07sportm35 wrote:
I wonder why you chose the JBL's over the Inifinit's? One thing that is HUGE, the Infiniti's come with the speaker brackets to easily adapt the speakers to your car. I'm not so sure the JBL's do.

Also, consider this, the Infinit's go down to 45Hz--but more importantly, they are extremely efficient and sensitive at 95dB. This means the weak amplifiers of the Bose system should have no problem driving them at relatively low distortion levels. The JBL's are still good at 93dB but know this...for every 3dB volume goes up by a factor of two!

My Infiniti 62.9I's should be here on the 27th.

Got the speakers yesterday. They do come with 2 set of brackets to mount. Will have them installed tomorrow or thursday.

Excellent. Mine are coming in today. Good luck with the install.

I installed my "new" speakers today/tonight. First off let me say removing the door panels is the easiest thing you can do to these cars (kinda frightening). Three screws, 1 minute later and everything is exposed.

First thing I did was get ready to do some serious frequency response curves on the input to the tweeters and input to the 6.5 woofers. Spectrum analyzer, check, multimeter, check. NOT!

As the block diagram shows both connections get "FULL" signal-at least on the Bose 8 speakers system. I checked and it's true. I thought the system had active crossovers.

To further prove this I see this sophisticated bass blocker attached to the tweeter (sarcasm).

A capacitor in series with the audio cuts off low frequencies. For a more sophisticated system check out my new tweeter situation...

There is a circuit board within the heat shrink tubing and at least 5 components stuffed in there to help guide higher frequencies to the tweeters properly. Much nicer!

I mounted the new tweeters on the OEM bracket. Worked out perfectly.

Next I used the original OEM speaker mount to mount my new 6.5" woofer speaker. I did this because it's easier and the 62.9I has more depth.



Needless to say the original speaker has low resale value along with the old Bose tweeter.

The listening results? Read below...

The woofers are new so they need to broke in to be at their best but...there is less low end at turn on. The clarity has improved alot mainly due to the tweeters. Let me say the tweeters make the biggest difference. Almost night and day. The symbols are so much more crisp and everything above 2500Hz has improved a bunch.

If you do one thing to your sound system I still say get a subwoofer. Next get a silk dome infiniti tweeter such as the 1031.

I am amazed at how better frequencies above 1KHz sound. Hopefully after burnin the new 6.5's will catch up to the OEM's at the lower midbass levels.

I had mine professionally installed too. They charged me $30/pair so total was only $60+tax. Took about 1 1/2 to finished everything. I can also say that the clarity of the sound is way better than the old bose speakers. I can hear sounds I have'nt heard before from the bose speakers. He also use the original brackets to install the speakers. Here are a few pics I took during the install.

1. Speakers I used : JBL p662s

2. door panel removed with bose speaker 3. speaker removed from rear passenger door ( note the oval shape opening for the speaker)4. Bose speaker on top and jbl speaker on the bottom after the swap5. Jbl speaker after mount to the door using original brackets

dotsad,

Where you able to figure out the auto up for the windows? I also noticed that on all four doors that they don't automatically go up after the speakers were installed. They do go down automatically on all four doors on one press of the auto down. Otherwise, that seems to be the only thing I noticed different aside from having a better sound system.

Tocastro71,

That's interesting your installer used the same technique I did utilizing the OEM bracket.

Is your original system the 6, 8, or 14 speaker sytem? Did your installer notice "FULL" signals coming from the tweeter wires and woofer wires?

Did you notice a loss at the low end? Are the tweeters still hooked up on your front coaxial woofers? I disconnected mine. Does not sound like you did and that's why your high's are better.

I disconnected mine to try and keep the same or better sound stage and imaging. Remember, I replaced the top door panel tweeters as well.

The rear speakers and my subwoofer provide plenty of bass so I'm not worried too much about losing bass in the front doors. Besides bass, everything sounds much better. And you're right, I can hear things I did not hear before.

I know lots of questions.

rocastro71 wrote:dotsad,

Where you able to figure out the auto up for the windows? I also noticed that on all four doors that they don't automatically go up after the speakers were installed. They do go down automatically on all four doors on one press of the auto down. Otherwise, that seems to be the only thing I noticed different aside from having a better sound system.

