Need some advice on upgrading the sound system in our coupe. I don't want to touch the OEM head unit or sacrifice any room in my trunk for a sub box. Basically, looking at swapping out all the speakers and possibly upgrade the amp. Looking to get better mids and highs - not too concerned with anymore ground thumping base....

Will this be worth the $$$ upgrade by going this route? Any tips on speaker set up? Thanks!

 

look around for a Line out put converter. This will take the signal from your factory speaker wiring and convert the signal to a low level signal. Basically it will take your speaker wires as the input and will give you RCA outputs for your amp.

There are many out there and some do more than others. I would recommend the audiocontrol LC2i. Its around $80-$100. If you dont want to spend that much on it there is a cheap one at walmart for around $20 that will help but may not be the best choice.

As far as amp and speakers. Whats your budget? What kinda music do you listen to?

 

Do you have the Bose system in your car?

 

Thanks for the reply man. My budget is around $1500 for the amp and changing out the speakers. Not sure what that would get me as I haven't bought audio pieces in a long time! I listen to dance and trance - so more electronic beats and vocals. No looking for too much more base.

 

Yeah man, i have the factory bose system that came stock with the car.

 

So at minimum for what your trying to do, you need: A Line level converter. Take your speaker wires from the head unit, run them into the converter => turn them into RCA's => Send RCA's to the amp and run speaker wires to the speakers, this is easy. You will need to build some custom speaker baffles to house your new speaks in the 10 inch holes in the doors. I just did this and will post pics soon.

Great bang for your buck components Infinity Kappa Perfects. Sound quality out of these is great. Suggest a Class A/B amp for components, here is one I use JL 360/2.

If you remove the 10's from the doors and put 6 1/2's in I think you may lose a decent amount of base. Honestly probably not worth the hassle. Your head unit is designed to send crappy sound signals to the crappy cardboard Bose speakers. Even putting nice speakers running on a nice amp you are still just retransmitting a bad signal from the head unit.

What I'm recommending is start looking into something like a sound processor, and an EQ. I spent a lot of time looking around and ended up getting a 3sixty.3. This will clean up the speaker signals from the head unit and let you adjust a 31 band EQ to your liking, plus it has a built in line level converter. There is a few on Ebay for $450. This is a semi complicated device if you are not familiar with tuning much beyond "base" and "treble". I will soon be making a DIY with many pictures on how to install this with high end amps/components/subs. Possibly a tuning tutorial write up or video as well.

Another thing to check out . This may give you that extra punch you feel your system needs and is very easy to install. May want to check with other G owners who have this installed. See what they think of the Bose speakers running on the MS-8. I ignored this device because I think the Bose speakers are below my audio standard at this point and will be replacing or disconnecting them all. Also from what I have read Bose and all other car audio don't play nicely with each other. Research this option thoroughly if your considering it.

 

The Bose speakers actually sound pretty decent with a good amp driving them. When I did my upgrade I swapped out the Bose amp for a Hertz HDP 5, 5 channel amp and added a Hertz 10" sub. The Hertz amp is small but throws out a lot of power and sounds amazing. Try that first and see if it sounds good enough for you. I did end up putting in a JL Audio Cleansweep DSP, and Focal speakers in after that but that adds $$$.

 

This is exactly what I was planning to do first. What were the settings you used for the frequencies to be sent to the different Bose components. Also, what kind of Focal components are those?

 

Dude, really appreciate the good advice! Thanks!

 

Thanks for the advice man!

 

They're Focal K2 Power 165 KRX 2's 6.5" components in the doors and Focal PC 690 6x9's in the rear deck for fill. With the stock speakers I had 80Hz and below going to the sub and 80hz - 20khz going to the stock Bose speakers.

Just a heads up though, the stock Bose speakers run at 1 ohm so I had to run them in series at 2 ohms (as low as the amp would go.)

 

That's some great info, Thanks!!

 

I've heard of people upgrading the tweeters for better highs. Since stock bose bass kind of over powers the highs. Maybe try that first.

 

Can you please explain how you replaced the Stock Bose amp for the aftermarket amp. I have too run my amps off of the factory bose amp too get a signal from the factory Navi Headunit.

 

I had it done at a shop but all they did was run the wires from the harness that went into the Bose amp into the new amp. The output from the head unit is full range. When the Cleansweep was installed afterwards, the output was wired into the Cleansweep then from the Cleansweep into the amp. You can find the wiring diagrams on this site