thats a really nice job man
i gotta read the rest of the post later to see what the details (if they are included, i dont know, havent read, want to go to sleep) of the install were


ciao for now
________
Ship sale

 

HA! I know what you mean. I traded a Millenia S 2001 for the RX and it too had BOSE; however, the same CD sounds muffled in the RX in comparision. I was, last night determining that the highs are missing - then found your comments.

 

spin9k


howd you do it?

did you just cut a hole and wire the wire going to the other tweeter into the knew one or what?

cause this is probably something ill do and id lie to know how you did it, since i dont really know that much about this stuff
________
Bag vaporizer

 

Good find, I guess there are discontinuing them! What I did here was the following:

1) take the plastic panel off. It will now be connected to the car only with the speaker wires.

2) underneath the black plastic foam covering the connector is a little tab you can depress with your fingernail that will release the connector male/female pieces. I had to peel the foam off one to find this the first time, but if you play with it you may not need to do that.

3) take both speakers/plastic pieces to your shop. Remove the screws and take off the speakers so you can easily work on them.

4. get your solder and soldering gun warmed up.

5. examine the connections on the speakers. There are 3 solder terminal blocks. You'll see that there is a cap soldered between two of them. Note the end of the cap soldered together with the speaker wire going to the connector to the car. You do NOT use this terminal. The other two directly connect to the speaker voice coil. You WILL USE these two. Of these two, one terminal is The OTHER END of the CAP. Let's call this (-) or SILVER, the REMAINING terminal has the OTHER speaker wire soldered to it. Let's call this (+) or GOLD.

6. Strip some insulation (about an 1") from both wires of a tweeter. You will see one is silver wire, one is gold wire. Put aside.

7. Find the spot you want to mount the snapin holder on the plastic trim piece. Hold in place and drill a starter hole for your screw that will attach it to the trim piece. I used a tapered head 1/4" machine screw that fit in that center hole nicely. Screw it on so it is secure.

8. In one of the radial spaces inside the snapin holder, now drill a hole large enough to put the tweeter wire through.

9. Take the tweeter. Thread the wire through the access hole you just made. Now there will be no visible wires when you are done!

10. Role each tweeter wire between your fingers to make them solid, not all loose strands. Carefully thread and twist tight the gold to the GOLD (+) connector mentioned in 5 above, the silver to the SILVER (-) connector likewise. VERY IMPORTANT!!! > Make sure that no wire touches the speaker frame (possible short!). Then melt a small bit of solder to secure the wires to the connectors.

11. Do all the same steps w/the other spkr.

12. Put it all back together, snap in your tweeter and adjust position to suit and you're ready to rock and roll!

Good Luck!

 

thanks

thats a really good explanation, now, if i ever feel like actually doing it myself, i know where to find out how
________
THE CIGAR BOSS

 

this made me think...
does this answer the question were all asking?

can you just replace the speakers without TOO much fuss and keep the bose head unit?
________
GROUP LIVE

 

Quality of the signal getting to the amp, and impedance of the drivers is what I'd love to know too. As well as quality of the wire being used. Hopefully they're just basic 4 ohm drivers, Bose has been doing that more lately. If that's the case, that crap in the front is getting yanked out and replaced with a real component set. A 2" cone tweeter? WTF are they thinking? And with a 9" hole, you could do a lot with that. Maybe make a fiberglass tub to drop in and hold a Dynaudio 7" driver. In a sealed tub like that, you might just decide that you don't need a subwoofer. And Dynaudio does make an Esotec tweeter that goes down to 1K no problem. Knowing what the stock crossover points are would be nice too.

 

Spin 9K, I love this thread !

I saw this thread a while ago, but didn't read it in detail... and have been wondering how to fix up the sound without going overboard.

Has anyone else tried spin9k's approach, and what do you think of the outcome?

 

I brought mine in to the custom shop to look at getting a sub installed. We also talked about the mid/tweeters on the door. He said that extra tweeters could be added but pointing towards the windshield to bouce the sound. He also talked about something he had done in a Lexus that worked well. He put the tweeters in the air vents in the centre console. He checked out the vents and saw that as a good option. Anyone else ever hear of this?

 

I've seen alot of crazy stuff in sound systems but no I have never seen anything in air vents

 

I just added an Eclipse 10" sub and an Eclipse amp and the stereo sounds soooo much better. All I wanted to do was fill out the lower end a little bit, and it worked. Much better.

 

This was a common thing back when cars didn't come from the factory with stock tweeter locations, and when installers wanted to keep things stealth.

---jps

 

please post pics of your 10inch sub

 

Please post pics and details of installation, i.e., power output of amp and how you hooked into the system. Do you have the AudioPilot turned on? If so, does the extra bass sound from the sub affect the sound levels in the front woofers?

Like you, I just want to add a little bottom end to supplement the BOSE system. I still want to hear bass from the front drivers and not be overpowered by the sub. The custom audio shop I went to suggested adding a cubic foot cab with an 8" sub.