It's either push and hold the up window button for 20 seconds or the down one. I had to do this last night.

Open the windows, then close them and hold the up button for 15 seconds and Voila! they will work again.

I have the 8 speaker bose system. I did not disconnect the tweeters on the front so they're still hooked up. I have not noticed any loss of base too on the front but I could be wrong since I do have an aftermarket woofer at the back with a separate amplifier providing 500w of power to the woofer alone. I do notice though that I needed to crank up the volume higher to hear the sound but once the music starts, the sound is just richer than before.

Thanks to Pangpang, my windows worked as you have instructed.

You a running a total of (4) tweeters in front. The reason why component systems are set to have the tweeters high in the door is for sound imaging and staging. On the 8 speaker Bose system there is a center channel. The reason being is to help acheive a centered frontal sound stage.

Often times tweeters are mounted in the dash. In our cars it's mounted as fore and high as possible. Having your tweeter down low will lesssen the sound stage and imaging but will improve the sound due to the weak factory tweeters.

When I did my install I only did one side of the car first so I could accurately hear the difference using my balance button. If you don't do that it will be hard to tell some of the differences accurately.

When manufactures talk about efficiency they rate it at I believe 1KHz. That's a far cry from 100Hz. Also, the OEM speakers presumably are optimized for the cars enclosure/door panels. The Infiniti's are not plus they prefer more juice. Seeing as though I prefer a front stage I did not bother with the rears.

So I do love/prefer the way the car sounds now but would have liked to seen more midbass out of the new front Infiniti's. I strongly suspect we all have less midbass with these aftermarket speakers but are better from 1Khz up.

In my opinion the best bang for the buck is just replace the tweeters. Then a subwoofer if you have the money.

I do agree that the tweeters on the front are pretty weak compared to aftermarket ones. However, since I only have 8 speakers, adding this aftermarket coaxial speakers significantly improve both highs and mids as compared to the bose speakers. It's like adding 4 additional speakers to my present 8 speaker system. Also, the weakest part of the system is the base. That's why my first upgrade was adding an aftermarket one with a separate amplifier to it. I can tell you now that the combination of all upgrades is pretty sweet. It's not too much as to rattle the car when it plays music but yet it seems pretty balance for me. When I first bought the car, I was questioning why such a high end luxury car will have such a weak sound system. Bose is a namebrand for quality speakers but infiniti I think wants to cut down cost yet carry the namebrand bose so they went with the cheapest model to put in our cars. I mean it goes true with most cars anyway, the manufacturer will try to cut down cost in any possible way. Anyway, I am very happy I made this upgrade and I'll be enjoying my music more everytime I sat on my car and drive it.
Modified by rocastro71 at 12:13 AM 10/29/2009

Can someone please tell if all the door speakers are 2 ohms or is it just the front ones? Thanks.

Front and rear doors are both 2 ohms.

I have the 14 speaker system and was thinking about having Infiniti components in my fronts doors, so the mid woofer is in door and tweeter replacing factory pillar tweeter. For the rear door Infiniti coaxials.

Would I be able to pull the component setup off or no? Does system have a crossover as it is? Should I just go coaxials all around and leave tweeter alone?

Please, everyone give me your opinions!

PangPang77 did you change tweeters also or just doors with coaxials?
Modified by ddynasty1120 at 4:14 PM 10/28/2009

Thanks alot.

ddynasty1120 wrote:I have the 14 speaker system and was thinking about having Infiniti components in my fronts doors, so the mid woofer is in door and tweeter replacing factory pillar tweeter. For the rear door Infiniti coaxials.

Would I be able to pull the component setup off or no? Does system have a crossover as it is? Should I just go coaxials all around and leave tweeter alone?

Please, everyone give me your opinions!

PangPang77 did you change tweeters also or just doors with coaxials?

Modified by ddynasty1120 at 4:14 PM 10/28/2009

Yes you can do components in the front, and you already have a Bose component system in your fronts anyway.

