Blose improvement on the cheap

[6262ms3]

So I posted this a long time ago on one of the "other" forums before I came here, but I thought I'd share it here. It's wordy and I'm lazy so I copy/pasted everything.

Well, I admittedly hate the bose system in our cars. Mainly the muddy mid-bass, distorted mids and lifeless treble. But I'm pretty broke right now so a proper system is not in the cards for awhile. From info on this forum and diyma I tried out a plan that so far has only cost me $50 ($30 of which was shipping to Canada). I know fourthmeal and other audiophiles will scoff but it's all I can afford at the moment. Here's what I've done to address my biggest beefs.

Muddiness: Others have sound deadened the doors and noticed a huge improvement in mid-bass clarity, but sound-deadening costs money, even raamat. I faded the system to the front by 5 and noticed an improvement, still muddy but not nearly as bad with the rear mids turned down. It's survivable now and a free "mod". Lightly tapping the mid while it's in the door reveals a very hollow, resonant sound, so when I have more coin deadening is certainly on the list.

Treble: On having a look at the bose tweeters I found that they have cheap plastic domes, which is possibly the worst sounding tweeter material known to man. They also have a tiny 4.7 microfarad cap on them for a crossover, which on a 4-ohm tweet results in around 8.5khz. This means the mid has to do most of the work and the tweets are just there to fill things in a bit. After reading some diyma reviews I bought these:
Dayton ND20FB-4 Rear-Mount 3/4" Neodymium Dome Tweeter 275-035
Dirt cheap, but they have a soft dome and apparently sound way better than $12 would suggest. With a couple of wraps of electrical tape around the body they are a perfect press-fit in the factory hole. I bought some 10 microfarad caps for a roughly 4khz high-pass. HUGE improvement! Cymbals sound like cymbals now, and the lower x-over makes the upper mid-range sound cleaner and more natural. Stock I had the treble at +3 to get any crispness, now it's flat and balances with the mids pretty well. On the down side 4khz with a 6db slope is pushing them a bit, if I really crank it they get a little spitty but for the low power level of the bose amp it's not too bad.

Distorty mids: WTF? As other members have stated there is no x-over at all on the mids, the poor things are trying to play the full audio range and they just can't. I bought some 0.10 millihenry inductors for the front mids, low-passing them around 3.1khz (available inductor ratings with a 2ohm mid doesn't leave many options). This really cleaned up the mids, there's a bigger gap than I'd like with the tweet x-over but at a 6db slope it blends pretty well. After doing everything to one side I opened the doors and ran back and forth to compare my ghetto rig to stock: The ghetto mid was only playing bass and mid-range decently cleanly, the stock mid was very thrashy in comparison as it tried to play the upper-mid/lower treble. The ghetto tweet filled-in the upper-mids and up nicely and sounded surprisingly natural, the stock tweet was only playing treble quietly and sounded like a good tweet with a dirty sock covering it. When I have more time I'll finish the other side, let the tweets loosen-up and give a more detailed sound review.

Sorry for the stoopid long post but I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out and wanted to share with everyone.

Here's a cross-over calculator page that I used to pick my values, just plugged in a 2-ohm woofer with a 4-ohm tweeter on the 6 db-octave calculator:
Crossover Design Chart and Inductance vs. Frequency Calculator(Low-pass)

These are the capacitors I bought for the tweeter high-pass:
Dayton Audio DMPC-10 10uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor 027-428

These are the inductors for the woofer low-pass:
Jantzen 0.10mH 20 AWG Air Core Inductor 255-020

Here's the dayton tweet on the left and the bose tweet on the right. I put my cel in the pic for a size reference.
P3310013.JPG

This was the only place I had room to put the cap for the tweeter x-over. In hindsight I should have bought a lower power rating cap as these are huge and probably overkill for what I'm using them for. I normally prefer soldering connections but since this was an experiment and will eventually be replaced anyway I used quick n' easy crimp connectors. After this pic I wrapped it all in electrical tape to protect the connections and support the weight of the cap.
P3310015.JPG

The inductor for the woofer x-over. Taped it up as well afterwards, not the way I like doing things normally but it can be returned to stock quickly if needed and like I said, this will all get replaced within a year (hopefully).
P3310016.JPG

Dayton tweet in the factory hole. 2.5 wraps of electrical tape around the tweet body makes a solid press-fit. If anyone's wondering this is as big of a tweet as you're going to fit in the factory hole, there's just not much room. Notice I had to carefully bend the terminals as there's not enough depth to clear the connectors if they're straight back.
P3310019.JPG

