Bose subwoofer?

[baskethead]

Has anyone removed the center console to get to the bose sub? I know its only a 6.5" sub but i was going to try and replace it with a higher quality speaker and amplify it. It wont give a ton of base but maybe it could fill in the bottom end a little. Looking for center consloe disassembly instructions
thx
Greg

 

[8ball_99]

I had thought about trying this back when I upgraded the other speakers, but I never did try it. Here is the instructions from Crutchfield on how to remove it.

 

[R I G]

I'm really disappointed in the Bose system in the ZR2.

My front passenger dash speaker is cracking and popping, and I can't hear or feel any bass whatsoever in the truck.

Compared to the 2021 Denali I came from, this sound system is pathetic. Hope it's just a connection issue, or bad speaker causing the lack of performance. Completely unacceptable for a Bose system.

I have it going into the dealer Monday Morning at 0800.

 

[baskethead]

I had thought about trying this back when I upgraded the other speakers, but I never did try it. Here is the instructions from Crutchfield on how to remove it.

Thx for the instructions!

 

[wutang61]

My biggest complaint with the system is the factory fade configuration. The front bias is so overpowering all you hear is the dash speakers.

Adjust fade to 100% rear bias and bring it back into the front until the sound is balanced. Bass adjusted to near all the way up and treble and midrange to taste.

This configuration in combination with the Kicker add on sub makes a world of a difference without yanking the speakers.

 

[8ball_99]

My biggest complaint with the system is the factory fade configuration. The front bias is so overpowering all you hear is the dash speakers.

Adjust fade to 100% rear bias and bring it back into the front until the sound is balanced. Bass adjusted to near all the way up and treble and midrange to taste.

This configuration in combination with the Kicker add on sub makes a world of a difference without yanking the speakers.

I've said it before. It's actually funny. The dash speakers although they are only 2.75" They have almost the same size magnets as the 6x9s and the 5.25s lol. The door speakers are pretty cheap. There is a reason the truck sounds like it has 6 tweeters for speakers. I adjusted mine every which way. It still basically sounded like a clock radio. Adding the sub in the rear helps, but a single 10" sub can't carry all the midrange and low range for the entire system. Atleast not very well.
BTW, you might notice the dash speakers are the only ones that actually have a Bose label on them.

 

[securityguy]

Bose stereo's have always been CRAP IMPO. It's just a name...no real quality or engineering went into its design.

 

[Fosgate]

Agreed. Name is overhyped but it’s stuff built for OEM. The setup in the ZR2 could have been designed better. Things I noticed coming from a 21 Cady XT5 Luxury Premium with the higher end Bose system. 1 everything sounds like it’s coming from under the dash. Seems like I need a sub behind me along with a couple extra tweeters in the upper rear pillar and upper Aperture panel closer to eye level of the driver. What’s there for sound quality does not sound as clean as I would expect. I think 4 more speakers and an 8” sub in a band pass box in the rear Would smooth it out.

It’s pretty typical of Bose, Rockford Fosgate etc to stick a low end budget line that they don’t sell in any car audio store in OEM stuff. I had the sub and amp go out on my 22 Polaris Raxor XP Pro Ultimate Rockford Fosgate edition. Dealer let me go in and look at them and instantly saw the speaker, sealed amp and decided it needed to be changed because it was low end stuff and you could clearly tell. So took Polaris warranty money and replaced the stock 650wt amp with their 1500 watt amp and the 10” sub with a T-3 Low profile in a 2 ohm load. She hits freakin hard now.

 

[jmichaelberg]

How difficult is it to get at the dash and door speakers? I just put in a JL amp and a sub in a wedge under the rear seat. Agree on crap sound. My 2018 F150 with premium BO system only needed the amp and sub for great sound. The bass helps quite a bit bit 23 ZRT speakers are still trash.

 

[8ball_99]

How difficult is it to get at the dash and door speakers? I just put in a JL amp and a sub in a wedge under the rear seat. Agree on crap sound. My 2018 F150 with premium BO system only needed the amp and sub for great sound. The bass helps quite a bit bit 23 ZRT speakers are still trash.

