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did a back-to-back listening comparison '17 LT stock vs. '17 Bose vs. '13 Bose

5835 Views 43 Replies 22 Participants Last post by  onevoice, 
VoltenRock
I've been kicking some gen 2 tires and wanted to see whether the Bose is a must have.

The dealership had an LT and a Premier right next to each other. I took my iphone (with connecting USB) and a well-known song that had some dynamic range, some bass heavy sections, some singing, some higher treble notes.

The salesperson was busy, so he gave me the keys and told me to have fun comparing the sound systems. Even better! No pressure.

Let me share my impressions:

The stock (non-bose) was "better than expected" -- mainly because it had more low end than I thought it would without a subwoofer. Let me be clear that this does not mean "good"--it got muddy and distorted quickly.

The Bose, however, was "worse than expected"--I had read that many issues with the Gen 1 Bose were fixed in the Gen 2, but I think the Bose in my '13 is overall better, with some caveats.

The Gen 2 subwoofers are better placed and offer more "punch" than the '13 (and much more than the stock LT). The Bose would vibrate my seat--and offer "louder" sound at lower "volume" than required in the LT. In fact, the Bose system was absolutely "louder" overall.

My disappointment was the muddy sound. It was just not clear and wide, despite the lower end. I didn't have time to start investigating the system in depth to figure out why, I just used some fading and adjusting with the EQ to get a sense of its range. The '13 seems clearer to me.

Both the Bose and the stock suffered from "narrowing" of the sound--neither offered a wide, crisp sound--although the Bose was marginally better.

Bottom line -- the Bose did not reach "must have" territory for me and I would settle with a stock system and look at upgrades later if worth it. I just didn't think it was "good enough" to warrant the extra cost over the stock system--I would rather pay more aftermarket for a system I would really enjoy than "more" for a "less bad" system.

Funny thing is, getting back into my '13, I played the same song for comparison and found that it was crisper and clearer overall, but it didn't have as much low end punch (but I also have a heavy Volt mat in the back).

I know this is an issue that many people question and I just wanted to share my $0.02--it's obviously an issue of personal taste for everyone.
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myoda
When I had my 13 Volt, it was equipped with the Bose energy efficient system. It provided pretty good audio for a car system. Test drove a 17 Volt with the Bose audio, brought my USB thumb drive, and to me, it sounded a little hollow. In my ELR, it's another Bose system, but the big difference is in the total number of speakers, size of the sub, amplification, and insulation of the cabin. It provides low subsonic frequencies, bass that you can feel, like in the Timberlake song Suit and Tie, or Goldfrapp's Strict Machine. Music detail and separation are much better than the system in the Volt. No noticeable distortion. On the other hand, the Bose Panaray system in the new CT6 is actually very good - had a chance to audition it at a Cadillac event in Cleveland a couple of months ago. One of these days, I'd like to sample the ELS audio system in an Acura NSX - I hear it's the bomb.

Goldfrapp - Strict Machine
https://youtu.be/YeawPUpTHJA
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T
I am extremely impressed with my Lt's standard audio system. I am also coming from a BMW Business sound system in an E46 m3 which was total cr*p.

I think with how well the car is insulated and with not hearing an internal combustion engine 95% of my drives, the standard sound system is fantastic! Well done GM
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MinnVolt
I tend to agree with most comments about Bose. One of my home systems is a 5.1 Bose Acoustimass with the little cubes. Great for surround effects and bass, but sucks on music. I replaced the front channel cubes with Sony 8" 3-way systems to get back the midrange for decent music.

The Volvo I traded in on the Volt had their premium sound package - 5.1 surround, Dolby, reverb, 6 CD changer - and it would produce some really good sound from the CDs, so I was a bit unsure about what the Volt Bose could do. I did use Bluetooth occasionally from my phone, but I always thought that was a clunky compromise.

I have been somewhat surprised withe the Volt Bose - I can't say that it is exceptional, but it is acceptable. Again, it takes a little tweaking and getting used to the idiosyncrasies of that weird audio system. I'm not a hard rock or hip-hop type, so I'm probably not pushing the system hard, but it sounds pretty good on light classics and easy listening. I have loaded a library of music to a USB stick and use it primarily, but I do think the CD produces a bit better sound.

As far as a good side-by-side comparison is concerned, why use a phone unless you are using one of the low-loss conversion formats for your music? MP3, AAC, and WMA files all discard some content in the conversion. You would be better off using a CD as your test source.
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llninja
MinnVolt said:
I tend to agree with most comments about Bose. One of my home systems is a 5.1 Bose Acoustimass with the little cubes. Great for surround effects and bass, but sucks on music. I replaced the front channel cubes with Sony 8" 3-way systems to get back the midrange for decent music.

The Volvo I traded in on the Volt had their premium sound package - 5.1 surround, Dolby, reverb, 6 CD changer - and it would produce some really good sound from the CDs, so I was a bit unsure about what the Volt Bose could do. I did use Bluetooth occasionally from my phone, but I always thought that was a clunky compromise.

I have been somewhat surprised withe the Volt Bose - I can't say that it is exceptional, but it is acceptable. Again, it takes a little tweaking and getting used to the idiosyncrasies of that weird audio system. I'm not a hard rock or hip-hop type, so I'm probably not pushing the system hard, but it sounds pretty good on light classics and easy listening. I have loaded a library of music to a USB stick and use it primarily, but I do think the CD produces a bit better sound.

As far as a good side-by-side comparison is concerned, why use a phone unless you are using one of the low-loss conversion formats for your music? MP3, AAC, and WMA files all discard some content in the conversion. You would be better off using a CD as your test source.
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I guess I'm sort of a Bose fan as I have 161's in my 7.2 surround system. But I'm not an audiophile. I just like the small size and having them on speaker stands that I put in place when we are watching a movie, and hide in the back of the room when we want it to look like a regular living room. I didn't even comparison shop, just wanted them because of their interesting cool shape. My son got them for me as a gift, though I should have specified white instead of black.
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llninja said:
I guess I'm sort of a Bose fan as I have 161's in my 7.2 surround system. But I'm not an audiophile. I just like the small size and having them on speaker stands that I put in place when we are watching a movie, and hide in the back of the room when we want it to look like a regular living room. I didn't even comparison shop, just wanted them because of their interesting cool shape. My son got them for me as a gift, though I should have specified white instead of black.
Click to expand...
I do think this is Bose's bread and butter. The amount of sound they can get clearly out of a small enclosure and speaker is amazing.

TJ


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llninja said:
After reading this thread, I hopped into the gen1 volt with bose, queued up Linkin Park and Fort Minor via pandora via Bluetooth, turned up the volume a little, completely flat equalization, and listened carefully. I think the bose sound system is awesome.
Click to expand...
Aye. This post makes me sick. BT has so little data in it. Pandora isn't a whole lot better. Even an amazing system isn't going to sound good using this setup.

TJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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llninja
Tj1376 said:
Aye. This post makes me sick. BT has so little data in it. Pandora isn't a whole lot better. Even an amazing system isn't going to sound good using this setup.

TJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I know an audiophile would insist this couldn't have sounded good, but the audio sounded great. I've taken uncompressed files on my 5th gen iPod plugged into the aux port, and even though that packs a little more punch and clarity, the compression over a cell phone via pandora then pushed through Bluetooth was surprisingly nice. Or maybe I'm just old and am losing my hearing.
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O
There are several people who couldn't stand the Bose system in the Gen2 cars and upgraded the subwoofer and other speakers and/or replaced the subwoofer amplifier. I might not be audiophile, but I could not stand the boominess of the Bose subwoofer and the lack of clarity in the tweeters. So following some advise in this thread about audio system upgrades, I replaced the Bose subwoofers with Dayton subwoofers, and the tweeters with Dayton tweeters, as well as replacing the subwoofer amplifier with a more powerful amplifiers. I also added mass-loaded vinyl sound proofing in the trunk area and the Bose subwoofer enclosure area to reduce the boominess. For less than $500, the audio system in my Volt sounds really nice and no more boomy subwoofer. It is a lot of work to make the modifications, but it is well worth it, and you can follow the advise of the above mentioned post to get some guidance in upgrading the sound system.
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tjkenny15 said:
I am extremely impressed with my Lt's standard audio system. I am also coming from a BMW Business sound system in an E46 m3 which was total cr*p.

I think with how well the car is insulated and with not hearing an internal combustion engine 95% of my drives, the standard sound system is fantastic! Well done GM
Click to expand...
I'm even more impressed since I installed Madisound AMT tweeters. Waiting for the SoCal heat to subside so I can finish installing RF mid woofers and a Pioneer under seat sub.
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llninja
Tj1376 said:
Aye. This post makes me sick. BT has so little data in it. Pandora isn't a whole lot better. Even an amazing system isn't going to sound good using this setup.

