I love my car. I like the way the Bose sounds. BUT...
How come I can turn the volume up all the way and not be satisfied with the volume? It's crystal clear, and no distortion at all, sounds decent too.. I know this is not something to be complaining about, but I want it just a little bit louder. All I want to do is replace the amp with a louder one and drive the factory speakers. I know in the 3rd and 4th gen Bose the speakers had individual amps. But I am told the 5th gens have two amps. one for the tweeters and doors and one for the sub. Can I just replace the amp for the doors? or maybe get a high quality 5 channel?

I tried searching, but could not come up with this exact answer. Sorry if it had already been discussed.

Every other stereo I have owned would distort a 8/10 or higher , maybe I am used to that and feel I am not going loud enough. I dunno.

Any suggestions?

 

it is possible to replace the bose amp in a 5th gen with am aftermarket amp, but you'll need an adapter to do it.

the bose system in the 5th gens has 2 amps. the sub has a built in amp (under the black plastic piece on the back of the 8" speaker. the other 6 speakers (2 5.25" midbass in the rear doors, 2 6.5" midbass in the front doors, and 2 1" tweeters in the A pillars) are run off of the bose anp mounted in the trunk under the rear deck on the right side.

the bose headunit only provides low-level signal (unfortunately NOT your typical RCA type) and turn on signal to the bose stuff in the trunk. the bose amp has circuitry to control the sub and its amp.

here's where your difficulty lies: you can replace the bose amp in the back (using something like the PowerDriver PD4 from AudioLink) but in that case you cant keep the bose sub and its amp--you'd have to replace that too.

on the bright side, you could replace the bose amp and sub with a new 5 channel amp and use it to run the existing bose speakers in the front and a NEW sub in the trunk!

good luck.

 

Excellent. I can upgrade in stages. 5 channel amp with new 10'sub, and then new tweets and doors later. I love this place!! I might do the tweets sooner. Seems easy enough. Can I use the existing wiring when I replace the doors, or will I have to run higher capacity wire?

 

i just put in a new headunit and replaced the bose amp with a 5 channel amp myself. i put a new sub in but right now i'm still using the stock bose mids and tweets, but after getting MUCH cleaner sound and more power, i'm probably gonna be upgrading the stock speakers sooner than i think...

i am using the stock wires right now. i spliced into the harness that unplugs from the bose amp to get the turn on wire for the amp and for the speaker wires. i dont think i'll upgrade the wires even after replacing the speakers since (from what i've read on other posts) you will need to drill new holes into the doors to run the wores. i really don't want to do that especially when there's wires already there that i can use. but, right now i'm only pushing 50 watts per speaker so if you're gonna be running a more powerful amp than that you may want to consider lower guage wire.