Aftermarket Nav w/ Factory Bose

[Dave154]

Hi, I'm new to this site and just bought a 2010 Altima SR Coupe. I have the factory Bose system without the stock Navigation unit. I'm planing on keeping the Bose system but replacing the dash unit with a Kenwood DNX 9960 and adding a Kicker L7 sub. I've read on another thread that were was issues with the Bose system not being compatible with an aftermarket in dash unit. Before I go investing can someone help me out or is this a bunch of bull****. Thanks

[AppleBonker]

It will work. I ran my car like that as I worked on upgrading all of the factory speakers. The compatibility issue you read about is that the Bose system is tuned as a whole. Replacing just the head unit will make it sound slightly worse, as some of the tuning occurs in the head unit and some of it occurs in the amp. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of Bose in general. It's not going to sound drastically worse than completely stock (again, I don't think it sounds all that great stock, so there's a limit to how much worse it can get), but there may be some tuning issues. With a keen ear (and a decent head unit) you can probably tune it back to a relatively flat frequency response curve. You will also have to watch out because the aftermarket head unit will amplify the output before the amp, and the amp will obviously amplify it again. Keeping the aftermarket head unit at a low volume will be necessary to not over drive the speakers.

Also, welcome to the forums!