When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Your "front" speakers should be the bose subwoofers in the door. Then the "through" setting on the X-over will work much better. The Metra adaptor seems only for a 4 speaker setup. This is causing a problem because you have a 6 speaker system. A component set (2-way) with an external X-over would fix your problems.
Also, you may have shot yourself in the foot ditching the bass blockers on the 3.5's. They shouldn't be played much below 800 Hz. Can they go lower? Sure. But why drive them that far? You have 2 bigger woofers ready to do that for you. No sense in adding a 104MM turbo to a lawn mower right?
I'm even more confused now, LOL. I pulled the Bose HU and replaced it with the JVC. I used the Metra plugs and box and connected it to the existing wiring harness and then just plugged the wiring harness into the JVC HU. I took out the 2 rear and 2 door speakers and just replaced them with new speakers. I didn't do anything with the Bose woofers or amps in the doors other than leave them there. I guess I assumed that the Metra box took care of the interface with the remaining Bose door woofers and amps.
The Bose woofers are self powered and are fed a signal that is produced by the Metra module. I'm not exactly sure where the Metra module gets it's signal because My previous set-up had an LMC57 module. I made an assumption that it was pulling a signal from the rear speakers but I could be wrong. My previous set-up pulled signal from the front speakers and the rears were matrixed somehow for fill by my Android HU.
The C5 has a processor in the drivers side foot-well that feeds the woofer amps located in the doors near the woofers. The other speakers are a direct feed from HU to speakers with no processing. The factory HU did the processing for the four mains. Now the aftermarket HU is doing whatever processing. If there is any sort of X-over blocking bass prior to the Metra interface then none of the fronts will receive bass including the woofers. I am assuming any bass heard in the rear was produced by the 6.5 rears and not by the Boss subs. Is that correct?
Without knowing how the OP's system is currently wired it's hard to diagnose.
The Bose woofers are self powered and are fed a signal that is produced by the Metra module. I'm not exactly sure where the Metra module gets it's signal because My previous set-up had an LMC57 module. I made an assumption that it was pulling a signal from the rear speakers but I could be wrong. My previous set-up pulled signal from the front speakers and the rears were matrixed somehow for fill by my Android HU.
The C5 has a processor in the drivers side foot-well that feeds the woofer amps located in the doors near the woofers. The other speakers are a direct feed from HU to speakers with no processing. The factory HU did the processing for the four mains. Now the aftermarket HU is doing whatever processing. If there is any sort of X-over blocking bass prior to the Metra interface then none of the fronts will receive bass including the woofers. I am assuming any bass heard in the rear was produced by the 6.5 rears and not by the Boss subs. Is that correct?
Without knowing how the OP's system is currently wired it's hard to diagnose.
This.
I looked up all your parts earlier. The head unit is fairly straight forward, but the Metra seems to be where the simplicity ended. I'm more confused myself now too because I GUTTED my C6 this week and I never found the "factory" amplifier. I'm assuming it's deep in the dash somewhere. I do know that once I ran RCAs from my HU to amps, the factory chime any everything still worked (at normal volume). So I'm assuming the factory amps is ONLY driving the center dash speaker and the Bose door subs. Everything else must be run off the HU. Hence why it sounds so underwhelming.
On the C5 there are two individual class D amps driving the Boss woofers in the doors. The amps are fairly small, low powered and integrated near the speakers. The line level comes from a processor located just above the accelerator pedal. The processor takes information from the factory head unit, processes it and sends it back to the head unit where it is further processed then out to the speakers. Asa with every system that Bose ever made, it is so freaking dismal, that it is grossly incompatible with any other system ever known to man kind. I think the factory woofers are crossed over at something like 2000 HZ if I am not mistaken, which is ridiculously high by any industry standard. I am sure they make up for this by further bastardizing other components within this array. The way they get away with using "twirlers" rather than normal speakers is by using processing to push them harder in ranges they are not well suited for by design and suppressing them where they would shine by nature in attempt to flatten response. This is how Bose has always built systems and why they always sound like ****. Especially when you try to upgrade. You will never be successful at making Bose components work well with anything else. On the AVS forum we say "friends don't let friends buy Bose".
I am now with those that say to replace the whole system if you can afford it. A good system adds to the driving experience and lessens driving fatigue IMO.
If your budget is tight then you will have to do some elbow grease and tolerate the anomalies for the time being.
On the C5 there are two individual class D amps driving the Boss woofers in the doors. The amps are fairly small, low powered and integrated near the speakers. The line level comes from a processor located just above the accelerator pedal. The processor takes information from the factory head unit, processes it and sends it back to the head unit where it is further processed then out to the speakers. Asa with every system that Bose ever made, it is so freaking dismal, that it is grossly incompatible with any other system ever known to man kind. I think the factory woofers are crossed over at something like 2000 HZ if I am not mistaken, which is ridiculously high by any industry standard. I am sure they make up for this by further bastardizing other components within this array. The way they get away with using "twirlers" rather than normal speakers is by using processing to push them harder in ranges they are not well suited for by design and suppressing them where they would shine by nature in attempt to flatten response. This is how Bose has always built systems and why they always sound like ****. Especially when you try to upgrade. You will never be successful at making Bose components work well with anything else. On the AVS forum we say "friends don't let friends buy Bose".
I digress.
So they (Bose) run a signal from the amp BACK INTO the HU, then out to the speakers? Did I read that right?