It's not hard. If you scroll up a couple posts. That attachment has the instructions for getting access to all the speakers. There is also a thread on here where I upgraded all the speakers and added a amp. I also did a rough drawing of where the factory wiring is.

 

[NebraskaZR2]

My biggest complaint with the system is the factory fade configuration. The front bias is so overpowering all you hear is the dash speakers.

Adjust fade to 100% rear bias and bring it back into the front until the sound is balanced. Bass adjusted to near all the way up and treble and midrange to taste.

This configuration in combination with the Kicker add on sub makes a world of a difference without yanking the speakers.

Ummm THIS.
Wow that makes an unbelievable difference even with everything stock.
Thanks man!!

 

[wutang61]

Ummm THIS.
Wow that makes an unbelievable difference even with everything stock.
Thanks man!!

Lol not a problem at all. It’s definitely not the same as replacing all the drivers but it’s a world of a difference.

 

[NebraskaZR2]

Serious question. Might sound silly to some....
I'm not a "car audio guy" but I do enjoy good high quality sound when listening to music....doesn't everyone?
Would just replacing 6 "Bose" speakers with a high quality product have any substantial impact on sound or would that be a waste of time? Just curious what everyone's thoughts are.
I remember back in the day replacing my own "CD player" in my ford ranger with a Sony head unit and putting in new Infinity speakers and thought it made a world of difference even without a sub, but I have no idea how that would turn out with these new vehicles and their setup.

 

[8ball_99]

Serious question. Might sound silly to some....
I'm not a "car audio guy" but I do enjoy good high quality sound when listening to music....doesn't everyone?
Would just replacing 6 "Bose" speakers with a high quality product have any substantial impact on sound or would that be a waste of time? Just curious what everyone's thoughts are.
I remember back in the day replacing my own "CD player" in my ford ranger with a Sony head unit and putting in new Infinity speakers and thought it made a world of difference even without a sub, but I have no idea how that would turn out with these new vehicles and their setup.

I think the difference would be minimal. It might help some and could improve the sound some. I think a lot of the problem is the system is tuned for the crappy speakers. If you notice you can crank the factory radio up pretty loud with out any distortion. This is because the bose amp has had a crossover applied to all the channels. Basically they adjusted the sound so you won't blow the factory speakers.

I ended up putting in a DSP so I could adjust the frequencies of each channel. It sounds great now, but it did take some adjusting. Wouldn't hurt to try new speakers, but I'd be prepared to add a DSP if you don't get the results you want. Either way you need better speakers, so not a bad place to start.

 

[Fosgate]

I used to compete in IASCA Car audio and built several systems. From my experience with factory systems is that they are usually a budget line that won't handle the power of the audio manufacturers normal line and the amps gains are usually turned down and sealed so you cant adjust them. In the car audio world, having access to the gains has always been critical to part of the tuning process. Crank them up when the speaker starts to pop at a heavy bass track and then turn them back just a bit until the speakers stop popping to keep them at peak performance. They now have amps that "automatically" supposedly adjust the gains for you. I'd rather tune my own.

I listened to a variety of music from some old comp bass tracks
Spooked by Bro Safari & DJ Craze
Lost in the Crowd by Bassnectar
Hellraiser by Blanke
Feel that way by BYOR
I love big speakers by bassboy & Techmaster P.E.B.
Frequencies of the Future
These bas tracks had alot of bass but no solid umpf of a hard kit. It seems like a port is necessary to get the tight snap for these.

