I am wanting to replace my bose sound system in my 1998 se. I am a newbie when it comes to replacing speakers, and have no idea what all i would need. Any suggestions on what ill need? Is it possible to just replace the rear deck speakers and keep all other bose speakers?(rear decks went out). Or should i just go ahead and replace all of them? if i do replace all, what wiring would i need to replace/convert to work w the new speakers? thanks!

 

You may need to talk to someone at Crutchfield, but I believe that all Bose systems use speakers with built in amps. I could very well be wrong.

 

The head unit is a preamp that sends low level signal to individual amps and the amps power the speakers. The speakers are a specific impedance and swapping only the speakers is not so simple. The system is not designed to work with other parts.

How much can you spend?

 

Yeah, JS, unfortunately is right!

I really loved my BOSE/Clarion system in my 99 SE until it decided enough was enough. And now that 25 years has past since it was made, there isn't much of any COMPLETE support anywhere.

Now finding different parts that combined to be as balanced, will be a challenge. Especially not really paying attention to that industry for decades. And me... I WANT a CD Player and NOT a navigation unit. Who wants to look that low for directions?

I personally would like to know what you do if you get excellent results! It won't be cheap though! Back in the early 80's an amazing system cost me $1200. One Alpine Head, One Stereo Nakamichi 75 wpc Amp and two 3-way 6.9 Infinity Speakers. Nobody could believe how good it sounded! THE GOOD OLD DAYS. Now I don't have a clue what plays nice together.

Best of LUCK! (and RESEARCH)

 

I too really enjoyed the factory Bose in the 4th gens, it's a shame it's so hard to keep alive. But it's been gone from my car for more than 20 years, and the flexibility that comes with having all aftermarket stuff is really liberating. If you don't want to go through with the huge hassle of gutting the system and installing brand new stuff (and I don't blame you) you can try to find some used rear Bose speakers at junkyards that offer warranties, and keep trying some until you find a working pair. At this point, that's going to take a while.

If you decide to rip it all out and install aftermarket parts, you can treat it like any other car. At a minimum you'll need:
-A new headunit
-6.5" component speakers up front, and 6.5" coaxials in the rear

Since headunits rarely offer more than 25w RMS per channel, there's a fairly decent chance a basic setup will actually sound worse than what a Bose system would. 25w just isn't much power. The next step up would be to add a 4 channel amp, ideally one with at least 70w RMS per channel. This will complicate the install, as you'll need to run 4 channel RCA cables to the amp, and then speaker wire from the amp to each speaker. But having an external amp that can push some decent power will really make those speakers start to sound good. The final upgrade would be a subwoofer, which will require its own amplification. Either in the form of a 5 channel amp instead of the 4 channel amp, or its own dedicated monoblock amp.

 

Years ago it was so much simpler (and cheaper). Now we have all these choices and one can easily spend $3,000+.
I echo the Crutchfield suggestion. Have bought from them in the past (needed a Toyota Camry harness, for example). Re-inventing the wheel is so time-consuming. Take advantage of what someone else has figured out.

 

I ran into a similar issue rewiring after swapping out the stock Bose setup. If you're doing your own RCA cables and want something easy without soldering, https://resonixsoundsolutions.com/pr...-cable-system/ saved me a lot of headache. Super straightforward and lets you make the lengths you actually need, so you don’t have loops of extra cable getting in the way or picking up noise.