i have a 1997 se with bose. is it possible to keep the stock setup and add an amp to the system to make it louder?

 

nope...... i dont think so...... trash the whole system and get a new one (all rockford)

 

Look at the PD-2 from www.linkmeup.com

DW

 

i did it...its sounds MUCH better... you have to get a line converter that converts the signal directly off of the deck into an RCA...the PD2 is a good one, but i you dont want to spend 100 bucks, get the $50 one i got from sounddomain.com...the problem you will run into is that the bose speakers are 1 ohm...so you need to wire each side in series to get 2 ohm load per side...thus you will have no fading capabilities (but you don't need it anyhow). if i were you, i would wire in a better set of 4 ohm tweeters in PARALLEL to the front speakers for better highs, if you do this, your total resistance per side will drop to about 1.6 ohms, so you need to have an amp that can handle such a small load, i have a PPI, it does quite well. one of the harder things you will have to do is running speaker wire from your new amp to the speakers in your doors, i did it, it just took a long time (and a few explitives).

let me know if you have any more questions...

 

The main reason the PD-2 is more expensive is because it takes the line level signals of your BOSE HU and feeds them to your other sources. So, the signal is cleaner.

DW

 

so does the one from sounddomain.com...as i stated above... the PD2 is just a nicer unit, definitely cleaner, but the $50 one from sounddomain did fine for me....

 

You know what? I thought he wanted to get an amp to drive other speakers. So you guys are both talking about adding an amp, and then using that amp to drive the existing bose speakers? I find that odd, the bose amps deliver enough power to the stock Bose speakers, and the bose speakers still don't quite have the ability to deal with the bass when the bose amps throw it at the 6.5" Bose speakers. I would imagine this situation would be worse with an external amp.

By the way, the PD-2 is still better because you don't have to deal with resistance mis-matches as you had mentioned earlier. The PD-2 takes care of all that.

 

the reason the bose speakers distort during bass notes is from a LACK of power, not because they have 'enough' power from the stock amps... with a good power source, you can drive any speak harder and sound much better than with a small power source

 

I respectfully dis-agree. At least on my stock bose system, my rear 6.5s were distorting mostly because they reached the limit of their excursion, a little bit before power was maxxed. I envy the 3rd gen Bose systems because they had 6x9s so they could handle more bass. Look at your speakers thru the trunk while your blasting, you'll see.
Of course this also depends on the type of music listened to as well. The speakers seem to be well matched to the amps in terms of power on most music that isn't bass heavy.

DW

 

i mean, it certainly is possible yours were maxing out...but i was able to push mine harder when i ran them to an external amp...of course, my intentions weren't to have the bose handling low bass, i high passed them at 150hz and they handle power beautifully. dont get me wrong, i ran them at full range for a while just to enjoy how much better the new setup was from stock

 

Aha! That would explain the different observatins. Most of my music has alot of energy in the 40 to 80Hz range. I like my bass

I know I need a sub-woofer. Maybe one day.

DW