 

I'll try to post some pics either Saturday or Sunday night. I have to work all weekend, so it will take some time.

 

There is a myth in audio that bigger or more is better. As with most other situations this is not always true. This applies to size to a point as well as power and number of speakers. I was a custom stereo installer with some very high end shops for several years. During that time I learned alot about how things really work. I also spent several of those years traveling around the country to IASCA and USAC shows getting to hear the best cars in the world. I am proud to say that on 4 seperate occasions one of my cars won the world champion for its power class and this is in both sanctioning bodies whose rules are very different. The best sounding cars are the simplest. The fewer the number of speakers the better. The car is a very hostile environment acoustically. There are no solid mounting points, everything resonates easily, there are tons of obstacles (seats, consoles, people, etc...), lots of reflective surfaces (glass). It is about the single worst environment for a stereo system that is supposed to sound good. People then try to put in the largest speakers they can and the most sophisticated eq systems they can to correct many problems. Unfortunately most of the problems that need eq attention come from poor speaker choice, poor location, and a poor mounting surface with an improper baffle behind the unit. The best sounding system will have as few things in the signal path as possible. 2 full range speakers stragtegically placed in the FRONT of the vehicle would be optimal. Unfortunately the world is a compromise, so use a good set of seperates and a sub. Optimally the sub should be front mounted but have fun here. My 2nd gen RX-7 had an 8" woofer in the floor in front of the pedals on the drivers side and in the correspnding location on the passenger side which required moving the computer. You really should hear the sound of front bass! It is wonderful. Back to the RX-8. Many people don't like kick panel speakers since they, well... kick them easily. However good results in a car can be had from door mounted speakers. I like having kick panel mounted mids, aimed up towards the center of the car with a small tweeter crossed over really high, mounted in the a-pillars firing straight across at each other. You can't tell they are there but you'd notice if they were off. The rule is that if you can close your eyes and can point to the sound s location then it isn't done right. The system should dissappear. A sub in the back is generally a given and if done properly is almost a seamless integraton with the front speakers. Play with reversing the phase of certain speakers. I did this on a few of my competition cars with very good results. On the power issue more is generally accepted as better but if the quality of the amp suck then it is only more junk. Focus on a top quality amp rather than a cheaper but more powerful one. You almost never hit max rated power anyways, not even rms. You generally listen with only a couple of watts of power while the big power is only used for transients. Focus on the higgest quality first watt of power. Numbers mean nothing. Sorry to ramble kind of off topic. I just se too many people do it the hard way. Why do it cheap the first time and have to do it again for more money when you could have spent a little more up front and had the system you really liked without all the hassle and time spent? It is cheaper this way too.

 

I highly recommend Infiniti Tweeters. I put some in my ride and the sound so amazingly loud and crisp they gave me goosebumps. Even better than te MB quarts i had.

Go get a pair !:D

 

I had some Infinity kappas put in a previous vehicle and loved them! I'm going to try some JBL's this time and see if they aren't similiar as JBL and Infinity are both Harman companies. Before the Inifinity's, I had MB Quarts for a short time and they a bit too painful to listen to for me.

 

Spin9K... just followed your instructions with some Pioneer tweeters.

I ran the wires out between the car and the plastic cover... so didn't drill any holes.

WOW.... this is now an amazing sound system, thanks for your advice and trailblazing!

 

You're welcome! An interesting tidbit I discovered after having 'real' tweeters in the car for a while is the fact that the Bose amp is ALWAYS on if the car is on, regardless of the on-off **** of the stereo.

There is some noticeable, but not really bothersome noise in the amp, sort of a low volume hiss that is always present. Likely the Bose amp's signal-to-noise ratio sucks. I guess this no-turn-on 'feature' gets rid of those turn on 'thumps' without a speaker on delay relay. The poor amp cost less to them. So thanks Bose for being so cheap.

If the RX-8 wasn't so NICE and QUIET when you are just cruising, you would never notice, and I guess with the shitful OEM things pointing at the floor you never would, in the normal course of events! Weakest link theory rears its ugly head again. I'm not complaining really as the sound with significant high end is WAY so much nicer!

Oh, did I say "Thanks Bose for being so cheap in designing everything you make. "? I did? Good.

 

mysdd
can you post pics
I bet it sounds great

 

Holy crap, you guys freakin rule!!

I'm sure the Radio Crack speakers work fine but what specifications in a tweeter are required?

I've heard Pioneer, Infinity, Radio Shack, etc......

 

Adding the 1" radio shack tweeters sounds (pardon the pun) too simple. ANd I like it!

Question for me is who can recommend a similar speaker AND housing now that the radio shack speakers are no longer available. I couldn't find them anywhere at this late date.

Any help, links to site, etc. would be appreciated.

Claude H.

 

I need to try this, good job Spin9k

 

hey spin,
can you repost this pic? it's not showing up...