98 bose speaker question

[lammers]

i was looking at putting different speakers into my bonneville. I was told that the bose speakers run at 8 ohm, and that i would have to rewire all of my speakers to do so. wondering if this is true, and how hard it would be to rewire them if i have to.


thanks,
Justin

[sandrock]

I'm running Infinity Reference 6*9s in the rear with the Bose amp and a Kenwood head unit with no issues at all.

[olblueeyesbonne]

I've run Infinity 6x9 3-way Reference's in my old 98 SSE and current 99 SSEi with a Pioneer deck in the 98 and I started with an Alpine deck in my 99 SSEi. I currently have Infinity Kappa 5.25" Kappa 2-ways in the front door, Infinity Kappa 3-way 6x9's and Kappa Perfect Tweeters in the rear with a Pioneer deck in the 99 SSEi. Only problem I have is the tweeters came loose on the tower they rotate on for the 6x9's and cause some rattle I can easily fix with some silicone.

[lammers]

so noone has had an issue running aftermarket speakers off of the bose amplifier?? i have read several places that with a bose system, you have to rewire every speaker from the HU in order for it to run correctly...... has anyone elsehere heard about this? or experienced any issues with changing speakers?

[sandrock]

Where did you hear about having to rewire the speakers? The only thing I heard was that some Bose amps don't like the signal going INTO them when you upgrade to an aftermarket deck. The amps in the 97-99s at least can tolerate the signal.

[mntnbkr]

sandrock, out of curiosity, why would the signal going INTO the amp change based on what speakers are on the output side of the amp? Just curious, because I don't see how this can be.

[lammers]

"Usually the impedance on the bose speakers is some crazy number like 1.2 and most amps cannot handle that low of an ohm load."

"Since you do have a Bose system you will not be able to just change out the speakers. You will have to change out everything since they run off a different impedance."

"first my credentials: own a car stereo business for 15 years....


you absolutely CAN hook up 8 ohm speakers to your car stereo without any problems whatsoever.

car speakers are normally 4 ohms, but a higher impedance speaker will not harm the car stereo.

A quicky ohms course: ohms is a measure of resistance, 0 ohms being a dead short. So if you hook up 8 ohm speakers in a 4 ohm system, you efectively are going to cut your power output of your car stereo in half. HOWEVER, bose is also known for making 2 ohm speakers also. 2 ohms on some car stereos would be bad... fire kind of bad.

if you own an audi tt, there are tweeters in the doors also, if the door speaker is 8 ohms and the tweeter is 8 ohms and they are hooked in parallel, then the true ohm load is 4 ohms... and this is not a problem...

did i fry everyones brains yet?"



this explains why some of you have never had any problems installing the infinity, seeing ad most are 2 ohm..... this pretty much explains it.

[mntnbkr]

Lammers is exactly correct. As long as the ohm load "ohms" of a speaker is greater than the one you're replacing, you DO NOT have to worry about damaging anything. The only problem you may have is less output (sound) from that speaker. There are creative ways of wiring multiple speakers or even single speakers with dual voice-coils that yeild greater flexibility.

As for replacing a speaker with one of lower ohms, that is where you have to be careful because as lammers said, you can cause damage to any number of the components in the stereo system, not to mention the possibility of fire. But as I mentioned above, the same creative wiring options can be utilized when using multiple speakers in order to increase the resistance (ohms) that the amp sees on each channel.

As a rule, wiring two speakers in parallel reduces the ohm load, while wiring them in series increases it.

[mntnbkr]

Additionally, I can't tell you myself what the actual ohm rating of the factory speakers is, but you can check it yourself if you have an ohm-meter or multi-meter.

[swampthing]

my 2000's bose speakers were 2ohm i replaced them with infinitys that were the same impedance and it sounds very good i also have an aftermarket HU running through the amp with no problems, if you are unsure about what your bose systems specs are call bose thats what i did and i got all the impedance and the wattage for my bose system

[lammers]

gotta love the internet... i finally found what i was looking for, but it would have been simpler to just measure the resistance of my speakers..... oh well, i had some good reading material and learned something.
thanks guys