Okay, so I have a question for those of you who know your way around the
PCM
3.0 and
Bose
. (2009
Boxster S
)
It's been irritating me that my "amazing"
Bose
stereo has such an annoying subwoofer. Is there a crossover or gain for the sub? I swear it seems like nothing I listen to uses the sub. The 8" door speaker do all the low end work. At first, I thought it wasn't connected because it wasn't even pushing any air out of the vent, and I had the bass setting maxed out on the stereo. Then I played "Clint Eastwood" by the Gorillas... And yea, the sub is definitely working.
But as best as I can figure, it's a crossover issue. It's like the crossover frequency is just set way too low so I never get any depth or punch to music that isn't club or rap. I've read all the books that came with the car and found a few PDFs online but no references to anything other than the bass and treble adjustments on the which basically make almost no difference. Is there a way to adjust the crossover and/or the gain? I'd sure like this
Bose
to sound like a "premium" sound system.
That's all. Is it too much to ask?
Okay, I'm done whining and complaining. Thanks!
Frankly, the only way you will get that system to sound any better is to change your head unit. I tried every setting, adjustment, and music source possible which resulted in mediocrity. Finally, my head unit died and I replaced it with a
Pioneer
AVH-2330 NEX, used a MOST HUR connection with the stock
Bose amp
and speakers with the results being more than satisfactory! What a difference! The stock unit is just not a “premium” system no matter what the ad propaganda says.
Agree. I have a new amp and head unit in my 2010
Cayman
. The sound is much improved and the
Bose
sub-woofer is doing work.
I only changed the head unit from the user hostile CDR-24 to a
Kenwood
unit and used a NAV TV Kit 210 MOST adapter. Leaving the
Bose amp
and speakers in place - The change in sound quality was incredible!
*sigh*
That's what I was afraid of. I don't really have the budget for a head unit swap, or maybe more accurately, I have higher priorities than the stereo. My dream was that there was some sort of crossover and/or gain if I opened up the sub enclosure.
Although, that gives me an idea.... The local school system here has specialty programs for students to learn and build things outside clients. They have a really nice machine shop, auto repair shop (not sure I'd trust that option, though), cooking for future professionals, etc.... Maybe they have an electronics program that could wire in a crossover or just replace some of the parts to get a wider frequency range.
Awesome, another research project. :wall:
The sub woofer comes out with 2 screws and a wire connector. It's a basic amp and speaker inside - albeit an odd shaped speaker... I'd pop it out and take it to a stereo shop to see what's wrong. If it's just the sub you're concerned about you might be able to grab a small line level amp and new speaker and have them inserted into the existing housing...
I saw somewhere on the forum that there is a device called a Longate MOST adapter. It has the RCA left/right inputs from the HU and fiber optic connection to the
Bose amp
and it's only $99.00. As I was talking to a tech from Crutchfiled, he told me that I would have to run new wires to all speakers because there's no wiring harness that adapts to the factory wiring. Does anyone know if that's accurate?
There's a few ways to do this. But, first off - Does the
Bose
stereo and all speakers in the car work? If they do - You can either buy a MOST adapter to take the pre-amp (RCA) level signals from the new head unit and convert them to a fiber optic signal that the existing
Bose amp
can use. OR - you can install the new head unit, run 4 channels of speaker wire (front right and left, rear right and left) into the frunk and bypass the
Bose amp
. You can either cut into the existing harness or go on Ebay and look for an amp bypass harness (about $50). If you bypass the amp - know going into it that the
Bose speakers
run weird impedance's and there are crossovers buried somewhere in the car to split the signals through the front speakers. You'll also lose the dash center speaker...
