[BatMobileLT1]

Overall I like the Bose stereo but I would like to find out if there was some reasonable simple upgrade in the $300 to up to about $700 price range that would help to boost the amount of sound from the rear speakers.
I know there have been a bunch of threads about upgrading the Bose stereo but they all seemed complex, expensive, and hard to follow.
I am looking for something more like just replacing rear speakers and/or some way to DSP/amplify primarily to increase rear speaker sound.
Is there anything like that anyone has tried anything like that or has some recommendations. I did talk to Crutchfield advisor and they primarily recommend just changing rear speakers to ones that should be a little more efficient (as the Bose amp being at 4ohms makes other options hard/expensive), but I'm not sure how noticeable that change would be.
Thanks for any ideas/inputs.

[Msquared]

I think the Bose speakers are 2ohm or less, not 4ohm (which would be pretty standard). Thus, if you drop aftermarket speakers in place of the stock Bose, you'll get less volume, not more. It doesn't matter how sensitive (efficiency is different than sensitivity) they are: they won't play loudly if they have twice the impedance of the stock speakers. There's really not a simple and cheap way to upgrade the Bose system. You might be able to add the S*bth*mp harness to add a true subwoofer. For anything you can get for $300, that won't be an upgrade (it won't sound good). For $700 you might be able to get something like the Kicker KEY500.1 sub amp and a decent box and sub driver and get louder bass. I'm just assuming you want more bass since you're focused on the rear speakers.

[Megahurtz]

Change the fader "two clicks" towards the back, then turn up the volume and it will sound more balanced.

I know the Bose system isn't fantastic by any means, but you can make it much better with the settings. Bass on 2, mids on 5, treble on 4, then move the Fader two button presses to the rear. This will improve the sound in the car.

As to what will make the car as a whole sound much better, I have the same question. I've contemplated swapping the speakers with the Powerbass OE's. Allegedly they are designed to replaced the factory speakers but sound better.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_151OE6...2T.html?tp=105

[BatMobileLT1]

Thanks Msquared - Yes, now I remember that its actually only 2 ohms so makes it even harder to get speakers to match. I am reasonably happy with the bass - was just trying to get more midrange and above coming from rear speakers.

And thanks Megahurtz - I will try those EQ settings to see how much they help, I have tried just fading to the rear speakers but it mostly seemed to quiet the front speakers.
Those Powerbass OE's 6x9 w/2 ohm speakers look pretty good - I think I will likely try them out and see if that makes a difference.

Has anyone tried them on their Bose setup?

[Megahurtz]

Originally Posted by BatMobileLT1

And thanks Megahurtz - I will try those EQ settings to see how much they help, I have tried just fading to the rear speakers but it mostly seemed to quiet the front speakers.

It balances the sound that way. And setting the EQ the way I mentioned also helps balance it. Then you simply use the volume knob to turn the sound up and down and the sound will be more equal. If two clicks to the back is too much for you, try just 1 click towards the back.

[keep_hope_alive]

Replacing the speakers won't make it louder, it will do the opposite. The rears are quiet on purpose, and because they get a much lower output signal from the amp. Aftermarket speakers have a lower efficiency and thus will be quieter than stock.

Fading to rear will attenuate the fronts, that's what the fader does. But then you turn up the volume louder to compensate. You'll never get the front to be as loud as the rear until you're nearly fully faded to the rear, then everything sounds poor because the rear speakers are garbage with poor aiming.

The rear 6x9 are woofers and have a low pass filter from the amp. So replacing them with coax won't help unless you totally remove the Bose amp. And you have almost no room to fit a 6x9 in the rear deck because the space between the rear deck and glass is so short, only a super shallow 6x9 will fit. And super shallow 6x9 are garbage also.

It won't sound better, sadly, because sound should come from in front of you, the rear is just for fill, and really just for rear passengers. The only reason people tend to think a car sound system should have rear speakers is from the days when OEM didn't make room for large speakers up front. That was a financial decision, not a smart acoustic decision. That said, i know plenty of people just want to be surrounded by sound and don't care for a sound stage or anything natural or accurate.

The only rear speakers you can reasonably replace are the side rear seat speakers. And getting to them sucks. They will need to be amplified externally if you want to really make them louder. And that is a viable option - snag the signal going to the rear side speakers and redirect to an external amp for more volume, then replace with a nicer coax, and you'll have an affordable bump in rear speaker output.

[DamonZ28]

Adding an external amp & speakers to the Bose system isn't too difficult. I agree, the threads here make it sound complicated, but once I sat down, went through everything, and figured it out, it wasn't tough. I'm not an audiophile, so I'm sure some folks will be horrified by my choices. Here's what you need from my perspective.

