Hatterasman

I did away with the rear Bose speakers today. I installed a pair of plate speakers (5 1/2" drivers with 1 1/2" tweeters) in the rear deck. The drivers hang through the existing holes in the deck while the tweeter side lays on top. They fit great. I then hung a 160-watt Alpine Amp under the deck in the trunk. I soldered RCA jacks onto the speaker wires from the stereo and used them for line in to the amp. A little tweaking of the amp's variable line in voltage gain and they sound awesome! Now my dilemma is what to do with the front. I have one working front speaker in the passenger door. I tried to replace the amp in the left front with an amp from a rear speaker without success. Very little volume compared to the right. I have another 100-watt amp I'd like to use to power the fronts, but... it needs a 4-ohm load. Has anyone found a 4-ohm driver that will fit in the front Bose enclosure? Would adding a 3-Ohm resistor to the 1-Ohm Bose speaker properly load a 4-Ohm amp? Any feedback will be appreciated.

Jeff Goldberg
1991 V8Q

ravidrabbit

Why would you want to go from 1 ohm to 4 ohm's?
The sound quality of 1 vs 4 is huge. I would say trash the amp if it will only handel a 4 ohm load. Alot of amps out will handle The 1 ohm load your speakers require. I have run kenwood amps at 1 ohm, rockford fosgats amps as 1/2 ohm, and phoenix gold at 1/4 ohm. Just check out what info is avaliable on the amp b4 you buy it. As for the resister idea its a good theary but you will only acheve 2 ohms at best by adding a 3 omh resistor (at least in theroy if I understand it right). If you dont want to fork out the cash for a new amp I would say look into componant speakers. you will still have good sound but will be able to run 4 ohms. anyway theres my basic primer (lolol) on ohm loads and car audio.

Will Ng

I pulled them out of the Bose speaker pods from my 200q when I upgraded the stereo system.
I re-used the pods for 4" JBL components.
There is no drop in replacement, it requires quite a bit of custom work to mount standard speakers. You also can't hope to have good sound attempting to run the Bose 1.3 Ohm drivers with a regular amp. They require special equalization. And, you already pointed out the load is wrong. Installing a 3 Ohm resistor in series will yield ~4 Ohms, but the resistors will bleed power and reduce voltage at the drivers. Thus reducing actual output.

The Bose assemblies came from working units before the swap, so I think they should still work.
If you want them (L and R), $15 + shipping.

Hatterasman

I appreciate the offer for the front circuit boards. I will keep it in mind. I am leaning toward a swap to better speakers for the front. I am going to stop by Crutchfield with the "pod" and see what they might have. The 4" JBLs sound like a good upgrade. Did you install other JBL components in the front? What modifications did you make to the pods?