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I own an Internet development company that specializes in multimedia development. One of our strategic partners is owned by my best friend, an Emmy Award winning composer and musician who owns his own recording studio (we're talking half a million dollars in mixing equipment and computers).
At home I have a decent home theater and listening room, with a 7.2 channel setup. I have over $9,000 in speakers: five top of the line Infinity Cascade speakers, and two Infinity back speakers. I have two Carver Sunfire Signature 12" subwoofers (each driven with its own 2,700 watt amplifier), and three amps for the 7 channels that put out 1,400 watts combined. I had my house built with four dedicated 20 amp circuits for the home theater, and there is a 10 foot copper grounding rod driven into the ground outside so that all four circuits are on their own separate ground (eliminating any interference or hum from the lines in the rest of the house).
I'm pretty serious about sound.
So tonight, for giggles, my friend and I grabbed his laptop with all of his sound software, a $1,000 microphone, and CD with test frequencies and climbed into the Mazda.
Anyone who is a pro in the sound industry knows that Bose quit being a serious speaker manufacturer decades ago. A friend of mine is an electrical engineer with 20 years of experience at JBL and he describes the Bose "accoustimass" system as "$20 worth of cheap speakers and $700 worth of marketing". Sad, but true. You can see some comparison photos I did a couple of years ago when removing the Bose system from my wife's Cadillac and installing some Infinity speakers here: Bose vs. after market speakers
OK, here's what we found. First of all, there is NO bass in the stock Bose system to speak of. We ran frequency sweeps with the Bass and Treble controls on the radio set to zero, and ran sweeps at "20" "30" "40" and "45" on the radio volume. The dB output falls to just about zero at 100 Hz, which is were true bass just starts to begin. Most systems crossover the mid-range and bass somewhere between 80 Hz (The THX reference point) and 100 Hz, above that point your ear can localize the sound and the bass begins to become another point source speaker.
If you like hip hop, or jazz, or any music with real bass, you will be disappointed. The Bose system can be described as being really just mid-range and treble. There is no bass, much less anything that would be produced by a real sub-woofer. Even with the radio's bass setting turned up to +6, it didn't help, still nothing below 100 Hz worth mentioning, just a lot more distortion.
There's a pronounced peak in the spectrum at about 140 Hz, but in listening it's not objectionable--it doesn't produce any boominess.
Mid-range is a little scattered with a bunch of strong peaks and valleys--not the nice relatively flat line you'd like to see, but actually about average for a stock car radio.
The system distorts early, it's fine at low and moderate volume, but push above "40" on the radio volume and it becomes intrusively noticeable.
The system has a terrible stereo image. Ideally, a well setup stereo will produce a "sound stage" that appears to you, the listener, to be in front of you, ranging from your left to your right. In a quality system, there will be a 3D quality to the image, where you can hear sounds that appear to be closer and others that appear to be further away from you. You should be able to "see" where in front of you a specific instrument is in the recording--the trumpet is to the left of the singer (who is in the center of the sound stage), the guitar is to the right of the singer, and the bass guitar is to the left of the trumpet player.
In the Bose, forget about it. There is no sound stage. With the fader and balance controls set to zero, all of the sound appears to be slightly behind the driver and to their right--in other words in the center of the car. It's bad enough to be very, very annoying to anyone used to decent sound quality. You can't really improve on the sound stage, even setting the controls to try to move the sound to the front and the left doesn't do much.
If you want to do a quick test on any car stereo, throw the fader all the way to the front and listen to some music. Then throw it all the way to rear and listen some more. You should basically hear nice, clean stereo sound coming from the front and then the rear. Try that on your Bose and it's an eye opener. The sound goes very dead, and has a very "transistor" radio sound to it. Bose is using psycho-acoustic cues to fool your brain into thinking it's hearing a richer spectrum of sound then is really there. Go ahead, try it for yourself, you'll see what I mean.
So in conclusion, the Moonroof and CD changer are great, but the Bose part of the package is a severe disappointment (unless you gave up on Bose in 1977 when they did). If you listen at low to moderate levels, the system is smooth and pleasant sounding, even if it's due to artificial coloration in the sound and not at all transparent to the original recording.
