[car0800]

Has anyone here gone through the trouble of upgrading the BOSE 9 speaker system? The stock system sounds pretty good but it would be nice to have a tighter bass. I have a 6.5" 200W Bazooka bass tube in my truck which I absolutely love and frankly sounds better, was wondering if I could get something similar. I like tight punchy bass and most sound systems, even aftermarket ones, I have heard just sound terrible with boomy bass that clouds the rest of the music. I have found that the smaller diameter subwoofer (6-8") + reasonably powerful amp + sealed enclosure does the trick.

If you have upgraded your sound system what setup did you go with?

Also, has anyone used Dynamat to deaden the vibrations? I posted in another thread that the Mazda 3 seems to have some vibration issues.

 

[hau101]

I used Dynamat on the doors - outer panel and on the plastic inner trim - road noise had no improvement but the bass did sound a bit more deep. There might actually be more vibration on the door handle because of the more "enclosed" bass. Also have slight rattle on heavy bass on the carbon fiber'ish trim where the door controls are that goes away if I push it back down. I don't pump music all that loud so I don't know if Dynamat in the trunk area helps with vibrations.

 

[snowy8171]

An aftermarket system will be far superior to the stock Bose by a mile. It all depends on the speakers, amps, headunit you get. Boomy base is all on the specific sub you get (spl/sq). You can get a sub for just loudness/boomy (spl ) or one for nice tight base (sq). All depends on equipment

 

[number1alex]

If you're stock speakers sound good, a smaller sealed sub will more the compensate for the weak bass. I opted for a Rockford Fosgate R1X10 10" ($100 on crutchfield) and it provides that tight "thumpy" bass without overpowering the rest of the sound - no dynamatt required. I also got a 4-channel amp so I could power new front speakers, but a good mono amp will do the trick for you (crutchfield has a few good packages that include the pre-enclosed sub and matching amp,)

Now, if I could just fix my mids and highs I'd be a happy camper!

 

[car0800]

number1alex, where did you place your sub? do you have the sedan or hatch?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Valor_X]

I have a BOSE car and I just changed my sub set up this monday, I used to have a Cerwin Vega 10" compact powered subwoofer - It was definitely OK and added some extra bass but I really wanted to feel it...
So I bought a 12" Powerbass Subwoofer / ported loaded enclosure combo a long with a Rockford Fosgate R500X1D mono amp - Birthsheet 622 watts @ 2ohms, but the sub is 4ohms. (but that means I can upgrade in the future)
Sub is rated at 275w RMS and the amp is rated at 300w RMS @ 4ohms so it's a perfect combo

I did my best to have a super clean set up... no wires visible whatsoever
and OMG... going from stock BOSE bass to the 10" Cerwin Vega was ok... but then going from that to this 12" ported sub/amp combo is insane
I can FEEL the bass and it's so clean, and it's still breaking in!
I'm going to wait until the sub breaks in before I tune it, running it at moderate gain

I mounted the amp to the back of the seat, it has some parts that are sheetmetal, the screw holes lined up perfectly to the parts that had sheetmetal on the seat. Drilled some holes and screwed it on.
The holes are so small you can't even see them, so I don't have to worry about it looking ugly if I ever take it off (it hurt my soul when i drilled that first hole though)

And for the sub I went to walmart and bought 2 sets of non-slip rubber feet meant for furniture and put them under the sub and WOW it doesn't move at all, worked waaay better than I thought
But it also helps that the sub is like 30 something pounds haha
I initially thought I was going to have to drill and mount it or tie it with ugly bungee cords

The best thing is since I have the amp mounted separately I can simply disconnect the speaker terminals from the sub and take it out if I ever need too, or even move it around the trunk and still fold the seats down
The trunk has so much space I'm amazed

But now this thing puts out so much deep clean bass the door woofers are useless...
I'm thinking about getting ANOTHER amp.. 2 channel.. and running some full range speakers instead... but then I would have to figure out how to run speaker wire to the inside of the doors through the factory rubber grommet and how to create some kind of mount for the speakers to fit in the 8" speaker hole

 

[number1alex]

number1alex, where did you place your sub? do you have the sedan or hatch?

I put my amp and sub on the passenger side of the trunk against the rear seat (opposite of Valor_X's position.) Mine is a hatchback, so a rear-facing will supposedly utilize the larger surface-area of the trunk door and bounce off for a better thump throughout the cabin, but I'm no expert on that. I did not mount my amp with bolts. Instead, I used 3M Velcro to secure the sub to the floor with just enough room to the side to tuck the amp between the sub and side of the car. I can post a pic as soon as I hit post #15 . It stays put, even during sharp turns (long story, but I thoroughly tested and the setup doesn't budge), but I can still rip it all out in about a minute if I need the cargo space.