Inside the Bose Subwoofer Assembly

[Rocket Man]

For those of you who have the Bose sub in the rear quarter panel, I thought I'd take one apart and see just what kind of a driver is in there. I wanted to upgrade my bass and have seen all kinds of threads on the 8" subwoofers but nothing on the Bose Acoustimass enclosure. I considered replacing the driver itself. These drivers are easily identified if you look through the grill and only see a couple of bass ports and no visible sub. The bad news is it looks to be a proprietary driver. The good news is they don't sound too bad, and if yours is anything like mine, it's probably in good shape. After 13 plus years in service, mine looks to be fine; it looks like new. But...it's going into storage in favor of an MTX Thunderform enclosure, JL 10" sub, and Soundstream nano 450 watt amp. It looks like the best way to upgrade is to replace the Bose enclosure. I don't think a better driver can be found that will fit , and throwing more power at this small of a driver will probably end it's life. I understand the factory amp pushes 100 watts and that's probably all the 4 x 7 will handle.

 

[Rocket Man]

More pics

 

[YukonXL04]

Looks to be a 6th order bandpass as well. See some actual thought went into that one lol! Thanks for the info on it!

 

[Sub]

Thank you Red Rocket for opening that Bose Accustimass box up and posting the pictures so that we can see inside.

Why, by the way, are you replacing it?

Everything looks like it is in good condition. Was it not enough bass? The Denali's that have that Bose box have the luxury amp that is a surround sound set up with a center channel and 5.1 like effects as far as sound imaging. I wonder how a new sub corresponds to that signal processing (assuming you are still keeping the original Bose amp for the door speakersP

 

[Rocket Man]

I wanted more bass. The system sounded great after I did a DD conversion and "woke it up" with a Sony XAV-602 BT head unit. The imaging is amazing; I keep thinking I hear people in the back singing along to the songs. But the bass was lacking. Now after a few days of adjusting I finally have the new amp set right ( besides gain it has low pass crossover, subsonic crossover, bass boost and a dash- mounted level control)and the Sony has more adjustments including sub level, distance, rear bass enhancer, crossover filter, high pass filter,low pass filter,and even phase. I have it pretty well dialed in now and I have to say its all working very well together. The imaging and surround effect still work great and now the bass shakes the truck. The rest of the Bose speakers and the luxury amp are doing a nice job. I think I would be hard-pressed to come up with a better system if I started from scratch and I used to do systems for a living many many years ago. Loud isn't that hard to do, clean and loud is a bit harder, but clean, loud and with great imaging is nearly impossible unless you're a sound engineer. I just cheated by starting with a great system and making it better.

 

[Rocket Man]

The best thing is it all looks pretty much factory unless you look hard.

 

[Melissa83AZ]

For those of you who have the Bose sub in the rear quarter panel, I thought I'd take one apart and see just what kind of a driver is in there. I wanted to upgrade my bass and have seen all kinds of threads on the 8" subwoofers but nothing on the Bose Acoustimass enclosure. I considered replacing the driver itself. These drivers are easily identified if you look through the grill and only see a couple of bass ports and no visible sub. The bad news is it looks to be a proprietary driver. The good news is they don't sound too bad, and if yours is anything like mine, it's probably in good shape. After 13 plus years in service, mine looks to be fine; it looks like new. But...it's going into storage in favor of an MTX Thunderform enclosure, JL 10" sub, and Soundstream nano 450 watt amp. It looks like the best way to upgrade is to replace the Bose enclosure. I don't think a better driver can be found that will fit , and throwing more power at this small of a driver will probably end it's life. I understand the factory amp pushes 100 watts and that's probably all the 4 x 7 will handle.

More pics[/QUOTE

Do you happen to know what size speakers are in the front doors? I have a 2003 Yukon Denali w/ bose speakers. Thanks!

 

[Rocket Man]

I'm not sure what size the front door speakers are but I did find one at a junkyard to replace one of mine that was damaged. I do know it was a 2 ohm speaker and it didn't screw in like normal ones, it just had a tab that you push and it popped out. Seems like it was an odd size also. I'm pretty sure there are no aftermarket ones that are compatible. I suggest you go that route if you're replacing one; I believe the GM part number was on the speaker for identification. I paid about $35 for one.

 

[04BUCKET]

Any more pics of your ENCLOSURE for JL SUB? I am going to force an 8W7 in that location.

 

[YukonXL04]

Any more pics of your ENCLOSURE for JL SUB? I am going to force an 8W7 in that location.

It's going to stick out into the cargo area a few inches...