sciroccorrado
A2OC Donor
must ... resist .... must ....
Information Bose install?
- Thread starter Nigel245
- Start date
must ... resist .... must ....
bretti_kivi
Member
A C-DSP is €200 or so. A Pi is €35. A HifiBerry DAC is €30 or so. SPDIF cable call it €10... PiMusicBox is free. Amps are a different issue....
- Bret
- Bret
timmus
A2OC Donor
I'm a big fan of the Bose system. Not necessarily because of the way it sounds, but because it's just so neatly packaged into the car.
Outside of my work on A2s, I design and build recording studio audio systems. £30,000 pairs of loudspeakers are a frequent feature in my work life. My living room is home to the same B&W speakers that are used in the Abbey Road studios. They are jaw-droppingly wonderful; an acoustic window into another world. There's no place for DSP here. Anything installed in a car, no matter how expensive, doesn't come close.
Bose is a £700 speaker/amplifier package. In comparison to the audio quality that I'm lucky enough to be used to, it is left wanting in all departments. But equally, it's extremely good value for money. In comparison to the standard A2 stereo, it's utterly excellent. I can happily play a vast majority of my music collection whilst travelling down the motorway without feeling frustrated by eveyrthing that's missing. And, best of all, it occupies no space. The loudspeakers and amplifier just bolt on where they're designed to fit. The subwoofer goes where the toolkit is normally located, and the toolkit is relocated into the right-hand 'secret foot well compartment'. I don't lose any boot space to some massive boom box, I don't have tatty cabling everywhere, no access to anything is restricted by some aftermarket amplifier having been shoehorned into a gap, my doors and door cards haven't been butchered to accommodate speakers/tweeters, etc. Sure, it's not the greatest car stereo the world has ever known, but I don't listen to music whilst sat stationary in a car park. While driving along, there's wind noise, tyre noise, engine noise, the noise of other traffic, etc, etc.
Taking all these things into account, Bose is brilliant. You keep your A2 unmolested, you enjoy a major upgrade over the standard system and it hasn't cost you a fortune.
Absolutely. Bose make 'lifestyle' systems, not serious audio equipment. No recording studio I've ever been in has ever had a single piece of Bose gear.
Cheers,
Tom
Outside of my work on A2s, I design and build recording studio audio systems. £30,000 pairs of loudspeakers are a frequent feature in my work life. My living room is home to the same B&W speakers that are used in the Abbey Road studios. They are jaw-droppingly wonderful; an acoustic window into another world. There's no place for DSP here. Anything installed in a car, no matter how expensive, doesn't come close.
Bose is a £700 speaker/amplifier package. In comparison to the audio quality that I'm lucky enough to be used to, it is left wanting in all departments. But equally, it's extremely good value for money. In comparison to the standard A2 stereo, it's utterly excellent. I can happily play a vast majority of my music collection whilst travelling down the motorway without feeling frustrated by eveyrthing that's missing. And, best of all, it occupies no space. The loudspeakers and amplifier just bolt on where they're designed to fit. The subwoofer goes where the toolkit is normally located, and the toolkit is relocated into the right-hand 'secret foot well compartment'. I don't lose any boot space to some massive boom box, I don't have tatty cabling everywhere, no access to anything is restricted by some aftermarket amplifier having been shoehorned into a gap, my doors and door cards haven't been butchered to accommodate speakers/tweeters, etc. Sure, it's not the greatest car stereo the world has ever known, but I don't listen to music whilst sat stationary in a car park. While driving along, there's wind noise, tyre noise, engine noise, the noise of other traffic, etc, etc.
Taking all these things into account, Bose is brilliant. You keep your A2 unmolested, you enjoy a major upgrade over the standard system and it hasn't cost you a fortune.
Absolutely. Bose make 'lifestyle' systems, not serious audio equipment. No recording studio I've ever been in has ever had a single piece of Bose gear.
Cheers,
Tom
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It's like the A2. Nobody that is seriously into cars would have one on the drive. But wait a minute......we all have one of those.
I'll stick with my unobtrusive factory fit Bose set-up. Besides, I'd worry that anything more 'serious' may interfere with my home cinema system.
Cheers Spike
bretti_kivi
Member
I've currently got a Citroen C3, I think, as a rental, and the audio system is awful. Compressed, grating at louder volumes... urgh. The Octavia system is worlds away - and with the integration to the rest of the car's systems, replacing the head unit isn't really an answer.
I agree that the Bose is a decent package and it's hard - very hard - to create something like that which is going to give a similar quality of output for that budget and which is so integrated into the car.
There's horses for courses; for me, the Symphony and Chorus head units simply aren't that good. There's a whole load of sparkle and air missing (and I can't hear much above 12k). I'm very aware of what a decent DIY design can do and how it measures, but the bigger issue is integration and interaction with the space. I heard recently of someone who was unhappy with his Octavia sound... I put some thoughts forward and then learned he's comparing it to a system which is similarly valued to the car, i.e. >£20k. Hmm, I suspect you may well be disappointed at that. That system was also measured flat, which a car simply can't do IMO and with all the reflections - the best you can do, though, may well very, very good if it's tuned well. And the satisfaction of completing your own install and understanding exactly where the interactions are is something I enjoy.
For me, the DSP route - especially with the advent of MiniDSP and consorts and the ability to convolute in real time noise reduction solutions - is the only way to go now. If I do the Octavia, it will be with the main head unit and using the Pi as a secondary source; if it's the A2, the source will only be the Pi.
- Bret
I agree that the Bose is a decent package and it's hard - very hard - to create something like that which is going to give a similar quality of output for that budget and which is so integrated into the car.
There's horses for courses; for me, the Symphony and Chorus head units simply aren't that good. There's a whole load of sparkle and air missing (and I can't hear much above 12k). I'm very aware of what a decent DIY design can do and how it measures, but the bigger issue is integration and interaction with the space. I heard recently of someone who was unhappy with his Octavia sound... I put some thoughts forward and then learned he's comparing it to a system which is similarly valued to the car, i.e. >£20k. Hmm, I suspect you may well be disappointed at that. That system was also measured flat, which a car simply can't do IMO and with all the reflections - the best you can do, though, may well very, very good if it's tuned well. And the satisfaction of completing your own install and understanding exactly where the interactions are is something I enjoy.
For me, the DSP route - especially with the advent of MiniDSP and consorts and the ability to convolute in real time noise reduction solutions - is the only way to go now. If I do the Octavia, it will be with the main head unit and using the Pi as a secondary source; if it's the A2, the source will only be the Pi.
- Bret
bretti_kivi
Member
What do you want to know? It's all public on the German forum, in the hifi subsection.
The dremelling is pretty simple; if you have a slightly smaller driver, you can ease the old driver out and replace it with a new one. As long as the seal is good, you should be fine. It may mean dropping to a 130mm driver, I haven't done it myself. I know one person did it a couple of years ago and replaced with Eton drivers.
The CAD drawings are also in the German forum as attachments (or at least they should be...)
- Bret
The dremelling is pretty simple; if you have a slightly smaller driver, you can ease the old driver out and replace it with a new one. As long as the seal is good, you should be fine. It may mean dropping to a 130mm driver, I haven't done it myself. I know one person did it a couple of years ago and replaced with Eton drivers.
The CAD drawings are also in the German forum as attachments (or at least they should be...)
- Bret