I have a 98 SSE with the BOSE system. I changed out the rear deck speakers (woofers and tweeters) with an Alpine Component 6 1/2" system. I'm planning on swapping out the front door speakers as well with an Alpine component 5 ½” system too. Although the sound quality is okay, I know it could be better, I noticed that the bass is a lot more prominent. I used the existing wiring to wire in the components. The components speakers are 4 ohm and I know the BOSE system is 2 ohm which has a lot to do with the quality of sound and distortion coming from the back.

I’m wondering if I should bypass the BOSE amp and drive the rear speakers off a separate amp. I have a couple of questions though:

1) What do I need to buy, other than the amp, to connect the rear speakers. I've heard talk about a line level converter and amp but I’m not sure how to wire that in.

2) Do I wire in before or after the BOSE amp.

I want to do it right. Thanks for the help.

Bryan

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Stone Beige Metalic 98 SSE, Clear Corners, Pretty much stock to this point.

In general, if you replace the speakers with 4 ohm ones and still use the Bose, it will take twice as much power to drive them, thus the issue with performance. The Bose is not really designed to do this so you will have to go with an aftermarket amp and all the speakers will have to be replaced. If you are using the stock radio, the speaker outputs may be higher than line level and your 4 channel amplifier should have a gain adjustment to compensate for that. If the input level is still too high, there are inexpensive converters that reduce speaker level input to line level. Look for a Scosche SLC4 Speaker Level Converter With 80 Watt Max and this is wired in before the amplifier. There are a couple others that are similar such as the PAC LD-10 (but you will need 2 of them).You can wire the amplifier in the trunk in place of the Bose and use the 4 inputs from the radio running into the amplifier, 4 outputs for 4 speakerss if there are more than 4 speakers (separate components like a tweeter and mid range on one output, you will need to add crossovers to the outputs to make the system work correctly

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bobgto65

2004 Bonneville GXP 62,000 miles purchased 04/13
2009 G8 GXP PBM, M6 9580 miles, no mods, sold 08/15
2009 G8 GT SBM 36,000 miles, modded 430 whp
2002 Bonneville SSEi 203,200 miles (sold 3/2014)