I have a 93 Vette, and my Bose system works just fine. Of course, I don't play all that Rap Crap, maybe that's why my amp isn't blown. Until I have trouble with this system, I'll stick with it.

 

I don't listen to rap, but its not the 'rap crap' that kills the Bose. It the 'crap' quality components and materials used by Bose that kills it.

 

That's exactly my philosophy! I repaired one amp so far for $8, much better than the $800 system I'll install when the head unit finally takes a dive! I've heard worse stock systems, and better... but the sounds of 300 horses under the hood is music to my ears!

 

Jim, here's the long answer. First off, I don't play "rap crap" either. Personally I hate any music with a rap lyric inserted or a record being scratched in the background. This includes many of today's bands: Eminem, Limp Biscuit, Kid Rock, etc. How they can call themselves "rock" artists is beyond me.
I think I probably play what you listen to or maybe did in the past. Pink Floyd (mostly Pre wall albums like dark side, umma gumma, meddle, animals, piper, wish you were here), Zep, Rush, Aerosmith, Sabbath, Stones, etc. I also play more contemporary stuff like Tool, Stone Temple Pilots, Creed, etc.

I was a professional stereo installer in the late 80s when these systems were brand new and being sold through GM. At the time they were charging $1500 for the system(close to $4500 in today's dollars). The sad fact was that at that time, they were at best average stock systems. We often ripped them out and put in $500 systems that blew them away back then. It was the most overpriced over hyped setup available and a big joke among the people in the know. Remember, this is before it was "cool" to have even a single 8" sub in your car and also at the "rap crap" was just starting and definitely not main stream.
The bose amps blow from age usually, not use. They are cheaply made amps slapped together in a fragile design. They are not compatable with anything as they run on their own current values and not the industry standards. This means unlike every other stereo produced, you can't swap in different parts. The decks were made by Panisonic according to GM/Delco specs. They have very poor frequency response and sound quality. The speakers are cheap paper and foam drivers which are prone to dryrot and other environmental degradation. They cost $5 from GM for replacements back in the day. I know, I ordered them. The setup was designed in the late 70s/early 80s and designed to work with disco and classic rock as well as easy listening tunes. At the time, there was no such thing as computer generated music, synthesizers, or bass below 80 hz.
Bose used its acoustical tricks to make a system that is specifically designed to produce a sound frequency curve that is NOT flat. Through research they found that the human ear reacts to certain frequencies differently than others. They then made a setup that intentionally over emphasizes certain frequencies that are pleasing to the ear, hence their "tube" technology. This is a cheap way to cover up poor audio sound quality characteristics and make something sound better than it is. They still push this crap today in their home systems.
If you ever listened to a good stereo vs. a bose, you'd know the difference. My dad said he never heard his Frankie sound better and it was moving.

To sum it up:
Poor construction
Poor sound quality
Poor reliability
Over priced

You could replace the system still today for around $400 and kick its tail. Dollars adjusted, that is 1/10th that was paid for the system originally.
This is why bose is crap and you often here the phrases
No highs, no lows, must be bose
Blose
and my favorite: Buy Other Stereo Equipment.

Do yourself a favor. If you like it leave it alone. If you have a breakdown, don't throw good money after bad, check out a new setup at a quality shop and bring your own music to test with. This way you will have a good point of reference to use. Maybe some Fleetwood Mac or something as female vocals are the hardest to reproduce acoustically.
:cheers:

 

I listen to rap crap along with rock crap classical crap and r&b crap and believe it or not you would think the classical would sound the best considering its not all lows and it actually distorted worse than the rap at volume. In my opinion its not the crap music your listening to that makes music sound bad, its the crap system that playing it. I used to have to deal with bose reps when i worked at circuit and they were always making up excuses for stuff. Things like bose sells technology thats why we dont rate our recievers in watts, just a bunch of b.s. Bose Blows.

 

Okay, I see your point. But until my system goes, I'll stick with Bose!
(a little rap pun thrown in there) Thanks for the advice, I do appreciate it.
I'll go aftermarket when the Bose goes.

 

The rep also told me that its impossible to blow their speakers and that the stereo will actually limit the volume when it gets to the point where the speakers cant handle. Sheesh, you wouldn't want to make your speakers better would you, lets just limit how loud it will go.

 

Well let me put it this way. I'll listen to just about anything that I like. Just because it's a "rap" song doesn't mean I don't like it, but it doesn't mean that I do either. I can like one song from an artist and hate everything else they do. I can listen to old and new, from ANY song type imaginable.

My deck is an MP3 player and as such I can put a huge selection of stuff on their to suit my mood at the time. It goes from Aerosmith to They Might be Giants and then from Yello to Alan Jackson. It's all about the songs that I like, and as such though this means my stereo has to sound good with a variety of music, not just one type. For intsance a good sounding system made for the country music listener probably won't have a sub, just a good quality set of speakers, powered off the deck most likely. A hard core rap system is probably going to have nothing but subs.

When I first bought my car the Bose CD player didn't work so I never got the chance to listen to it. Replacing that would have cost $400-800 depending on where you could get it. I decided that for $250 I'd get the MP3 player. I used a Bose interface box that allowed it to work with the factory speakers. I'll give it that it actually sounded fairly decent. It had some decent highs and some fair bass considering it only had a set of 6 inch speakers in the rear. It did always irritate me though because at road speed with the windows down I couldn't turn the radio up to where I could hear it without it starting to distort badly. I did live with it though for over a year. Then one day I was just driving along when I started getting this terrible static out of my left front speaker. I knew right away that my amp was going out. Now I started thinking, I could spend a lot of money to fix this system that still wouldn't sound very good, or I could just ditch it. I opted to ditch it.

