Tweeter vibration
 

Has anyone experienced an overwhelming vibration/buzz from their tweeters on the door. When Im listening to Howard Stern or music with alot of bass, there is a very pronouced vibration/buzz from both tweeters. I took it to mazda & of course it wouldnt vibrate for them. I know their located in a cheap plastic housing, but I didnt expect this much buzzing.

Base stereo or bose?

It is the Bose Stereo.

I hear slight vibration when listening to AM but thats all

I have bose too

I've been annoyed with this as well. I haven't fully investigated but appears to be my center dash speaker or tweeter. I only really notice it on spoken words especially on NPR with low voices. Today however I also noticed a vibration near my left window during similar sounds. I thought about recording some NPR and burning it to an audio cd before taking it to Mazda just to make sure I could reproduce it. Bose w/6-disk in dash changer.

Wingnut

Ive noticed too with the center speaker on the dash. Only on AM radio but definitely annoying......

I took the tweeter off and put some more foam insulation.. It still does it, just not as much.. Annoying none the less since I like to drive without the radio on..

Ist it at high volumes? Maybe the speakers' high-pass filter (I bed a single capacitator) is not "strong" enough.
A -6db/oct. filter actually is no "true" filter. :p

When listening to radio, it might just be some noise because of weak signal level.

rgds
Tobi

The one that I test drove with the Bose had a similar problem. Actually, it was less of a buzz and more of what sounded like a short or blown tweeter. It was not constant so it was hard to determine exactly what it was without keeping it longer and taking it apart.

Has anyone experienced this as opposed to just a buzz?

Kirk

Hondas2k that is exactly what mine seems to do. It is still doing it after a month and a half, but I haven't brought it in to Mazda yet because I'm waiting for my first oil change. It makes anything spoken word sound like crap at about 16 and up volume level. The blown speaker sound is particularly bad on NPR. It may be present in all music but it just gets covered up by the other music. It appears that it is coming from the center dash speaker (which I previously assumed was a tweeter). It seems that it may be trying to produce sounds far out of its range for such a small speaker.

WN

I have this same problem with my bmw 3-series. I had a friend look over it for me, and she concluded that it was most likely rained on [which is probably because it's a convertible]. Perhaps the speakers are susceptible to rain when opening the door or something?

The first RX-8 that I drove did not have the Bose and it didn't have this problem. Is it only Bose owners who are experiencing this?

Kirk

Wingnut,

The center speaker should be tuned for a specific frequency range so I would assume that even speech should not be distorting. I didn't listen to any talk radio but I noticed the shorted out/blown problem with both music and speech during commerials and on both CD's and radio.

Is yours a Bose or base radio?

Kirk

Since the temperature has dropped to the 40's I have noticed an increase in the buzz/vibration coming from the tweeter and what now seems to be the door. At high volume levels (above 16) there seems to be a tinny rattle coming from within the door on both the passenger & driver side. I havent taken this to mazda yet, because Im lazy, but it is very annoying. The stereo sounds great otherwise.

Has anyone resolved the rattling/buzzing center speaker yet? I plan to take my RX-8 in for service in the next week or two, but I expect they will say it's "within spec" since it sounds like a lot of people are experiencing it. This is my main complaint about the car right now... on any songs where the music is quiet but there are prominent vocals, it sounds awful (I assume the same would be true on talk radio, but I never use the radio).

Nash, yeah mine is really bad. I think it probably sounds like that all the time, just the other music drowns it out. Center tweeter only, BOSE w/6CD in dash. I'm due for my 5k service so hopefully I will get some resolution.

this is why i'm ripping mine entirely out and replacing it with aftermarket...i could kill myself for shelling out $3900 for a BOSE stereo....i hate it..i so knew better..

I took mine into the dealer and they replaced the tweeter because they said it was loose. It seemed to do the trick for that problem, but I still have some rattling within the door when I listen to certain songs with deep bass or talk radio with deep base.

Do a search on door rattle. There are a few threads that talk about it. Stryfoam blocks will also probably work.

Finally Fixed Mine
 

I took mine in for the 5k service in Feb. and told them about the center speaker breaking up and they said no problem and ordered a replacement. Took about a month but they got the part in as well as a replacement door sill plate for the partially un-glued RX-8 logo on the sill. I got the recall notice from the dealer for the manual transmission damper insulator heat-shield and the airbag wiring and had it all done yesterday (speaker, sill plate, damper insulator, and air-bag wiring).

To make a long story short, the speaker fix worked. It sounds great now (relatively speaking) and I can't believe I waited so long (5k miles) to have them fix it.

Good luck to the rest of the afflicted.

Wingnut

P.S. It felt great to get back into the RX-8 after having to drive the Nissan Altima (not the new one) rental for a day.

Speaker Vibrations
 

It is nice to know that I;m not going nuts and that there are others experiencing the same problems. Alot of you are saying you get it over a volumen of 10, but I get it as low as 4. It only really happens when it is cold and is more pronounced with talk versus music.

I have an 04 with about 19k in miles and I need the car taken due to flooding problem (more fun) and I finally told them about the speaker problems. Hopefully, they will hear it and do something, but my expectations are not that high on the first try.

Maybe I'll print this thread out and take it.

I had this happening also when I got my car. it is an 04 and had about 8000 on it at the time. All I did was get annoyed enough one day and popped off the covers and unplugged them....problem solved. ;) I don't put much faith in dealers which is why I never bothered asking them about it.

New Owner looking for answers
 

Recently bought an '04 6MT Touring with 25k on the odo. Like the car very much but want to start doing some inexpensive appearance mods before moving on to bigger and better things. First two things I would like to accomplish:

- My Bose stereo rattles at certain frequencies. I have seen many posts regarding this problem. Can someone offer a definitive answer on an easy fix. Overall the stereo sounds good, but the rattle anoys me and I want to know how to cure it. Will a local big-box store that sells car audio (like Best Buy) know the specifics of a RX-8 setup? Can they be trusted?

- I am interested in finding a console kit to replace the fake aluminum bands on the tranny tunnel that come stock with the Touring package. I do NOT want to spend $400+ for the fake carbon fiber MAZDASPEED kit. Does anyone know of a kit made with real aluminum? Is a piano black kit available for a reasonable price?

Thanks for your help!

YOu unplugged the covers? I'm assuming you put them back? Just take them off and put them back on?

Yeah, I phrased that bad, unplugged the tweeters after I pulled off the covers. the plastic part just pops off as it is attached with clips. I unplugged the tweeters and tucked the wire in so it wouldn't move or rattle and just put the cover back on.