What the dayton tweet looks like from the front, nice and stock-looking.
P3310020.JPG

Early review: I keep telling myself to be patient as people have noted these tweets take some time to mellow-out. Right now they're pretty bright, far more detailed than most soft-domes I've heard. I've had to put the treble at -1, crazy considering stock I had to put it at +3 to get any treble. These tweets have really brought music to life again, the bowing noise of a cello, the picking noise of a certain bass or acoustic guitar, subtle reverb on a female vocal, the sizzle of a crash cymbal; It's all of these little details in music that I love and I'm hearing them again, it really puts a smile on my face! Night and day improvement over stock, if they mellow a bit I'd say they're damn-near perfect! For $12!! They're better than most "budget" car tweets I've heard. Stage height has also been raised, though there is more localization between the tweet and mid than before. The inductors have made the mids alot more liveable, midrange is way cleaner, distortion is greatly reduced and I can push the stereo a few more notches without bothering my ears. Mid-bass seems a bit cleaner as well. Still not the most detailed mids but the tweets partially make up for it. So far I'm really happy with this little project, it's not going to win any SQ competitions but I actually enjoy listening to music in my car again, which will keep me sane until I can afford a full-blown system.

[Cheveyboy]

Cool, cant wait to see the finished product. Would love to do the same, just enough to make is sound better. I myself don't feel like doing much other then adding a basslink. I actually run my bass at -2 most of the time to kill the muddiness. But if these adjustments make it sound right, that would be sweet.

Also these two links don't work

These are the capacitors I bought for the tweeter high-pass:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...Number=027-428

These are the inductors for the woofer low-pass:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshow...=255-020&DID=7

[6262ms3]

Thanks, links are fixed. I actually finished this well over a year ago. The tweets mellowed out a bit and are still going strong. I've been working shitloads of extra OT the past few months so I finally have some cash for a proper system. I'll probably do it up in the new year sometime. These mods definitely helped me keep my sanity, if you're not a total stereo nerd then adding a subwoofer to this setup would make a pretty decent sounding system.

[Cheveyboy]

What size cap would you use in place of that big honker?

Id love to nerd it out, but that would require reinventing the wheel in this car.

[6262ms3]

Doing a quick surf on parts express, I should've gone with something like these:
Parts-Express.com:10uF 100V Non-Polarized Capacitor | PAC PA electrolytic capacitors electrolytic capacitor electrolytic Crossovers caps cap ar ac 10uF
Still overkill in power rating (I just found a rough rule of thumb is 50 watts on a 4ohm speaker needs a 50vdc capacitor). Sometimes that site is tough to find specific components on, I'm sure a quick email or phone call to them would have helped me find exactly what I needed.

[Cheveyboy]

thanks man!

While I'm on the way to boring you with mundane questions, got one more!

Caps are directional correct? Don't they normally have a stripe to show direction of polarity?

Or can they be placed either way on on the positive wire?

[6262ms3]

No worries, both the caps I linked are non-polarized so it doesn't matter which way they're hooked up. As long as they're in series with the speaker you'll be fine (this goes for the inductors on the mids as well). I think I spliced mine on the positive wire to each speaker.

[Cheveyboy]

Oh right there polarized. Man its been so long since Ive messed with with stuff like this.

How did you go about cleaning up, making sure things are not swaying in the breeze?

[6262ms3]

I'm a little ashamed to say I used plenty of electrical tape. I started by wrapping the original wire harness and then wrapping all the way across the component. The tape/wire harness supports the weight. I did it quick and dirty as it was an interim solution. I've kept this setup longer than I though I would but nothing's fallen apart yet. If I were doing this in a permanent setup I would have soldered all connections and used screw anchors/zip ties to take the weight.

[Cheveyboy]

haha, that's always what happens if you don't do it the way you want the first time around.

Just thought about one more thing. Theirs only one pair of speaker wire coming into the door right? Hense the reason the mid bass is getting full range. Sooo.... Does the pig tale for the tweeter split off before it goes to the mid bass? If it doesnt and runs through the mid to the tweeter, how are you not cutting off the high's too the tweeter?

I ask this because Ive seen a lot of factory wiring jobs like this. That have the wire for the tweeter crimped right into the terminal that's plugged into the mid.

[6262ms3]

I can't remember exactly where, but the tweet and mid wires split off in the door. I had plenty of room to splice stuff in for each speaker after the split. It would have been hilarious fail to splice anything before the split.