I think what Bose did was slap a 4.7uF capacitor in series with the tweets for a bass blocker and let the woofer just roll off on it's own. If you look at the woofer you'll notice there is no tweeter on top of it. My guess is the woofer does not go very high in frequency(maybe 2500Hz).

My advice is just find some nice tweeters to replace the factory ones and leave the factory woofers in there.

The tweeters are the weakest part of the system outside of deep powerful bass. Replacing the factory woofers are not going to get you that bass.

So if i put jbl or infiniti 2 ohm components, I wont have to use crossover cause the bose system has it a crossover system already? All I will have to use is woofer and tweeter?

I will change woofer also cause it look so cheap!

And rear door speakers just have coaxials?

ddynasty1120 wrote:So if i put jbl or infiniti 2 ohm components, I wont have to use crossover cause the bose system has it a crossover system already? All I will have to use is woofer and tweeter?

I will change woofer also cause it look so cheap!

And rear door speakers just have coaxials?

NO. The Bose system "does not" have built in crossovers. They may look cheap but's all about the sound. Look at the pictures, the rear or front woofers are NOT coaxials.

Coaxials have a tweeter on top of the woofers. Keep in mind if you use coaxials in the rear or front woofer speaker locations you have drastically changed the sound staging and imaging of the car. Why? All (4) locations utilize woofers that don not put out high frequencies. The rears are just used for background and bass. The front woofers do the same but are complimented with tweeters in the pillars.

As I said before, it will not be easy to get more low end out of aftermarket door woofers due to the Bose amplifier limitations and the OEM's being optimized for the door panels.

Remember, a cheap speaker will sound better than a great speaker if the enclosure that is used is designed for the cheap speaker. That's woofer 101.

Like I said before, replace the tweeters...

07sportm35,

When you recommend just change the tweeters, do you recommend it only for the one's with the 14 speaker system or for all including the 8 and 6? The reason why I am asking is that, when I first bought my M with the 8 speaker bose, I took it to two local stereo shops and they told me that it was lacking on the lows, that's why they recommended adding an aftermarket sub and amp. However, as I now have the new speakers installed, I noticed that the base are also pretty audible on all new speakers and not just the rear sub. That including the highs which have also improved significantly. I don't even need to change out the original tweeters in the front. What do you think?

ddynasty1120 wrote:I have the 14 speaker system and was thinking about having Infiniti components in my fronts doors, so the mid woofer is in door and tweeter replacing factory pillar tweeter. For the rear door Infiniti coaxials.

Would I be able to pull the component setup off or no? Does system have a crossover as it is? Should I just go coaxials all around and leave tweeter alone?

Please, everyone give me your opinions!

PangPang77 did you change tweeters also or just doors with coaxials?

Modified by ddynasty1120 at 4:14 PM 10/28/2009

I changed out the 4 door speakers with coaxials. I had 2 installers tell the factory sound of the 14 speaker system is already excellent. if you do Bose center point and play CDs with the center console DVD, and just switch out the door speAkers for good mids, you'll notice that the center channel does most of the work for highs, the sound with just the door speakers switched out is pretty incredible in my opinion. Add the speakers near the heAdrest and the sound just envelopes you. The coaxials also add more punchy bass than the factories.

rocastro71 wrote:07sportm35,

When you recommend just change the tweeters, do you recommend it only for the one's with the 14 speaker system or for all including the 8 and 6? The reason why I am asking is that, when I first bought my M with the 8 speaker bose, I took it to two local stereo shops and they told me that it was lacking on the lows, that's why they recommended adding an aftermarket sub and amp. However, as I now have the new speakers installed, I noticed that the base are also pretty audible on all new speakers and not just the rear sub. That including the highs which have also improved significantly. I don't even need to change out the original tweeters in the front. What do you think?

You have already done the best upgrade--a subwoofer. That takes care of the lows. The rest is about sound stage. The better lows you have in the front, the less bass in the back sound you get (bad). I always use a 60Hz lowpass filter for my subwoofer because at 60Hz and below the bass becomes more difficult to tell what direction it is coming from (good).