Some rock/bluesy tunes
Celador by Bill Fisher
Dirty Finger by Texas Hippie Coalition
Thats the working man by Shotgun Sawyer
Wisco Disco by 20 Watt Tombstone
Heavy Honey by Left Lane Cruiser
Back on It by Mount Caramel
Before the Flood 7 Horse
Sixty Eight by Slow Season
Graveyard Earth by Cobra Thief
Again these all had decent bass but not quite the snap

When I got into some old hairbands era music and Ride the Stash by Backyard BBQ it's like the bass is almost non existent. Some country tunes that were more pop seemed to have decent bass while others than should have a good snap do not. Metal was very similar. Metallica One just clearly did not have the hard hitting snap it should.

What I think they did in this is chose to tune the system more toward pop country, dance, rap. I've experienced this when building systems. To correct I would normally predict to correct are several things. I normally liked to run Rockford Fosgate 10' subs 1 cubic inch smaller than the 1 cubic foot recommended. I would also tune from there by adjusting the gains and if still not hitting hard as I wanted to either port the box or if I thought it seemed it was too tight and wasn't getting into the low deep frequencies like its in a small enclosure to stuff angel hair (Synthetic pillow stuffing) into the box to slow the airflow and trick the sub into functioning like it's in a bigger box for deeper bass. Can you do this in the our ZR2's? I don't know, I have not had the ambition to pull it apart to see what the box and amp is like.

Swapping speakers for other speakers is kinda pointless unless you are swapping the amp as well. These factory amps are probably running pretty safe and cool at a 4 ohm load if not an 8 ohm load. You can drop the load at the speaker by bridging a second sub at the same ohm rating in half. Example two 8 ohm speakers will be 4 ohm bridged mono and will see twice the amount of power of that single 8 ohm speaker. Two 4 ohm speakers will be a 2 ohm bridged mono and will see twice the amount of power that a single 4 ohm speaker. However, the amp only sees half the load and you have to remember this or you can overheat or fry your amp. So a 4 ohm load at the amp is a 2 ohm and a 2 ohm load is 1 ohm. You do not want to go lower than what the amp is rated for. If it says it runs 750watts at a 2 ohm load, a 4 ohm load is what you do not want to drop below. It's confusing as hell I know, I fried an amp once wiring up four 10' pro subs into a .5 at the amp load. She hit hard as hell for about a mile down the road before we started smelling burnt electronics. This is where I should have wired the 8 ohm speakers in pairs in parallel and then bridge the two seperate groups mono so the load was 4 ohms load and 2 ohms at the amp.

So, I'd say if your going to swap speakers, pay attention to the ohm ratings and how you want to wire it. Select an amp that has a subwoofer channel rated for 2 ohm and at the RMS rating for your sub and buy a sub that will use that power at 2ohm. Usually those amps are big enough and have enough power in their other stereo channels to really push some nice mids and tweets and make all the difference in the world to the clarity, (and volume) of your experience for better result.

 

[8ball_99]

The bose 10" is perfectly fine for me. It hits hard enough to make the HUD blurry. I did swap the included amp out with a larger kicker amp. The wattage on the included amp is lower then the RMS of the sub. But I mainly did it so I could control the sub with the line outputs on my DSP amp for tuning reasons.

The stock bose amp has zero adjustments on it and cannot be removed. It's a data connection between the head unit and the amp. So you have to use high-level inputs to add an amp. The amp I added has a built in DSP and has line level outputs for a sub amp. You could get one with a sub channel, but that would probably limit you to a 5 channel amp. I went with a 6 channel amp and just added a sub amp off the line output. Works well and the amp fits under the passenger seat. The new sub amp tucks under the back rest of the rear seat. So I didn't lose any storage space under my back seat other then what the oem kicker sub takes up. My speakers are all 2.8 ohm. The amp is rated for 200w rms at 2ohm and 125w rms at 4ohm so I have more then enough power there. Highs and mids will go louder then I can handle. The kicker amp I added is rated at 300w rms at 2ohm. So it can push the OEM sub NP. The included amp was only 200w rms. Best I could tell the sub is rated for 300w or 350w rms. Although I couldn't find detailed specs for that specific sub. The amp I got seems to be a good fit and does a better job then the one included in the kit. Especially since it actually has a gain knob and I can control the output through the DSP.