[dwagner88]

I know this is a really old thread, but after performing this mod I really think it deserves a bump. All the parts can be had for less than 30 bucks, and if you know what you are doing (which I didn't) it probably only takes an hour or two. HUGE difference in the sound of the system. It seems to make it more efficient also, I get more volume at the same setting than I did before. I also did not solder the connectors (I own a soldering iron but I have never used it) but crimped them. I hope they don't come undone. I am doing the rears tomorrow.

[thewheelman]

This is really interesting. I have been lamenting the shortcomings of the factory Bose system. This along with the sub amp mod on one of the other forums, will make for a pretty nice sounding system. Thanks for providing the great info!

[taochaos]

I am wondering how you install the inductors? I have never done anything like this and it looks like the pics you took are no longer showing up. From an internet search it appears they go inline with the speaker wire, one for each speaker.

Can you use the same inductors for the rear speakers too? Or should they have a different rating? Would this be a waste?

Thank you

[dwagner88]

Originally Posted by taochaos I am wondering how you install the inductors? I have never done anything like this and it looks like the pics you took are no longer showing up. From an internet search it appears they go inline with the speaker wire, one for each speaker. Can you use the same inductors for the rear speakers too? Or should they have a different rating? Would this be a waste? Thank you

I wired them in series with the speakers. I only did the fronts, the rears seemed like overkill, and I am quite happy with the results, especially now that the tweeters have mellowed out a bit.

[taochaos]

Cool, thanks! I ordered all the stuff last night, I'm excited to see how it sounds.

[hamsterman]

interesting stuff!

[801MS3]

I need to do this...
Next person should take pictures for us retards that only function off visual instructions.

[Base14]

thanks for bumping this up, forgot to do this when I first saw this thread a couple months ago.. Just ordered the parts, I'll take pics of the install if I remember

[mdl3v8]

Subbing for pics.

[wolly6973]

Would this help out the non-bose systems as well?

[Base14]

Here are the pics, as the OP posted on 247.

Blose improvement for cheap $

[Base14]

Received the package last night and poped them in. Took me bout an hour and half, no problems.

If you are AT ALL disappointed with crappy highs in the Bose system, DO THIS MOD!! You wont regret it. For the price ($30 shipped) for all the materials, you get MUCH better sound. I can now say I am satisfied with my system with my now acquired crystal clear highs and my 8" stealth sub adding lows. This is how it should of sounded from the factory!

DOOO EEETTTT NOOW!!!

[taochaos]

Gonna do the install today!

[taochaos]

done, it sounds so much better! the muddiness really showed up when i did the right/left comparison mid install. i can now hear a whole bunch more in my music.

can't believe that bose puts it's name on these crappy paper speakers. guess i shouldn't be surprised though, all my sound nerd friends always bag on bose. it does have a pretty logo though :p

[CosmicArkie]

Gotta chime in and thank the OP for the info. Did the mod and even my ancient half deaf ears can tell a _BIG_ difference. I didn't know what I didn't know.

Try it, you'll like it.

[6262ms3]

Awesome, I'm glad that this mod is working out for so many people! I've since moved on to a full-blown system but this was perfect for keeping me sane while I saved my pennies.

[mrQQ]

would this work on ms6?

[jracer]

Originally Posted by mrQQ would this work on ms6?

??

[thewheelman]

I don't see why not, the Bose system in the 6 should be the same across the board.

[BigjohnB20]

If anyone tries on the 6, take some pics and let us know how it turns out. I actually don't mind the bose as much as a lot of people on here. Compared to any of my previous shitty cars it sounds great....

That said, my main complaint is it seems to be very heavy on the mids. They over power almost everything. I have it set at like base +1 trebble +4 I think and stuff with a lot of bass guitar for example still sounds pretty bad.

[SJP0tato]

After some quick google action, there's more info here as well:
Dayton ND20FB-4 Saves Me from Blose! - DIYMA.com - Scientific Car Audio - Truth in Sound Quality

[mrQQ]

my question about ms6 was because tweeter housing seems to be different, and i'm not sure if those would fit..

