweeter type spks on the doors. Noticed that if I put my hand up to them to act as a reflective surface, I could ACTUALLY HEAR SOME HIGHS!

1) If you study them, notice that they point not AT YOU, but down and away from you towards the floor. Other cars have these pointing roughly at the drivers face level. So poor design here.

2) So I took that black plastic holder piece off the door and find a 5 cm cone speaker with a 1.5 cm dome cap in the center. Playing music and moving it around shows it has about a 10 degree dispersion angle at best. Meaning if it ain't pointing at you, you don't hear highs worth diddly!

3) The little fella says Bose, but it certainly looks to all the world like a shitful cheap speaker with a simple capactor crossover on it, probably better suited to a phone frequencies than music.

4. The center speaker is likely the same one. So sides and center can stand BIG TIME UPGRADING, and perhaps a SHIM of some type on the sides will re-position the tweeters to pint up and AT US! This sounds SIMPLE AND EASY and we could end up with GREAT SOUND! WOW, HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL!

5) So we know that there is no ACTIVE CROSSOVER IN THE RX-8, no high quality DOME tweeters in the RX-8, but PRETTY FAIR amplification (the amp is in the trunk). The back 6x9's probably aren't much either, they don't sound awfully good by themselves, so could use and upgrade as well.

OK guys and gals, any BRAND, MODEL SUGGESTIONS for speakers I can try??

Happy Listening

 

i read in the nissan 350Z forum that the 350Z's have a BOSE system that no one is happy with....i also read that BOSE and Nissan have acknowledged that the system is sub-standard and have agreed to fix (probably a recall...).....
several people here have already mentioned that they don't like the BOSE system...maybe the problem is the same as the 350Z...

 

Most all Bose systems are sub-par. In case you don't know, Bose does not have subwoofers. In any of their systems. Car audio, home, commercial, etc.

If you notice, they call their equiv. a bass module. This is usually due to their inability to use something other than a 4 to 5 inch cone.

Bose is all smokin mirrors imo.

 

I don't know about newer bose systems, but in the mid to late 90s, their systems were typically as such that at the least complex, they would use an uncommon impedance for the speakers, like 2ohms, so you had to take that into consideration when going aftermarket.

In my maxima, each speaker has an amplifier and active equalizer, making any selective aftermarket replacement pretty much impossible - I replaced the hu, speakers, and wiring.

They sound more simple these days but I'd still be wary over just simply replacing speakers and expecting it to work/sound decent with the stock amp/hu. But if I could just imagine how an aftermarket deck could work with the 8's crazy layout...

 

Why would you fade the sound to the REAR? Do you go to a concert and stand with your back facing the stage?

 

If Bose spent half as much money on R & D as they spend on advertising, maybe their sound systems would be worth listening to.

My Mazda MPV EX with the "Priemium" 9 speaker stereo is the best I've heard in any car I've owned, whether it was aftermarket or stock.

Mazda should let the people who design the audio systems for the rest of the lineup do the "Premium Sound" for the 8, and save their customers some money by not charging them for the "Bose" name.

 

No, we don't know that. Active crossovers could very well be included in the BOSE "amp" located in the rear.

The problem with BOSE is that their stuff is very proprietary (like the 2 ohm thing that BLIZ81 mentioned). It is normally very very difficult to just replace speakers in a BOSE system. Alot of times, you have to start from scratch. With the odd faceplates, the integration of steering wheel controls, and the integration of the NAV system, we hope that we'll be able to take out the BOSE amp and speakers, and use aftermarket processors, crossovers, equalizers, amps, and speakers with the stock head units.

---jps

 

Not true - the 350Z with the touring package has a subwoofer.

From what I have read the sound system in RX-8 is much better sounding than the one in the Z and it does not have a subwoofer, go figure that one out. Actually, most reviewers' comments regarding the sound in the RX-8 are very positive. Can better sound be had in the 8? You bet but please keep in mind that it is a base factory system, at least in Canada it is.

I'm not going to change the sound system in mine, it's more than adequate!

 

The 80mm speaker in the center is not the same as the 50mm tweaters in the doors.