- Sub Thump Camaro With BOSE Plug N Play T-Harness With ANC Defeat Harness Kit - $90
- Line out converter - I went with the 2 channel JL Audio LoC-22 because I was just adding a subwoofer - $100 (more $$ if you add more channels)
- Wiring & Fuses - figure on about $100 or so - maybe more, maybe less depending on what you want & need

So you're about $300 in before you start adding amp(s) and speaker(s). It's all pretty much plug & play, if you have an idea of what you're doing. But from this starting point, you can just add 1 amp & 1 subwoofer (like I did, came from my previous car along with most wiring), all the way to adding multiple amps (most likely would only need 2) and replacing all of your speakers.

[ctrlz]

If you just want to boost the sound of the rear 6x9's you could do that with any decent amp that has speaker level inputs. Just feed the speaker levels for the 6x9's into the amp then use that amp to adjust the volume of those 6x9's independent of everything. A separate remote volume for the amp would be nice, or you just set a fixed gain.
If your amp only takes line level, then you need a LOC.
If your amp is not 2-ohm stable you can add some power resistors in series with the bose speakers to make them a 4-ohm load.

This idea is definitely compromised by the limitations of the existing signal fed to the 6x9's.
You could also use the signal for the rear 4's and feed new 2-way 6x9's, probably giving up some bass that's not in that feed. Fortunately all the speaker level wires are in the trunk already.

[Megahurtz]

The Power OE speakers retain the power range, ohms and the factory mounting depth of the factory speakers. They are designed to behave like stock but the speaker itself is made with better materials. I doubt they would be much of an upgrade but they would sound a little better in regards to clarity. I'm not sure its worth it though.

Everything else that @keep_hope_alive said absolutely applies to any other aftermarket speaker. The real way to upgrade the sound is to use a digital converter to gather the signals and push them into a multi channel aftermarket amp. Then replace the factory speakers with better units and connect them to an aftermarket amp. This gets costly and you have to take apart so much of the interior.

[BatMobileLT1]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

Replacing the speakers won't make it louder, it will do the opposite. The rears are quiet on purpose, and because they get a much lower output signal from the amp. Aftermarket speakers have a lower efficiency and thus will be quieter than stock.

Fading to rear will attenuate the fronts, that's what the fader does. But then you turn up the volume louder to compensate. You'll never get the front to be as loud as the rear until you're nearly fully faded to the rear, then everything sounds poor because the rear speakers are garbage with poor aiming.

The rear 6x9 are woofers and have a low pass filter from the amp. So replacing them with coax won't help unless you totally remove the Bose amp. And you have almost no room to fit a 6x9 in the rear deck because the space between the rear deck and glass is so short, only a super shallow 6x9 will fit. And super shallow 6x9 are garbage also.

It won't sound better, sadly, because sound should come from in front of you, the rear is just for fill, and really just for rear passengers. The only reason people tend to think a car sound system should have rear speakers is from the days when OEM didn't make room for large speakers up front. That was a financial decision, not a smart acoustic decision. That said, i know plenty of people just want to be surrounded by sound and don't care for a sound stage or anything natural or accurate.

The only rear speakers you can reasonably replace are the side rear seat speakers. And getting to them sucks. They will need to be amplified externally if you want to really make them louder. And that is a viable option - snag the signal going to the rear side speakers and redirect to an external amp for more volume, then replace with a nicer coax, and you'll have an affordable bump in rear speaker output.

Thanks - great input and detailed info!
Yes - I think I got used to other cars where I can fill the car with sound equally from front and rear and enjoyed that. Although, now I see your point that this is artificial - otherwise we would setup home systems with 2nd set of "front speakers" behind us. And it makes sense that you say these speakers are more for rear passengers (which I never have in the Camaro, haha).

However, I think I would still like the ability to get that more balanced sound and so will explore the idea from your last paragraph and input from ctrlz, DamonZ28, & Megahurtz to look into 2 channel amp with line level input to try to boost just the existing factor rear door speakers and see if that gets me what I am looking for.
This looked like a good option to me:
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_109STA...age-A6002.html
and crutchfield says it is compatible with Bose factory stereo.
Thanks all!

[keep_hope_alive]

Originally Posted by BatMobileLT1

This looked like a good option to me:
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_109STA...age-A6002.html
and crutchfield says it is compatible with Bose factory stereo.
Thanks all!

This will work for your needs. Just boost the rear signals and then replacing the speakers with some coax will give you what you want. Then your fader will still work so you can adjust levels from the radio.

[BatMobileLT1]

Originally Posted by keep_hope_alive

This will work for your needs. Just boost the rear signals and then replacing the speakers with some coax will give you what you want. Then your fader will still work so you can adjust levels from the radio.

Thanks very much - I'm going to look into doing this!

[Annihilate]

Originally Posted by BatMobileLT1

Thanks very much - I'm going to look into doing this!

Let us know how it goes and what speakers you end up using!

[ctrlz]

I think some members have successfully removed the stock 6x9's (which are mounted from the top), and undermounted new ones.
Just another thought.