As I see it, the main benefit of new door speakers is a cleaner mid range. Personally, I did not acheive lower bass notes with the new door woofer. Maybe the 6032's are more ideally matched for that effort.

What was really overwhelming in terms of improvement was the new tweeters which sit in a good location for sound staging and imaging.

Most folks seem to be using the tweeter portion of their coaxials which is why they have better highs. I prefer my highs in the pillar not the lower door but to each their own. Also, to acheive a front sound stage the Bose sytem cuts of the highs in the rears. By adding tweeters back there you change that. Again to each their own.

For the best sound quality and staging I recommend going with shallow mount Infiniti woofers in the front and disconnect the tweeter portion of the coaxial. Then add a Infiniti tweeter such as the one I have in the pillars.

pangpang77 wrote:

I changed out the 4 door speakers with coaxials. I had 2 installers tell the factory sound of the 14 speaker system is already excellent. if you do Bose center point and play CDs with the center console DVD, and just switch out the door speAkers for good mids, you'll notice that the center channel does most of the work for highs, the sound with just the door speakers switched out is pretty incredible in my opinion. Add the speakers near the heAdrest and the sound just envelopes you. The coaxials also add more punchy bass than the factories.

Generally a center speaker in "movie mode" does 80% of the work just like a home system. The idea is to get it to sound like the voices are coming from the display.

In most cars in music mode it is responsible for helping get a front and centered sound stage and basically only operates in the voice range give or a take a few...

For those with the 14 speaker system, I find that the BEST sound is achieved by playing a CD in the center console DVD player with centerpoint on and then setting the balance in the 3 position (in the middle of left and center), then leave bass at 10 and treble at 7, and surround at 8. I like the sound stage that achieves. This setup really demonstrates the potential of the system and the swapping of just the door speakers made it that much better.

pangpang77 wrote:For those with the 14 speaker system, I find that the BEST sound is achieved by playing a CD in the center console DVD player with centerpoint on and then setting the balance in the 3 position (in the middle of left and center), then leave bass at 10 and treble at 7, and surround at 8. I like the sound stage that achieves. This setup really demonstrates the potential of the system and the swapping of just the door speakers made it that much better.

Assuming that everyone had the same preferences for sound and these were the settings to go with, wouldn't a DVD-A disc sound better than a CD-A disc?

The00Dustin wrote:Assuming that everyone had the same preferences for sound and these were the settings to go with, wouldn't a DVD-A disc sound better than a CD-A disc?

You are probably correct, but I have never seen or heard a DVD-A disc. I would love to try it, and I'm sure it will be even better...

pangpang77 wrote:
You are probably correct, but I have never seen or heard a DVD-A disc. I would love to try it, and I'm sure it will be even better...

I'm sure a properly mastered DVD-A disc would blow you away. I am not certain the optimal settings would match, though. Video DVD's with 5.1 audio would give similar results, so a good music video collection or concert DVD (with 5.1 audio) would work, and could be played while driving albeit sans video (unless your car is hacked).

Edit:My M45 came with a sample DVD-A disc, it was left in the car by the original lessor and the second owner, so I have it still, I don't know if this was only provided with the premium package or if a previous owner of your vehicle lost it.

Ordered my infiniti's today, should sound good with the 2x12 cerwin vega subs already instaled!

I've been reading some of your posts on upgrades to the bose 14 speaker system and have a question for you. Based on other posts, it appears the door speakers are 2ohm. What about the woofer? Also, can i get reasonable performance by replacing the sub with an aftermarket sub without a separate amp? Thanks.

csorenson wrote:I've been reading some of your posts on upgrades to the bose 14 speaker system and have a question for you. Based on other posts, it appears the door speakers are 2ohm. What about the woofer? Also, can i get reasonable performance by replacing the sub with an aftermarket sub without a separate amp? Thanks.

Yes, the door speakers are 2ohm. I haven't tried the woofer, and don't know if it's also 2 ohm. I don't believe I've seen anyone replace the subwoofer without also putting in an amp.

Whats a good replacement for the rear sub??? and the a/c front speaker???