D Spin

After lots of searching the archives for info about the Bose stereo system in a 97 A4 I was still unable to find some of the answers I wanted. So today I decided to start pulling the speakers out to see for myself what size, type etc. my car is equipped with. Here's what I found:
1. The front door speakers are 4.5" components and are not Bose, they are 4 ohm Nokias.?? This was a suprise, why aren't there bose speakers, in a bose system? They are mounted at a weird angle with the anchor points not on the same plane, ie. they're different heights, therefore an adaptor of some sort would be needed for aftermarket speakers. In my opinion 5.25" speakers should fit with some fine tuning.

2. The tweeters in the front doors are slightly smaller than 1.75" but I think aftermarket 1.75" tweets would fit no prob.

3. The speakers in the rear doors are 3.5" bose and do not say what the ohms are. They are mounted using a size adapter, as the hole is made for a 6-6.5" speaker. I think a 6.5" speaker should fit. An adapter of some sort would be needed though because there are only three anchor points and they are in a triangular pattern not square as is standard for most aftermarket speakers.

4. The speakers in the rear deck are 6.5" bose woofers and they are 2 ohms. 6.5" aftermarket speakers should fit well but caution must be taken because the actual hole through the frame in the deck of the car is square and is 4.5" wide at a speaker depth of approx. 1.5"

I was surprised to find that the speakers in the doors are mounted to the door panel itself and not in the door frame. This is the first car I have seen with speaker mounting done this way. Speaker depth should not be an issue as there is plenty of space in the door behind each speaker.

I hope this helps anyone who is thinking of doing their own stereo install or who is just curious about how the stereo system in their car is set up.

I do have a couple of questions though, first, does anyone know what the ohm rating of the speakers in the rear door is? Second, I was under the impression that the stock speakers could not be used with an aftermarket HU or amp but it seems to me that it should work. What is the reasoning behind the idea that they are not compatible?

I'd really appreciate any input.
Cheers-

Zamore

..after i blew the factory headunit's amplifier by mistake. the cd player worked, but the amp was fried. rerouted the output to my aftermarket amp and all was good

don't see why that wouldn't be the case in our cars

D Spin

That's what I was thinking.

RKA

Yes, the front speakers are made by Nokia. It's still part of the Bose system. The entire system runs at 2 ohms I believe. The signal leaves the headunit, and runs to the Bose amp, which equalizes the sound, and sends it out to the speakers. I'm not sure where the amp is located, although the amp for the rear deck speakers is usually strapped right to the left rear deck speaker.

When installing aftermarket, the amps must be removed from the system at a minimum. The head unit must be recoded to operate in non-Bose mode (not sure on the difference between the two modes). If your amp is 2 ohm stable, then yes, you can probably reuse the OEM speakers, but god and I would ask you why the fvck you would want to recycle those paper pieces of garbage.

Urban Rally

The sound does not seem even (left side vs right) I turn the volume down, and put my ear next to both my tweeters, and drivers side is much softer, all settings are set at zero (fade etc...), rest of the speakers just don't sound like they are all working evenly, this isn't an audi thing because the driver is sitting to one side is it?

RKA

I have an old Sony home receiver...when you turn the volume down low, the balance gets screwed, but as you raise it, it evens out. Sony's claim was that this was normal, and sure enough, when I went to the store and tested the theory, every cheap piece of crap they sell did the same thing.

I'm not sure with the Audi, but if everything evens out as you raise the volume, I wouldn't spend too much time fussing over this.

Urban Rally

which got me to go around listening to each speaker, none buzz, so I doubt they are "blown",

but I just thought of something, I've been listening to mp3-> burned audio cd... I should probably test with real production quality store bought music, who knows, maybe the music burning software is fuxoring it up...

D Spin

I don't intend on keeping the stock speakers, I was more curious to know if it would even work. It's true, I was quite surprised to find paper pieces of crap with the name Bose on them! Thanks for the help.