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The best improvement in any sound system involves having good taste in music. Most of the people with these monster sub-woofers are listening to crap, so sound quality doesn't enter the picture. The dealer gave me a loaner with the Bose sound system, and I was surprised at how poor the sound quality was. I can understand people wanting to improve that. The thing with Bose systems is that much of the problem is before the speakers ever see signal. The EQs that Bose uses are strange, and very often give non-musical results. They've sold their brand so well, that most people go in pre-disposed, and most people also know very little about what constitutes a good sound, because they're not audio engineers, or musicians. I happen to be both, and I found the factory system to be superior to the Bose system in every way.
Flame on!
Originally Posted by spoon2000
I'm sorry to say it, but I suspect that you would notice an improvement in a Bose or probably even a B&O system if you made minor upgrades, primarily in the speakers. If you went to Best Buy and got four mid-grade Sony speakers, you would probably end up with a much-improved sound over what Audi put in, Bose or no Bose.
The best improvement in any sound system involves having good taste in music. Most of the people with these monster sub-woofers are listening to crap, so sound quality doesn't enter the picture. The dealer gave me a loaner with the Bose sound system, and I was surprised at how poor the sound quality was. I can understand people wanting to improve that. The thing with Bose systems is that much of the problem is before the speakers ever see signal. The EQs that Bose uses are strange, and very often give non-musical results. They've sold their brand so well, that most people go in pre-disposed, and most people also know very little about what constitutes a good sound, because they're not audio engineers, or musicians. I happen to be both, and I found the factory system to be superior to the Bose system in every way.
Flame on!
+1 heh
I thought factory system was also made by bose?
I have the B&O and its decent and i wouldnt call it amazing by any means but it goes in the right direction for quality and clarity.
The best improvement in any sound system involves having good taste in music. Most of the people with these monster sub-woofers are listening to crap, so sound quality doesn't enter the picture. The dealer gave me a loaner with the Bose sound system, and I was surprised at how poor the sound quality was. I can understand people wanting to improve that. The thing with Bose systems is that much of the problem is before the speakers ever see signal. The EQs that Bose uses are strange, and very often give non-musical results. They've sold their brand so well, that most people go in pre-disposed, and most people also know very little about what constitutes a good sound, because they're not audio engineers, or musicians. I happen to be both, and I found the factory system to be superior to the Bose system in every way.
Flame on!
Many years ago I was told that their acronym meant: Buy Other Stereo Equipment. As you can see by my signature I take it to heart!
The best improvement in any sound system involves having good taste in music. Most of the people with these monster sub-woofers are listening to crap, so sound quality doesn't enter the picture. The dealer gave me a loaner with the Bose sound system, and I was surprised at how poor the sound quality was. I can understand people wanting to improve that. The thing with Bose systems is that much of the problem is before the speakers ever see signal. The EQs that Bose uses are strange, and very often give non-musical results. They've sold their brand so well, that most people go in pre-disposed, and most people also know very little about what constitutes a good sound, because they're not audio engineers, or musicians. I happen to be both, and I found the factory system to be superior to the Bose system in every way.
Flame on!
Plsy Abbey Road. Your system will sound 100% better.
I admit that the Bose in the A6 is poor but Audi specified it and accepted their submission. Bose can easily provide a better system than the B&O but Audi wouldn’t make as much money so they accepted the Bose crap system and used the B&O crap system as their flagship ripoff.
The rear deck in these cars is not a good place to install a subwoofer, unless you do a lot of work to reinforce the deck. Dynamat isn't going to cut it. You'll have to reinforce with layers of plywood or something stiff.
It's much, much easier to just build a sub box.... or better yet, do a proper trunk baffle setup like I have done.
Rather than use the rear deck, we built a baffle to seal off the rear seat passthrough. The baffle is made from 1" thick baltic birch plywood, and is very rigid.
The baffle is removable with threaded machine screws, so if I ever need the passthrough I can use it. But I've never needed it in 4+ years.
The rear deck in these cars is not a good place to install a subwoofer, unless you do a lot of work to reinforce the deck. Dynamat isn't going to cut it. You'll have to reinforce with layers of plywood or something stiff.
It's much, much easier to just build a sub box.... or better yet, do a proper trunk baffle setup like I have done.
Rather than use the rear deck, we built a baffle to seal off the rear seat passthrough. The baffle is made from 1" thick baltic birch plywood, and is very rigid.
The baffle is removable with threaded machine screws, so if I ever need the passthrough I can use it. But I've never needed it in 4+ years.
There are still many air gaps between the trunk and the cabin. A wide and shallow box with a single 12" and some industrial Velcro to keep it in place would do great and it would be easy to remove.
I actually did quite a bit of work to seal off the trunk from the cabin. All the speakers in the rear deck were removed, and then ABS plastic baffles with foam lining were built to seal off the holes. Both sides of the deck were covered in Focal BAM (which is similar to Dynamat), and then we added a layer of closed-cell-foam and a layer of mass-loaded vinyl to the top of the deck before putting the factory panel back in place.
When doing an infinite baffle subwoofer, it is critical to isolate the front wave from the back wave. We don't want the back wave from the woofer coming into the cabin and interacting with the direct sound from the front wave. These interactions will cause comb filtering effects that mess up the frequency response.
It's never possible to get complete isolation unless we get crazy and cut a big hole to vent the subwoofer to the outside of the car, but the more isolation we can get the better. Some guys will actually cut out the bottom of the tire well and then vent the woofer out that way. The results are outstanding. I'm not that brave yet, however.
Just did this on a C7 s6 with Bose, air suspension and automated rear shade... A few notes:
The rear sun shade doesn't need to
be removed, but the sun shade guides do (be very careful not to break the tabs)
If you have air suspension, the air storage tank is behind the spare tire. This means you cannot easily remove the battery cover as in the guide, be very careful not to kink the plastic air hoses when moving the spare tire tools out of the way.
I installed the amp to the passenger side of the battery, since the compartment on the left was rather full. There is a convenient ground right beside the main battery ground.
The rear deck hole isn't a stock 10" size, and will need to be enlarged by 3/16" all around for a standard 10" sub to sit properly.
The rear deck is extremely flimsy, and you will need to reenforce/support it somehow in order to get proper bass without flex and vibrations.
Using the existing subwoofer as line level input, on the s6, will create a lot of noise at low rpm since the engine sound is artificially recreated in the sound system.
If wiring the subwoofer (and line inputs) through the sides of the trunk, be very careful not to run it where the trunk arms pass when the trunk is open and closed. Made this mistake after wiring everything up.
Takeaway is this: I recommend simply getting a small sealed box that fits behind the seat. This would retain the stock subwoofer and would be very easy to remove when needed. The installation would be very simple, and it would take about 45 minutes instead of 3+ hours since the rear deck doesn't have to be dismantled. Revering to stock would be much simple in this case.
great notes! I’ve been looking for someone with my exact car. Can you get into more detail about removing the pillar covers and rear deck cover without damaging the shade or shade guides? Any special tools or technique taking both off? Special extra screws / nuts? That is my fear of breaking this
11-10-2017, 06:05 AM
