Information Bose install?

Nigel245

Nigel245

A2OC Donor
I have spotted a few A2 Bose systems for sale on eBay. How involved are they to install and what would be a good price for this? I’m careful what I buy and assume most of these are from breakers yards on eBay so they might have been, let’s say, potentially heavy handed on removal perhaps?☺️
 
Tom is your man @timmus
I believe there is a considerable amount of wiring needed, which would be best carefully removed from the donor A2, you also need the speakers and tweeters, grills, replacement foam insert in the boot, foam insert under the drivers feet for the tools etc
 
essentially the amp sits in the boot. So there's a whole bunch of new cables to go back there, and then there's the cabling to go back to the speakers. The drivers in the doors are a lower impedance and matched to the amp (which I believe has some basic DSP applied) and the sub is set to match.

I'm not under the impression that there is a more complex crossover for the tweeters than the original cap (which is in itself laughable at some level) and I'm not aware of them being a different tweeter, though I may be wrong on that one.

I've spent too much time listening to the older chorus and symphony decks and ... no, I have other plans.

- Bret
 
The amp sits in the drivers footwell replacing the original but with more cables and considerably bigger, not a straight swap. The bass speaker(box) sits across the rear boot and you have to remove half the centre dash(drivers side), drivers front/rear seat, carpet and rear drivers side boot panel to route the cables in. All in all not for the faint hearted and as said you need all of the stereo harness from donor car all speakers, plus foam tool unit, plus running upgraded cable for amp supply and extra cables from fuse box.
 
true, i don't have one myself. You appear to be correct, but that doesn't then explain why the tools move forward... it's kinda hot under there.
It also doesn't explain where the amp for the front speakers goes, because in a standard system those are powered from the head unit. So there must be at least another eight cables going to that, which partly explains the additional cabling for the new amp in the same place as the old one. That cabling is a pain in the a**, it's through from the back end of the cubby so requires the removal of the rear seats and carpet to get at it correctly.

The tweeters do not change.

There's still cabling galore.

- Bret
 
I bought my Bose system from A2Steve and Timmus fitted it. Many, many thanks to both - it's a great upgrade and I now enjoy music in the car much more than I ever did in all the other cars I've run. It's not a cheap retrofit mind, but well worth it and with Tom's skills you get an as factory installation. Add in an XCarLink to get music from your phone. And a MFSW for the icing on the cake.
 
The head unit on a bose install doesn't use its on board amplifier. All music signals for 4x channels (front right, front left, rear right, rear left) are sent to a bose amplifier for processing and amplification. On a standard set up the head unit supplies the front speaker music signals from its on board amp and the rears are amplified via the blaupunkt amplifier under drivers footwell. This is why you need the harness from a bose car as more cables go to the bose amplifier.
 
Tom supplied and installed a Bose system in my last but one A2,he works to a very high standard and I can highly recommend his work.
Almost all of the interior needs to be removed to run the wiring so not a quick and easy job.
The end results are well worth it though,much better sound quality at high speeds and the xcar link was also a very worthwhile addition.
 
Just to add, with the base speaker located in the boot there is no room for the toolkit(the A2 is a small car btw) . That is why it is relocated to the drivers footwell
 
I should point out that, although it is a LOT of work for Tom to do the complete BOSE install, because he charges a very reasonable rate for his labours it does work out cheaper to get him to install an excellent BOSE system than to custom make door pods, buy custom speakers and head unit, amplifiers etc. etc. Having spent many years and £££s on car-hifi setups over the years, bang per buck the BOSE has to be up there at the top of the pile (bang per buck).

Yes, bass heads can get incredible sounds if you want to put huge amounts of sound deadening in your car and generally weigh it down, some of the systems I used to put in Passats weigh best part of 90kg - imagine that in an A2. The beauty of the BOSE is that you get a very rounded, and good range of frequencies - going for quality, not quantity (it's never going to win any SPL competitions), but you can listen to it for hours without getting sound fatigue.

The BOSE also has a great depth of sound.
 
sciroccorrado said:
I should point out that, although it is a LOT of work for Tom to do the complete BOSE install, because he charges a very reasonable rate for his labours it does work out cheaper to get him to install an excellent BOSE system than to custom make door pods, buy custom speakers and head unit, amplifiers etc. etc. Having spent many years and £££s on car-hifi setups over the years, bang per buck the BOSE has to be up there at the top of the pile (bang per buck).

Yes, bass heads can get incredible sounds if you want to put huge amounts of sound deadening in your car and generally weigh it down, some of the systems I used to put in Passats weigh best part of 90kg - imagine that in an A2. The beauty of the BOSE is that you get a very rounded, and good range of frequencies - going for quality, not quantity (it's never going to win any SPL competitions), but you can listen to it for hours without getting sound fatigue.

The BOSE also has a great depth of sound.
Click to expand...

Well said Jeremy. ?
 
I've got a Bose system here with black grilles ready to go and it will come with as many uncut wires as possible (most are all cut at the amp plug). Removed gently and tested prior. Pm me if you would like it.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
bretti_kivi said:
The tweeters do not change.
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The Bose tweeters are different. They have a different part number, they're easily identified by a red sticker on the back, and their crossover frequency is different (determined by a different capacitor).

Thanks for all the kind recommendations, folks. I've done many a Bose retrofit.

Tom
 
that's the first time I've ever heard that the tweeters are different between the two. Then again, we don't rate the Bose system as a whole over on the German forum...

I find one part number on 7zap, I'm reasonably sure I actually checked there before posting. From here - https://audi.7zap.com/en/rdw/audi+a2/a2/2002-248/0/063-63010/ I see purely 8z0 035 099.

as said, I'm absolutely not a fan. I don't see the point of implementing anything that doesn't do full DSP now.

- Bret
 
bretti_kivi said:
that's the first time I've ever heard that the tweeters are different between the two. Then again, we don't rate the Bose system as a whole over on the German forum...

I find one part number on 7zap, I'm reasonably sure I actually checked there before posting. From here - https://audi.7zap.com/en/rdw/audi+a2/a2/2002-248/0/063-63010/ I see purely 8z0 035 099.

as said, I'm absolutely not a fan. I don't see the point of implementing anything that doesn't do full DSP now.

- Bret
Click to expand...

WOW! That's a really interesting point of view. If you don't rate the BOSE system, what do you guys over in Germany do if you want HiQ sound?
 
bretti_kivi said:
that's the first time I've ever heard that the tweeters are different between the two. Then again, we don't rate the Bose system as a whole over on the German forum...

I find one part number on 7zap, I'm reasonably sure I actually checked there before posting. From here - https://audi.7zap.com/en/rdw/audi+a2/a2/2002-248/0/063-63010/ I see purely 8z0 035 099.

- Bret
Click to expand...

The Bose tweeter was discontinued in 2009 which is the possible reason it's not listed on current parts lists

This old diagram shows item (4) as the Bose unit - http://www.realoem.me/Audi/RDW/A2/2005/248/R/0/063/63010

Cheers Spike
 
there's a raging market in adaptors for Eurokorb speakers. There are CAD drawings for them to be made from 10mm material.

Or dremelling old ones up.

I've heard a couple of *seriously* good systems in A2s and they've generally gone the Helix / Eton route with serious installs.

- Bret
 
Its like house stereo; nobody that is seriously into music has Bose at home. Even a pair of B&W’s at the fraction of the price of Bose would play better.
 
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