I dont need to do RTA measurements. I have excellent hearing in both ears. Hearing is believing as far as I'm concerned.

 

IMO I believe there is a lot fact in what Peter is saying. It is unfortunate our car was not designed for good sound quality and we are off axis and the 10" in the door is very good. I also like the 3.5" in the door. I have sound tested them against focal in a bench. The dynamics range of the bose was a lot better with the right capacitor. I found a little better quality and much better staging by keeping all speakers stock but adding a nice soft dome in the doors on a closer axis to driver and passenger also disconnected the center channel but added another soft dome in the mirror facing the windshield for staging. I also have a 10" in the back attached to a mono block JL amp.

Sound is better than stock but I would say a lot more volume and much better staging with somewhat better overall quality. Bass is tuned so that you would not notice the rear of the car until you get to the much lower notes that the door can't handle. But middle bass and great mid range bass all upfront. I can dial up the bass from the back when I wish to hear it outside the car but it is tuned nicely and adjustable for the type of music being played. I did the same to the wife caddy CTSV and the improvements were much more dramatic. That car has better cabin dynamics and while it might be off axis the tweets are on dash facing the windshield and the sound reflection make for pretty good staging.

To really improve the sound the cost could outweigh the benefits. That said, most people feel it is a major sound improvement when a little more highs are added and more bass out of the back is added. Sound quality is mostly an opinion anyway so get it and if you like it great.

I have spent less than $1k and have heard vette's with $10K worth of focal and stuff. He was a little disappointed after he heard my car. When he begged to know what I did and the cost he was even more upset. The thing I'm trying to say is he was very happy with what he had and thought it was amazing. Then he heard my car and realized high-end brand names are not always the answer. Tuning is key.

Joe

 

You may want to understand how your hearing works then and how frequency response of a speaker drops off with increase in listening angle and depending on the frequency, with the height and direction of the sound source. The problem with the door coaxials is not their lack of frequency response but their size, due to the severe off axis location, the highs drop off considerably faster and more drastically than the midrange, thus, the perception of not having any highs. The highs are in these speakers, on axis. Now, if you want to get more highs from that location, dedicated tweeters will do the trick, the problem is they will still sound like crap, no matter how much you pay for them because the sound is still subject to reflection and diffraction due to their location. Personally, I would rather have less highs than more just to deal with the effects of the location.

Nevertheless, it is your dime and your ears and manufacturers and retailers thank you for your lack of understanding and keeping them in business. Ignorance is bliss without any doubt because more you understand this subject, the less you are inclined to just spend money and expect SOUND return on your investment.

 

You would like to think things work this way but it ain't so. You can purchase a ten dollar DIY driver and extract sound considerably better in tonality than a set of Dynaudio or Focal components. The problem is you do not understand the basics and rely on ready in the box solutions served to you by your friendly retailers. What you think is sound quality is TONALITY in reality and you still do not get your money's worth even with the most expensive ones if you do not know how to optimize your system. And it is pretty easy to make even the most expensive driver or loudspeaker sound like crap.

 

Eh... I just wanted to know if I could swap in some 60$ speakers and get improved sound quality. From the sound of it, hehe, everyone but one thinks that swapping speakers is a big sound improvement. I don't care about coax-flux capacitor-dilation-radial-deflection-wtf i just want to know if it sounds better. If you haven't trusted the retailer and swapped in a couple of speakers petermj, I really don't wanna hear your opinion. Everyone else that trusted the retailer and got 240rwhp for 60 bucks in audio terms, they are the ones I want to hear from. As far as I'm concerned, I got my answer. Thanks guys =)

 

I had focal speakers all the way around, 850 5 channel amp with a 10" jl audio in a custom box in my c5. That set up sounded amazing, off axis or not. I could crank up the volume to 100% and it would come in crystal clear, at an amazingly loud volume. Going to the bose speakers in this c6 is a huge kick in the *****. I'm just gonna throw in some infinitis and see what happens. Worst comes to worst petermj, I just return them. I'll definitely let everyone know how it goes.

 

Someone's on the rag.

 

You learned two things. Peter can be a douche and audiophiles are obsessive nerds.

 

The best sound system is the exhaust system and you don't need no Amp or coax-flux capacitor-dilation-radial-deflection for that.

 

You won't be sorry.

 

He should learn to understand the subject before tackling his objective but since he is a typical ignorant consumer, he will follow the clueless majority instead. Seeing comments from you and others, it is pretty obvious that wallet contents replaced brains for quite a few long time ago. Thanks for the douche comment, hating what you do not understand beats learning anything for sure.