Now I have 4 quality, non paper, speakers which are powered from the deck alone. It sounds great. The total cost to me was $450 for the entire system. Also the speakers were bought years ago, so for the same price you could probably get better speakers today. They have just been sitting in the closet for two years. So for less than the cost of repairing the Bose I now have a setup that uses standard speaker sizes and can be replaced with ANY 6x9 or 3 1/2 inch speakers. I can also cruise at 55 mph with the windows down and turn my radio up enough so that I can easily hear it over the wind noise, and there is NO distortion.

It's an excellent country music system right now, but as I listen to other things at times I now have round 2 in my passenger seat waiting to be installed. A small MTX amplifier and a single 10 inch MTX sub. This will allow me that extra bass note I want for some music while not being a pure bass machine. I want the bass to compliment the music I'm listening to, not drown it out. That's what I will achieve with this system.

A friend of mine has a stereo test CD. It just plays different frequencies for certain amounts of time so you can test the frequency response of your stereo. There are places where Bose just falls dead silent. It doesn't play these frequencies at all, it's pretty sad when I $50 bookself CD player hits the entire frequency range that Bose doesn't even play.

Of the car stereo's I've heard the Bose sounds good for an OEM stereo. But with any OEM system the paper speakers degrade over time and eventually sound like crap. For best sound quality you need good quality components. Remember, GM sold these cars by the thousands. Putting in $8 speakers rather than $80 speakers would have saved them a lot of money. If they could do this while putting the BOSE name on it they could sell it for even more.

 

Oh yea, I don't like country either, that is country & western
I do like country rock, Charlie Daniels is great.
Rock & Roll forever!!!

 

I have factory Blose in my car, and as soon as I can get funds together, I intend to replace it- (have other purchases first though). I know good audio, and my Bose system AIN'T IT BABY! What many people don't understand, and I've posted about SEVERAL times is that speaker design for car audio is a different animal than home audio.

There is also an average of a 12dB increase in lower frequencies in a car, (with the windows up, and speaker within the cabin). Bose took this into account in designing the system for our vettes, and used it to their advantage. It was smart, but it was also designed with an extremely limited range, and even though my Bose increases the volume for me as I gain speed, the amps clip and the response flattens as the amps try to work those little paper cones. If you want to hear the ACTUAL response produced without your cabin gain- try this simple experiment:

Get into your car and don't start it, just power up and insert a tape or cd (my cd player doesn't work, and the tape only plays on one side- autoreverse is out) play some music at normal listening levels- it's not bad huh?, NOW- POP YOUR HATCH!- let it open up just an inch or two. Now you've lost your 12 dB cabin "boost", and what you're hearing is the open-air response of your system. It will sound awful, and you'll hear the distortion that was previously masked by the enhancement of the cabin gain. If you walked into a superstore and heard that system nowadays, you probably wouldn't buy it- because pretty much everything on the market sounds better (even stuck in a wall in a store). The speakers available now are MUCH better in their design, and their quality of components. The head units are far cleaner, more accurate, with higher slew rates, and increased dynamic "headroom", and this is true even for the stuff coming out from the lower priced units. (If I had the time, for fun, I'd install a $150 system and measure the response curves, etc to this system!)

SO- listen to some other member's cars with aftermarket systems, and you'll see what you've been missing. If you truly love your music- the way I love mine, you'll put new tunes on your Christmas list...Cheers- John

 

Well I grew up with my dad listening to the really old stuff. Believe it or not, some of it is alright. Most of it sucks, but some of it is ok. I do prefer the stuff with a beat though. Your "country rock" something like "Six Day on the Road" as performed by Sawyer Brown is the perfect song to get yourself killed by :D Anyway, I'll listen to anything before I classify it as suck or not. Now it might only take 5 seconds of listening, but I'll at least give it a shot before I dump it just because of it's genre.

 

Not to mention that I have a vert and like to hear the music with the top down. If I wanted to, I could easily play it loud enough to drown out the exhaust and still be crystal clear at 80mph, but I USUALLY don't play it that loud. :lurk:

 

Seems like most of you don't like the Bose is because when you made your purchase, the CD player didn't even work. How can you say it sucks when you haven't even heard it? I stick in a CD, open my rear hatch, and can crank the volume all the way up without distortion. I do it at parties all the time. No comlaints yet.

 

Well for $400 to replace the head unit I'd just assume replace the whole system.

 

....personally I like the Bose

 

Mines on my shelf in my basement in A-1 condition. I used it for a year until I finally ran shrieking from the car rubbing my body frantically and muttering spiders over and over again. I'm keeping it for the day I sell the car so I can transfer my system to a new car. C6? :thumbs:

 

I know the Bose is not the greatest, but mine works fine now and I will keep it until it fails. When it does go belly up, I will upgrade the the newest, best Alpine I can afford.

 

I agree with Bose sucking but the Bose system in my C4 sounds better then the one that came stock in my C5.

 

That about sums it up...............but other than that they're great :jester

 

Me, too. I like the sound of the tailpipes more anyway.

Greg :cool: