Hey , Has anyone replaced the factory bose amp with an aftermarket amp and speakers ? Just put in a nice Kenwood Head and it now sounds not as good as factory system did. I messed around with eq etc and it cleaned it up a bit. I have the 3 LT in an 07 , with what I believe is the higher end radio,amp set up. U75 is the RPO which dont seem to coincide with what ive read up on. Not looking for base box etc . Just clean sound at elevated levels at times when it's just me driving. Don't want to bring to a shop because honestly , even some good ones do hack work which I am capable of that myself. Been at this 40 years just don't do for a living anymore.
. Does anyone mode factory amps so I can keep as much factory wiring as possible?
Thanks!!
Anthony

 

You should post this in the audio section. There's some pretty knowledgeable members in there

 

Hmmm , tech and performance ? Thats the only thing I guess it would fit in. Didn't want to get chased out of the wrong area ! 🤣 Still need to put the long tubes in and exhaust and get a tune . Not looking to beat the world, just looking to have fun and a bit more pep in its step . Ill beat my other vette down !

 

No, this one. https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...lectronics-20/

 

I've never made it past the C4 forum. Didn't think it had more all the way past it !!
Thanks
Anthony

 

To answer your question, yes. A little of my own experience that may get you on the right track. I'm by no means an audio expert but I'm pretty pleased with what I did.

I ended up replacing the Bose amp with an aftermarket 4ch. The way I did it was by mounting it behind the seat, my RCA cables feed through the console to the amp, then I used a quick wire (basically a large cable that has all your color-coded speaker wires like you'd see on the back of a head unit) back up to the factory Bose location. From there I split off the corresponding connections on the bose harness out to the speakers and connected them to the quick wire. For the rear speakers if you want them on separate channels, you'll need to split them out as they are on a combined channel. Luckily that split happens right near the Bose amp on the harness. You could also run them on a single channel if you don't feel like bothering with it. From there I replaced all my factory speakers with Focal's. I ditched the dash speaker, and replaced the factory upper door speakers with tweeters that are on a crossover from the main door speaker.

Make sure when you mount your amp if you go behind the seat, dont drill into the body, put a board behind the carpet and screw into that as your anchor (the fuel tank sits right behind the metal so if you drill there you'll puncture it. If I had it to do again I believe I would have done a more compact amp in the hole where the Bose amp set but I got a pretty decent deal on the one I used so I went with it. You'll need the pinout diagram for the factory speaker system to get the right connections. It changed throughout the years so make sure you get the right one for your year.

While I was happy with the setup it lacked the base I wanted so I ended up adding in a separate amp/sub combo in the back. Still not perfect but I would say it ***** on the factory Bose for sure. Some sound deadening would probably do it wonders but it lets me bump my Young Dolph and at the end of the day thats all I really wanted lol. You can get way more or way less involved its just what ya want and what ya wanna spend. Eventually I'd like to redo it with some higher quality stuff but I'd say I ended up in it for less than $600 so not bad.

Hope this helps atleast give you some ideas.

 

I'm using a fosgate p600x4 and it's much more than I need. Your lower door speakers are tricky. Most people pull those large speakers and replace them with 6.5" speakers. That results in a loss of midbass. You can add a sub in the rear, but sub bass is not a replacement for mid bass. I have focal isu200 8" components in the front and focal Icu130 in the rear. I didn't gain much by amplifying the rears and if I did it again I'd only get a 2 channel amp for the fronts. Curious what model kenwood you have though because when I had my kenwood ddx9907xr in my car it brought the bose system to life. I switched to an Android unit for a more "techy" experience and lost some of that sound quality as expected. Amplifying and upgrading speakers more than solved that problem. There is an audio store online that makes mounting brackets for the door speakers in various sizes so you can mount a larger speaker, but your choices are limited by the depth of the door. I also recommend installing the blockoff plates pictured for the doors to seal them up. Made a noticeable difference in the depth of music that these speakers produced. All in for everything except the radio I'm right at 1k spent.

 

Ok I'm confused. You just installed a radio with the factory amp and now it sounds bad? Bad how? Bad like it doesn't have the right tone? Or bad like it distorts quickly?

What harness did you use to install it?

 

Those block off plates are sick. I might have to get a set of those.

 

I thought they were worth it. I added a thin foam gasket to help seal them against the door. Not sure if that made a difference or not, but the addition of the plate itself definitely did.
https://soundsgoodstereo.com/product...0aAmpuEALw_wcB

 

That's alotta info ! As for sound ,bass mid bass sounds muddy, almost like it has a little reverb. It seems also to have lost the highs. Its like the whole sound spectrum seems deeper.
As for what I used to connect the Kenwood to the stock wiring , I don't remember but it was made for my car with factory higher end bose. Ill check when I go home. I don't know how it reduces power output to the amp like an rca jack
Anthony

 

Yeah, those are super cool. We used to cut up cheap trash cans and other moderately stuff stuff to deal doors..that's a great application of a 3d printed part though come to think of it, of you have a big enough printer.