jpru2001

I have seen a bunch of posts about a buzzing center dash speaker on this board and Audizine. Mine was bad enough to basically ruin the experience of listening to anything in my car. Anyway I had the day off, so decided to investigate. It mainly buzzes at certain frequencies, including talk radio and phone calls...anyway, I removed the speaker cover first suspecting I'd need to use some felt tape or something on that...nope still buzzing. I then removed the trim bracket under that, which has some nice heavy duty clips by the way...still buzzing. I then unbolted the speaker itself and played a song that makes it buzz while holding it in my hand. There was nothing wrong with the assembly as you would expect, the speaker itself was making the buzzing noise! And a very crappy, puny looking speaker it was by the way. Very crappy for a Bose and Audi logo on the magnet. So I unhooked it, and measured the space in the opening. Wow, only about 1 and 3/4" deep, with not much clearance on top.

Went to a specialty stereo store in town, nothing there would fit. The stereo sounded much better with NO center speaker also as I drove around town. Looked online couldn't find much.

Decided to hit Best Buy on the way home. Found a pair of "flush mount" Kenwood 4" speaker, 1 11/16" depth...$40 for the pair....brought it home and put it in. Success it fits.

Put on the "buzzy" songs, and the stereo never sounded so good. Way more crisp than the OEM bose speaker. In fact, the cheapo Best Buy Kenwood speaker was too loud for the rest of the system and I had to shift the surround, fader/balance, and focus settings to accommodate it.

TLDR Cliffs Notes:

If you have a buzzy/rattling center speaker, a $40 pair (only need one) of Kenwood speakers from best buy (model 1065) will seriously solve (and upgrade) the stock Bose issues. Huge improvement in talk radio/phone call sound.


link:

Kenwood KFC-1065S Sport Series 4" 2-way speakers at Crutchfield.com

I'll be sticking the second of the pair into my wife's A6 tomorrow!

goethe6889

Kudos to you for figuring this out; this has been bothering me since the day I bought the car!! Audi should be ashamed. Will try out the new speakers this week. Again, thanks for the troubleshooting.

jpru2001

Guess which speaker is $20 from best buy and which speaker is the premium bose speaker.

AMDG75

I simply disconnected the center dash speaker, not because of any buzzing but rather that it overpowered the remaining speakers, thereby compromising the stereo sound ..... big improvement

mdkv5

Thanks for this post.

I've had the same buzz since day one. I even had them replace the center dash speaker under warranty 3 weeks into ownership and it made little difference.

The tech told me the same thing back then, that the buzz is from the speaker itself; though I recently noticed the plastic shroud around the HUD does rattle a little too. This I understand was updated in the later model years.

It is my understanding that the pos Bose speakers are 2 Ohm. Does that kenwood have the same impedance?

jpru2001

It's 4 ohms like most everything else. Still is an improvement.

And AMDG yeah the system sends a disproportionate amount of sound to that little center speaker.

DanfZX14

When the stereo was upgraded in my car and I got all the Bose speakers back from the installer I was very underwhelmed by the puniness of all of the "premium" speakers that were previously in the car! The one that is deemed the "subwoofer" was the biggest joke of all the speakers though.

En Avant

I came across this thread while trying to solve the same buzzing center speaker problem in my 2013 S7.

I bought the Kenwood KFC-1065S speakers, but when I removed the trim and the PoS Bose speaker I discovered that the installation space was not deep enough by at least 1/2".

Of course the A7/S7 dash could be different, but wanted to check if you had to modify the space at all to fit in your A6.

jpru2001

I would guess they changed the speaker. mine fit fine. in no way a half inch off. might be new model speaker.

En Avant

Thanks for the prompt response.

The Bose and Kenwood speakers I have look the same as the ones in your pictures, so I don't think anything has changed here. Looks more like a difference between the A6 and A7 dashboard.