In my case, a curse turned into a blessing because I'm deaf in one ear, so there is no "stereo" for me. The bright side is that I'm not frustrated by "factory sound systems" nor am I tempted to spend big $$$ on aftermarket equipment. I can spend it on other mods.

 

Yep, that's exactly it. You can get better sound for the same money. No need to spend thousands more. That's what gripes me about the "premium" Bose in the Corvette. They advertise it, and charge us, as if it offers premium sound, but it doesn't. I fully understand the packaging limitations, and the fact that most people wouldn't be willing to spend thousands more to have home theatre class sound in a car. But it could be much better than it is for the cost we pay. The existence proof of that is that there are many cars and trucks (some made by GM) on the market whose sound systems are better, noticeably better, and which cost the same, or even less, than we're charged for the "premium" Bose system.

Much of the problem with the Bose system is the insane notion that it should sound the same for the driver and the passenger. A stereo with a proper soundstage can't sound the same in different locations within the sound field. If it does, it isn't proper stereo, its just muddled mono. Each performer and instrument must be properly localized on the soundstage to present a correct stereo image. Their sound shouldn't be smeared out, and performers should not appear to change location when playing notes of different pitches as they perform. But they do in the Corvette.

 

Actually that is not true I have seen many BOSE systems in rooms with other products. Many military PXs for example and they will gladly run comparisons including blind. How do I know this? When I was a marine and lived on Oahu I worked part time for BOSE doing pro installs which included their sound walls for their non pro line stuff. I continued to work for them after I got out and was in college (no longer work for them). I have seen the BOSE reps many times going up against other vendors in the PX on Hickham.

I am not going into a debate over BOSE I have seen tons of audiophiles going through extensive measures to bag on BOSE and I am not a BOSE koolaid drinker. BOSE happens to be one of those companies that folks like to rag on. I know what BOSE can do and I enjoy it in my Corvette if I wanted to spend a lot of money and mess with a mixed compenent group sure I could blow the BOSE away.

Same thing with the Lifestyle systems sure you can spend a lot more money and have a massive phallic pile of components and get better sound (EASILY). At some point though in a normal house with normal people in it you reach a "too much zone." BOSE never claims to be the best speaker overall on the market. BOSE was putting out great sound long before many others. But who cares. I am absolutely positive you could take a BOSE product tag put it on some other very expensive speaker and if the listener didn't recognize the cabinet but saw the BOSE name they'd hate it no matter how good it sounded.

This thread and several others like the one about adjustable pedals or posts about leather interiors are interesting in that if GM made all of the changes I see folks asking for on this forum the car would cost twice or more than it does now. I am sure like other things in life the BOSE was a compromise when they chose it. I am positive GM could give us a Corvette with a 7 thousand dollar car stereo, adjustable pedals, give the z51 more HP and about 100 more dream things people want but for that price point I'd buy a Ferrari.

I drive my C6 and enjoy the hell out of it and the stereo not being absolutely perfect doesn't matter at all to me. If you do not like the BOSE do the right thing and spend 2-7K to put a monster system in it. And then let others listen to it and they'll probably find it lacking too.

 

The Mark Levinson VP of Engineering has a C6.

 

how many people wouldn't buy a corvette due to a lack of heated seats, a HUD, nav, voice activation, and all the other 3LT goodies? yet GM's offers all those luxury car features on the vette.

GM really should offer an option for a REAL stereo in the car.

And I'm very far from the average Corvette buyer

 

Just returned from the Navy Exchange at the 32nd street base in San Diego. Sound room has Bose, Sony, Panasonic, Kenwood, JVC and Yamaha and I thought that wasn’t possible. Also noted that on the way home my left leg blocks the left door speaker, I’m sure another brand would fix that.

 

Hopefully the 07 change will be made more clear by GM sooner ...rather than later ...`

 

 

True. It was the 3LT package that sold me on the C6. But coming from a Jeep, the C6 stereo sounds decent to me.

 

Wonder if he swapped out the stereo ?

 

Bose does have conditions for the flooring of its product and standards set for how its demo'ed along with sales incentives for moving its product. My son worked at a stereo outlet while going to school. I dont know if all vendors follow them or not and when I was in the marines there was no such thing as a cube speaker/sub setup and I cant comment on how things are at the exchange nowdays. In my experience going to many outlets looking for different components the bose stuff is normally set up on its own and occasionally will be in the room that has the rest of the cube/sub setups. As an aside one of bose's requirements was to play the bose first and then compare it to other systems. Why? Because of another human quirk. We tend to prefer whatever we hear first. In other words if you listen to one system blind (dont know what it is) and then listen to another similar system blind (or even the exact same system again), a human being will usually prefer the first system they heard. This works in other blind testing also. Its why in the pepsi challenge you always get the pepsi first and the coke second. At any rate I think its time for a little more background from an ordinary buyer.

No one has yet built a speaker that can circumvent the laws of physics. Drivers of a given size and construction driven with X amount of power can only produce useable sound in a given range. So for any speaker system to play a full range signal it must have drivers capable of doing so. Simple concept but its why speakers have multiple drivers that fall into relatively defined sizes covering different portions of the spectrum.

There is another human quirk that has to be brought into the fray. We tend to sort sounds importance based on its spl. If a sound gets louder than ambient by a certain amount we can no longer hear the sounds coming at the lower ambient spl. You can easily test this out yourself. Have someone (for instance) blow an air horn to one side of you while someone talks at a normal level on the other. You wont be able to hear the person talking even though your brain is recieving the sound information. A real world example most everyone has experienced first hand is talking to someone who doesnt see you while they are listening to a stereo thats moderately cranked. You first walk up to them and speak in an ordinary tone. The dont react. You raise your voice they still dont react. You raise your voice even more and now they hear you. They recieved the sound information every time but the brain ignored it till the spl of your voice got close enough to the spl of the stereo for the human brain to stop filtering it out. This will happen even if you tell the person to expect you and that person actively tries to listen for your voice. This matters with your stereo because if your speaker system is not capable of producing sound throughout the spectrum within approx 5 dbs of a set reference volume the sound will be lost to human ears. In other words if your speakers have a weak area where the sound drops below the other sound by around that amount you stop hearing it even though your are recieving sound information below that threshhold. On the other side of the coin if some sounds are boosted above the reference volume they will begin to mask the other sound information because your brain begins to concentrate on the higher spl signal.

Now look at a typical cube/sub system. It is physically impossible for it to play a full range singal. It does not have the drivers required to do so. Often they lack the power as well as far as the lower freq's are concerned. If you run sweeps you see a line running well below reference on the bottom end, normally hitting reference around the mid base level and quickly dropping out in the upper base to well below reference again. From there the sound will be flat normally till it picks up as the mid range driver gets within its ability to output sound and it falls off again in the upper mids low highs as it leaves the mids ability to output sound at those frequencies. There is a lot of missing music in those dips and peaks. They manage to sound good though (as I said in my last post) because we as humans tend to fill in the blanks if given enough musical information.

This isnt of course limited to bose. All similar systems (and there are many) work under the same constraints. Again you get back to the main knock with bose. You can always get better sound for the same money or the same sound for less. Its not that they are crap. The basic issue is that they are overpriced for what they are.

What all this has to do with your C6 is that you have such a system in your car. This is basically a cube system with a couple of mono mid range drivers thrown in behind you to try and fill in the gap.