[tee.dog]

Originally Posted by 6262ms3 So I posted this a long time ago on one of the "other" forums before I came here, but I thought I'd share it here. It's wordy and I'm lazy so I copy/pasted everything. Well, I admittedly hate the bose system in our cars. Mainly the muddy mid-bass, distorted mids and lifeless treble. But I'm pretty broke right now so a proper system is not in the cards for awhile. From info on this forum and diyma I tried out a plan that so far has only cost me $50 ($30 of which was shipping to Canada). I know fourthmeal and other audiophiles will scoff but it's all I can afford at the moment. Here's what I've done to address my biggest beefs. Muddiness: Others have sound deadened the doors and noticed a huge improvement in mid-bass clarity, but sound-deadening costs money, even raamat. I faded the system to the front by 5 and noticed an improvement, still muddy but not nearly as bad with the rear mids turned down. It's survivable now and a free "mod". Lightly tapping the mid while it's in the door reveals a very hollow, resonant sound, so when I have more coin deadening is certainly on the list. Treble: On having a look at the bose tweeters I found that they have cheap plastic domes, which is possibly the worst sounding tweeter material known to man. They also have a tiny 4.7 microfarad cap on them for a crossover, which on a 4-ohm tweet results in around 8.5khz. This means the mid has to do most of the work and the tweets are just there to fill things in a bit. After reading some diyma reviews I bought these: Dayton ND20FB-4 Rear-Mount 3/4" Neodymium Dome Tweeter Dirt cheap, but they have a soft dome and apparently sound way better than $12 would suggest. With a couple of wraps of electrical tape around the body they are a perfect press-fit in the factory hole. I bought some 10 microfarad caps for a roughly 4khz high-pass. HUGE improvement! Cymbals sound like cymbals now, and the lower x-over makes the upper mid-range sound cleaner and more natural. Stock I had the treble at +3 to get any crispness, now it's flat and balances with the mids pretty well. On the down side 4khz with a 6db slope is pushing them a bit, if I really crank it they get a little spitty but for the low power level of the bose amp it's not too bad. Distorty mids: WTF? As other members have stated there is no x-over at all on the mids, the poor things are trying to play the full audio range and they just can't. I bought some 0.10 millihenry inductors for the front mids, low-passing them around 3.1khz (available inductor ratings with a 2ohm mid doesn't leave many options). This really cleaned up the mids, there's a bigger gap than I'd like with the tweet x-over but at a 6db slope it blends pretty well. After doing everything to one side I opened the doors and ran back and forth to compare my ghetto rig to stock: The ghetto mid was only playing bass and mid-range decently cleanly, the stock mid was very thrashy in comparison as it tried to play the upper-mid/lower treble. The ghetto tweet filled-in the upper-mids and up nicely and sounded surprisingly natural, the stock tweet was only playing treble quietly and sounded like a good tweet with a dirty sock covering it. When I have more time I'll finish the other side, let the tweets loosen-up and give a more detailed sound review. Sorry for the stoopid long post but I'm pretty happy with how this is turning out and wanted to share with everyone. Here's a cross-over calculator page that I used to pick my values, just plugged in a 2-ohm woofer with a 4-ohm tweeter on the 6 db-octave calculator: Crossover Design Chart and Inductance vs. Frequency Calculator(Low-pass) These are the capacitors I bought for the tweeter high-pass: Dayton Audio DMPC-10 10uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor These are the inductors for the woofer low-pass: Jantzen 0.10mH 20 AWG Air Core Inductor Funny that you bring this up, I finally got around to finishing the passenger side last night! Attachment 8953 Here's the dayton tweet on the left and the bose tweet on the right. I put my cel in the pic for a size reference. Attachment 8954 This was the only place I had room to put the cap for the tweeter x-over. In hindsight I should have bought a lower power rating cap as these are huge and probably overkill for what I'm using them for. I normally prefer soldering connections but since this was an experiment and will eventually be replaced anyway I used quick n' easy crimp connectors. After this pic I wrapped it all in electrical tape to protect the connections and support the weight of the cap. Attachment 8955 The inductor for the woofer x-over. Taped it up as well afterwards, not the way I like doing things normally but it can be returned to stock quickly if needed and like I said, this will all get replaced within a year (hopefully). Attachment 8956 Dayton tweet in the factory hole. 2.5 wraps of electrical tape around the tweet body makes a solid press-fit. If anyone's wondering this is as big of a tweet as you're going to fit in the factory hole, there's just not much room. Notice I had to carefully bend the terminals as there's not enough depth to clear the connectors if they're straight back. Attachment 8957 What the dayton tweet looks like from the front, nice and stock-looking. Early review: I keep telling myself to be patient as people have noted these tweets take some time to mellow-out. Right now they're pretty bright, far more detailed than most soft-domes I've heard. I've had to put the treble at -1, crazy considering stock I had to put it at +3 to get any treble. These tweets have really brought music to life again, the bowing noise of a cello, the picking noise of a certain bass or acoustic guitar, subtle reverb on a female vocal, the sizzle of a crash cymbal; It's all of these little details in music that I love and I'm hearing them again, it really puts a smile on my face! Night and day improvement over stock, if they mellow a bit I'd say they're damn-near perfect! For $12!! They're better than most "budget" car tweets I've heard. Stage height has also been raised, though there is more localization between the tweet and mid than before. The inductors have made the mids alot more liveable, midrange is way cleaner, distortion is greatly reduced and I can push the stereo a few more notches without bothering my ears. Mid-bass seems a bit cleaner as well. Still not the most detailed mids but the tweets partially make up for it. So far I'm really happy with this little project, it's not going to win any SQ competitions but I actually enjoy listening to music in my car again, which will keep me sane until I can afford a full-blown system.

so after much reading and learning I did this... I used radio shack caps instead thou as there a 6th the size of the partsxpress ones. so in my opinion the sys sounds better in the tweet and mid range but still needs alot of help in the base,the tiny 4" woofr under the seat is just fucking joke, bose = bullshit i can suggest only that everyone rip factory bose out and build a sys to please as thats the only real option good luck thanx for your help 6262ms3

[wolly6973]

.






Please?

[SJP0tato]

I finished up the first half of this tonight (tweeters + capacitor) in my 2007 MS6.

Things with the speaker housing are a bit different than the MS3 as someone else mentioned. Here's a pic of the MS3 housing from the OP:
http://www.mazdaspeedforum.org/forum/foru...1&d=1308972670

Here's a pic of the MS6 housing:
http://www.mazdaspeedforum.org/forum/foru...1&d=1308972670

The MS3 housing appears to be a "press-fit", whereas the MS6 housing has a lid-like holder (seen in the uper left of the second pic) that clamps down on the back of the tweeter and is secured by two screws.

Trying to fit the tweeter into the shallow grille didn't really work, and the square backing was way too huge to fit into the space in the "lid", so I trimmed it all off using some diagonal cutters:
http://www.mazdaspeedforum.org/forum/foru...1&d=1308972670

Once that was done it physically fit into the lid, except the terminals; so I used the diagonal cutters on the lid to make room for the terminals:
http://www.mazdaspeedforum.org/forum/foru...1&d=1308972670

With the tweeter pressed (more or less) into the lid piece:
http://www.mazdaspeedforum.org/forum/foru...1&d=1308972670

Putting the lid back into the grille, I alternated tightening the screws down. The tweeter doesn't seem to quite fit 100% into the OEM configuration, so don't go torquing the crap out of the screws. Just enough to snugly hold the tweeter in without rattling should be good enough.

I used some $1.xx 10uF caps from Radio Shack (they specifically mention 4khz & 50v, so they seem specific for stereo install). I kinda halfassed this part, and put the caps into the tweeter housing as well. They don't really fit all that well, but they'll do for now until I pull the door panels to install the inductors.


It turned out in my setup my bitching about the lack of highs was justified, as whoever owned the car before me somehow managed to break the passenger Bose tweeter into 3 pieces. It looked like they couldn't figure out the little release tab buried in the tweeter housing, so just muscled the crap out of the harness until it came off.
With the new tweeters installed clarity is improved greatly. The highs are clear enough that listening to radio signal I thought there was a wiring problem as there was some pretty bad background distortion... or so I thought until I realized it was just broadcast radio static/noise. Switching to a clean CD source alleviated my fears, and showed how good music really can sound.

Overall this mod was a bit of a PITA with the modding necessary for the speaker housing, but if you care at all about sound quality is absolutely worth the annoyance.

[tddvrrn]

i did this about a year ago, it is indeed awesome. the write up on 247 was what i used for info. there's a link above to the pics.

i would recommend doing the rears. i still want to do mine, i can still hear some muddiness... i also recommend soldering the connections. my shitty crimps came loose after a few months. i went back and soldered and it has been solid since.

cliff notes: do this, back too. solder everything

[S7EED3]

I just bought all the parts to do this mod and was wondering if it matters which speaker wire you solder the caps and inductors to (+ or -). Thanks.

[tddvrrn]

yes it does. i just can't remember. i want to say +. if you read the write up or look on mazdas247 for 'bose improvement', there is tons of info. there should be an answer there.

[tddvrrn]

Originally Posted by S7EED3 I just bought all the parts to do this mod and was wondering if it matters which speaker wire you solder the caps and inductors to (+ or -). Thanks.

i just checked. i soldered the caps and coils in series with the white wire. i'm pretty sure that's the positive wire.