Now, thanks for the entertainment and let the ignorance rule as usual, LMAO

 

Like I said, if that is all you want to do a 3.5" coaxial replacing the door Bose tweeter is a very good bang for the buck with no other mods needed. That is the cheapest, meaningful upgrade you can make, and most people agree for $~40 and a little work it is a good value.

Two things that could make it even better would be if you could find a speaker with a tilting/aiming tweeter or some fabrication work on the door panel to focus the whole unit.

If you decide to do this you may want to order a few extra door panel pins, as they are cheap. I think the pins for our door panels are pretty brittle, and have snapped at least 1 each time I've had a panel off. However I'll admit I don't tend to have very good luck with push pins.

 

Complete and utter BS. Sound stage is junk on most factory cars. (including the Corvette) You're better off keeping this nonsense to yourself because you sound really ignorant and non-intelligent.

To OP... Do replace speakers, cut out center channel, by-pass factory amp, and put a real amplifier in with a couple of 10" sub-woofers. You'll have a great sound stage. And your ears will notice a HUGE difference. Trust your ears and not Peter.

 

I'm one of them, and agree ten thousand percent!

Not all obsessive nerds, however, know how to provide criticism in a constructive manner... I promise, some do!

 

Great discussion!! Yes, I have to agree that an audible improvement can be made by eliminating the center speaker and putting in a couple of better in door speakers (location and aiming not withstanding).. Yes, Audiophile are obsessive nerds.. Yes, they (we) act like Tea Party extremists sometimes...

I've been the pro audio recording business for 30 years. Never heard a car really sound great with great sound stage, stereo field and depth, but that is not what this discussion or the OP is about... The stock (Bose) systems sounds like do do... speakers are extremely bandwidth limited and the system is underpowered... put in a couple of Coax (or other full range) in door upgrades.. you won't be sorry.. Cheap and quick, do it yourself and you'll be happy and proud that you made it "Sound Better".. (not awesome... not like a stereophile's living room system.. just better)...

 

You need to visit the audio forum and talk to pentavolvo or markcz. Maybe YOU would learn something. In fact if you got either one of those two guys to agree with you that updating speakers and adding power will degrade the sound quality not only will I eat my hat but I'll tear out what I have and put the crap Bose back in.

 

Amen, peter has a chip on his shoulder. No one sat with him at lunch time.

 

They make medicine for depression.

 

I will agree that doing these things can increase volume and clarity, if tuned correctly, but I have to disagree with having a great sound stage.

Replacing factory speakers with aftermarket ones will not change the sound stage. If you cut out the center speaker and add subs to the rear of the vehicle, you'll be moving the sound stage towards the rear, actually degrading it.

However, this is where I disagree with many other audiofiles that tend to be a bit narrow minded. Sound stage is not EVERYTHING wrt sound quality. Take a sound system in a perfect world with a perfect sound stage and then add a couple of subwoofers behind you. Will it degrade the sound stage? Yes. Will it sound BETTER to the average consumer that likes a good bit of bass? Absolutely. Sound stage is important, but it's not the only factor.

Replacing stock speakers with high quality aftermarket speakers CAN, but does not always, make a positive impact on the system, albeit a small one, from a clarity perspective, which is one of the more important factors to the average consumer.

Here's my $.02 to the OP: I personally wouldn't spend money on aftermarket speakers if that's ALL you plan to do. I don't think that the result will be worth the cash. If you plan to amplify the system (and throw in a couple subs if you want the boom-de-booms), I think you'll be happy. If you are willing to do the install yourself, you should be able to pick up some quality speakers, amp, and a sub or two that won't break the bank, and I think you'll enjoy the result.

I only warn that I've seen MANY people replace only the stock speakers with aftermarket ones, and usually the difference is barely noticeable, and sometimes worse. A good aftermarket speaker needs juice that your stock amplification simply doesn't provide.

 

Good post! The only thing is low bass frequencies are omnidirectional. It is hard for most people to tell where the sounds of the subs are coming from in a stage. That's why we can use the cube speakers in a home theater and have a subwoofer in a corner.

And I hate having a center channel (in my car no less) that is mono. IMO It sounds terrible when having stereo sounds on the sides being muffled out by center speaker with both right and left sounds coming from it. But hey, they're my ears and if they don't like it I'm fixing it.
Just don't tell Peter.