On a sad note, my wife told me I can't touch her car, so I can't upgrade the system. She doesn't have a very good ear, so she doesn't care what it sounds like.
At home I have a decent home theater and listening room, with a 7.2 channel setup. I have over $9,000 in speakers: five top of the line Infinity Cascade speakers, and two Infinity back speakers. I have two Carver Sunfire Signature 12" subwoofers (each driven with its own 2,700 watt amplifier), and three amps for the 7 channels that put out 1,400 watts combined. I had my house built with four dedicated 20 amp circuits for the home theater, and there is a 10 foot copper grounding rod driven into the ground outside so that all four circuits are on their own separate ground (eliminating any interference or hum from the lines in the rest of the house).
I'm pretty serious about sound.
So tonight, for giggles, my friend and I grabbed his laptop with all of his sound software, a $1,000 microphone, and CD with test frequencies and climbed into the Mazda.
Anyone who is a pro in the sound industry knows that Bose quit being a serious speaker manufacturer decades ago. A friend of mine is an electrical engineer with 20 years of experience at JBL and he describes the Bose "accoustimass" system as "$20 worth of cheap speakers and $700 worth of marketing". Sad, but true. You can see some comparison photos I did a couple of years ago when removing the Bose system from my wife's Cadillac and installing some Infinity speakers here: Bose vs. after market speakers
OK, here's what we found. First of all, there is NO bass in the stock Bose system to speak of. We ran frequency sweeps with the Bass and Treble controls on the radio set to zero, and ran sweeps at "20" "30" "40" and "45" on the radio volume. The dB output falls to just about zero at 100 Hz, which is were true bass just starts to begin. Most systems crossover the mid-range and bass somewhere between 80 Hz (The THX reference point) and 100 Hz, above that point your ear can localize the sound and the bass begins to become another point source speaker.
If you like hip hop, or jazz, or any music with real bass, you will be disappointed. The Bose system can be described as being really just mid-range and treble. There is no bass, much less anything that would be produced by a real sub-woofer. Even with the radio's bass setting turned up to +6, it didn't help, still nothing below 100 Hz worth mentioning, just a lot more distortion.
There's a pronounced peak in the spectrum at about 140 Hz, but in listening it's not objectionable--it doesn't produce any boominess.
Mid-range is a little scattered with a bunch of strong peaks and valleys--not the nice relatively flat line you'd like to see, but actually about average for a stock car radio.
The system distorts early, it's fine at low and moderate volume, but push above "40" on the radio volume and it becomes intrusively noticeable.
The system has a terrible stereo image. Ideally, a well setup stereo will produce a "sound stage" that appears to you, the listener, to be in front of you, ranging from your left to your right. In a quality system, there will be a 3D quality to the image, where you can hear sounds that appear to be closer and others that appear to be further away from you. You should be able to "see" where in front of you a specific instrument is in the recording--the trumpet is to the left of the singer (who is in the center of the sound stage), the guitar is to the right of the singer, and the bass guitar is to the left of the trumpet player.
In the Bose, forget about it. There is no sound stage. With the fader and balance controls set to zero, all of the sound appears to be slightly behind the driver and to their right--in other words in the center of the car. It's bad enough to be very, very annoying to anyone used to decent sound quality. You can't really improve on the sound stage, even setting the controls to try to move the sound to the front and the left doesn't do much.
If you want to do a quick test on any car stereo, throw the fader all the way to the front and listen to some music. Then throw it all the way to rear and listen some more. You should basically hear nice, clean stereo sound coming from the front and then the rear. Try that on your Bose and it's an eye opener. The sound goes very dead, and has a very "transistor" radio sound to it. Bose is using psycho-acoustic cues to fool your brain into thinking it's hearing a richer spectrum of sound then is really there. Go ahead, try it for yourself, you'll see what I mean.
So in conclusion, the Moonroof and CD changer are great, but the Bose part of the package is a severe disappointment (unless you gave up on Bose in 1977 when they did). If you listen at low to moderate levels, the system is smooth and pleasant sounding, even if it's due to artificial coloration in the sound and not at all transparent to the original recording.
On a sad note, my wife told me I can't touch her car, so I can't upgrade the system. She doesn't have a very good ear, so she doesn't care what it sounds like.