So they (Bose) run a signal from the amp BACK INTO the HU, then out to the speakers? Did I read that right?
The wheels in my head are turning again, maybe I have too much time on my hands. I've been reading up on the door situation again and I think I know what I have to do. But please correct me if I am wrong somewhere. Here goes.....
If I want to remove the bose from the doors I simply disconnect the subwoofer and remove it? Do I also disconnect and remove the amp or can/does it just stay there? Last year I replaced the twiddler with the Polk 3.5. Can I keep the 3.5 there or would it be better to just replace it with a 6.5? If I do these things can I then remove the JVC head unit and disconnect the Metra box and pitch it? Do I need to run wires to the new door speakers to the head unit?
I'm sure if I had everything apart and was looking at it my post would make more sense. I'm going off memory from a year ago.
So they (Bose) run a signal from the amp BACK INTO the HU, then out to the speakers? Did I read that right?
It's not really an amp. It's a processor. Most people leave it. the amps are mounted to the woofers.
It would be better to go with 6.5" speakers especially since they are not that expensive. Metra makes an adapter plate for the 6.5" door speakers for around $10 each. After loosing the Bose woofers the Metra interface will serve no purpose. The speakers can work with the existing wiring. The same two wires used for the 3.5's
The wheels in my head are turning again, maybe I have too much time on my hands. I've been reading up on the door situation again and I think I know what I have to do. But please correct me if I am wrong somewhere. Here goes.....
If I want to remove the bose from the doors I simply disconnect the subwoofer and remove it? Do I also disconnect and remove the amp or can/does it just stay there? Last year I replaced the twiddler with the Polk 3.5. Can I keep the 3.5 there or would it be better to just replace it with a 6.5? If I do these things can I then remove the JVC head unit and disconnect the Metra box and pitch it? Do I need to run wires to the new door speakers to the head unit?
I'm sure if I had everything apart and was looking at it my post would make more sense. I'm going off memory from a year ago.
Good Grief
Man...there is so much to type in response to this. I'd almost rather just call ya. It would be about a 20 minute conversation.
Originally Posted by Rob 02
It's not really an amp. It's a processor. Most people leave it. the amps are mounted to the woofers.
It would be better to go with 6.5" speakers especially since they are not that expensive. Metra makes an adapter plate for the 6.5" door speakers for around $10 each. After loosing the Bose woofers the Metra interface will serve no purpose. The speakers can work with the existing wiring. The same two wires used for the 3.5's
This has me confused. Reason being...I ditched everything bose this week. And when I was tuning my amps, playing pink noise, I heard the pink noise through the chime speaker. It was actually quite loud. It makes me think that there is only 1 amp in the bose setup that drives all speakers...or at least powers AND processes HU/OnStar input and plays it back through ONLY the center speaker (which I still can't find).
Either way OP...The polk 3.5s or aftermarket tweeters you get will sound fairly comparable. You could even run the polks on a X-over you get with aftermarket components. Go the best route for you money wise. Tweets are usually very precise sounding at high volume where as 3.5's can be a little more "dull"...but that's not necessarily a bad thing depending on your taste. A lot of high-end tweeters get blasted for sounding too "bright."
I think i'm gonna remove the Bose door subs and ditch the Metra box and go with 6.5's for the doors and pick up the door mounting plates as well. Going with the 2-ways.
One more question for you guys. Last year when I replaced all 4 speakers I used the factory grill covers. Now when something has a bit of bass the grill covers rattle. Any suggestions to quiet that down? I like the look because its factory.
The door grilles are head in by bent tabs. The grille material is brittle and may snap if you try to bend them. You might try some adhesive or glue of some sort.
I'm back again after forgetting this for a couple weeks. Yesterday I took the door panels off and took out the bose door subs. Unfortunately this entire unit plugs into another plug in the door. There are no separate speaker wires, everything runs from the plug. When I took out my 3.5 speaker to try to use those wires I noticed those wires go to and from the silver Bose processor that is attached to the entire unit. I put that aside and moved to the head unit. I removed it and pulled out the Metra boxes and unplugged them from the factory wiring harness. After looking at this mess of wires and harnesses it does not look to be possible to use the factory wiring harness with the JVC head unit. I will take some pics later today and post them. For now the head unit and door speakers are all out of the car.
I did a little more looking on the internet this morning. It seems that I cannot use the factory wiring harnesses with my JVC head unit without using the interface boxes.
If anyone can confirm this I'm just putting everything back like I had it. Cutting and rewiring is not my thing.
Don't cut and re-wire...just add your own speaker wire. Splice them into the factory speaker wire outputs in the factory harness. That's how all the shops do it when people want to run aftermarket speakers with factory head units.
There is plenty of room to run wire through the door accordion duct.
I reused the existing harness and just used the two wires that would go to the 3.5" speakers and pulled the woofer pins out. There are a dozen ways to skin this cat but I think it is preferable to run new wire directly from the head unit.
These are the factory wiring harnesses coming out of the dash. The one in the center and on the right are used now. There was no place to plug in the one on the far left.
Closeups of wires:
Overview of plugs and interface module I got from Crutchfield:
Plug from JVC head unit:
Interface plug whichh goes to the large factory harness from dash:
Large interface box (looks to be for speakers only) input:
Interface box output:
Small interface box (looks to be for power only):
Plug that goes from large interface box output to center wiring harness from dash:
04-24-2018, 07:36 PM