The fact that the tweeters in the doors are cheap cone speakers is typical Bose engineering. Bose does spend a lot on R&D, enclosure design and advertising, but where they usually get cheap is with their drivers.

My guess is that replacing those would make the biggest improvement. There aren't a whole lot of real 2" tweaters out there, but you are going to need them. I'm guessing that since they have 9" front woofers that the audio going to the tweeters is going to be possibly as low as 1KHz. You'll need a tweeter that can go that low if you don't want to fry it.

BTW, the in-line capacitor going to tweeter might just be for removing any potential DC offset from the digital amplifiers used in the stereo. I hope Bose used real electronic crossovers in their amp. If the crossover is nothing more than a cap, I will be royally dissapointed.

-Mr. Wigggles

 

I often do this in cars. I find the default factory setting (Fade = 0) puts all the sound in front, you don't get the depth of sound from the rear speakers. That's probably to avoid annoying backseat passengers who may have the rear speaker right behind their ear. With no rear passenger, you fade to the rear and get much fuller sound. Haven't tried it on the 8 yet as I've been having so much fun playing with the Nav and just plain driving!

Boy, if anyone swaps out their tweeters I'd sure like to hear about it.

 

bose

amp/eq in door too

 

TJRX8 - Great link - did not see that before. Now that is very interesting. I'm beginning to think speaker upgrades may just do it once we find out impedence and can match sizes.

On that Music System Highlights sheet, I love the line under "Proprietary active equalization circuity" - "Automatically balances the output at all frequences, no confusing ***** and switches".

Yikes!! Makes me want to puke - big (BOSE) brother at work again! Since when has bass-treble, maybe loundness 'confused' someone? Sheesh.

And 8_wannabe, that is exactly what I found happening, quite a bit firmer bass, better imaging by using more of the rears in comparison to having the fronts at '0' level. Works quite well!

I'm sure between all of us well get to the bottom of this problem, then solve it! Thanks.

 

Bravo... I'm about to go there my self. Hopefully I will get some time this weekend to get some basic measurments done (like pink noise output measurements and speaker impedance measurements).


Agreed, the most lacking part of this audio setup isn't anything majorly glaringly wrong so much as a lack of any thing standing out as done RIGHT.


This actualy confirms one of the worries that I had about the BOSE system as soon as I saw the diagram labeled with the driver sizes. For those of you know anything about speaker physics, you know that the larger the driver, the more it beams at high frequencies. Even a 1" dome starts to beam before 20 KHz, albiet above 10 KHz so it's not that noticable. But a 2" cone driver is bound to beam at significantly lower frequencies. So, if they aren't oriented to point directly at the ears.... NO highs. Even worse for the 3.15" center driver.

Same principle applies to the 9" front drivers... based on their 9" size they should definatly NOT be producing frequencies in the 1.5 KHz range, but I highly doubt the cheap BOSE 2" drivers have the xmax to cover frequencies down that low.

Also I've been underwhelmed by the Q of the large 9" drivers... they only hit one low note and it's very loose (high Q).

The biggest advantage I see with the BOSE system is that when I go to replace drivers, I've got bigger holes to mount new ones in and hopefully pre-wired runs to the trunk. (I'm hoping BOSE wiring harness actualy has some clean line-outs hidden in there, and decent pre-run wires to all the speaker locations.)

As for brands/manufactures to use as a replacement, I can't say much. I come from a home audio DIY tradition, so I'm tempted to roll my own solution using those drivers and my own crossovers. In general I've been underwhelmed by most of the car audio I've heard. There is a classic problem of price != quality in the car audio industry which makes it hard to find what you are looking for.

 

This is all VERY disappointing. One of the selling points of the RX-8 for me was the supposedly excellent audio system and I'm sad that once again I've been conned. Can anyone compare this system to that of the 350Z? If so which is better please?

 

Have you tried turning off Audiopilot? IMO it does some funky things to the sound under certain conditions. But I agree, the Bose system isn't as nice as I would like - I feel we got ripped off with the GT package, since it didn't come with the 6-disc changer. I'd be more forgiving of the Bose if the changer had been included, but I just don't think the GT package is worth $3900.