TJ


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Ok, so on a 3 hour drive to Chicagoland and back where I was all by myself, I decided to compare the sound between using the Aux cable and using Bluetooth. Audio through Bluetooth sounds good, but now I get what you are saying. Through copper wiring, the bass was a bit deeper, the overall sound was richer, the separation was more noticeable. Damn you, now you've made me into an audio snob where I now have to plug in two cables (power and aux) instead of just one.

Ignorance was bliss. Please Mr. smith, put me back into the matrix before I even knew about a blue or a red pill...
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llninja said:
Ok, so on a 3 hour drive to Chicagoland and back where I was all by myself, I decided to compare the sound between using the Aux cable and using Bluetooth. Audio through Bluetooth sounds good, but now I get what you are saying. Through copper wiring, the bass was a bit deeper, the overall sound was richer, the separation was more noticeable. Damn you, now you've made me into an audio snob where I now have to plug in two cables (power and aux) instead of just one.

Ignorance was bliss. Please Mr. smith, put me back into the matrix before I even knew about a blue or a red pill...
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Mostly recovered audiophile here. Trust me, it is a slippery slope...

True old school audiophiles often diss Bose. It dates back to the early 1970s, when some audio mag gave the the 901s a bad review. Dr Amar Bose took the magazine to court over it. Ever since then they have been on the audiophile s--- list. Their systems have generally required a lot of equalization and various enclosure tricks to get reasonable sound. Car audio no exception. That said, their systems do sound pleasant to many ears.
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wws said:
Mostly recovered audiophile here. Trust me, it is a slippery slope...

True old school audiophiles often diss Bose. It dates back to the early 1970s, when some audio mag gave the the 901s a bad review. Dr Amar Bose took the magazine to court over it. Ever since then they have been on the audiophile s--- list. Their systems have generally required a lot of equalization and various enclosure tricks to get reasonable sound. Car audio no exception. That said, their systems do sound pleasant to many ears.
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For 3 decades now, I have avoided the audiophile slope buying run-of-the-mill like a Sony receiver and cheap bookshelf speakers. Then two christmas's ago, my family bought me a 7.1 surround system with Bose 161 speakers and Polk Audio subwoofer and center channel. Going to resistdoing anything with my volt since it sounds nice enough, but I might mess with some new cheap speaker replacements for my CTS and Suburban since those speakers are really old and don't sound very good.
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llninja said:
For 3 decades now, I have avoided the audiophile slope buying run-of-the-mill like a Sony receiver and cheap bookshelf speakers. Then two christmas's ago, my family bought me a 7.1 surround system with Bose 161 speakers and Polk Audio subwoofer and center channel. Going to resistdoing anything with my volt since it sounds nice enough, but I might mess with some new cheap speaker replacements for my CTS and Suburban since those speakers are really old and don't sound very good.
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My '96 Suburban pretty much still has its stock system. I retrofitted the factory CD player to it early on. One door speaker had a rattle that you could only hear with certain bass lines. I used a test CD (frequency sweeps, etc) to demo it to the service tech, and he found a mis-routed wire behind the door panel. Then, some years ago, I replaced the 4x10s in the back-back ceiling. They get really hot up there, and one of the speakers warped enough that it caused the voice coil to start rubbing. Used some jobber level 4x10s which have been fine.

Any speaker driver that is more than 10-20 years old and has a foam surround should be checked, as the foam surrounds can deteriorate with age. Once the foam deteriorates, they sound like angry moths flapping around. For decent home speakers, one can buy kits to replace the surrounds. In theory one could do it with car speakers too (4x10s excepted.) But the drivers that most car manufacturers use are not that great. So most folks just replace them with aftermarket.
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wws said:
My '96 Suburban pretty much still has its stock system. I retrofitted the factory CD player to it early on. One door speaker had a rattle that you could only hear with certain bass lines. I used a test CD (frequency sweeps, etc) to demo it to the service tech, and he found a mis-routed wire behind the door panel. Then, some years ago, I replaced the 4x10s in the back-back ceiling. They get really hot up there, and one of the speakers warped enough that it caused the voice coil to start rubbing. Used some jobber level 4x10s which have been fine.

Any speaker driver that is more than 10-20 years old and has a foam surround should be checked, as the foam surrounds can deteriorate with age. Once the foam deteriorates, they sound like angry moths flapping around. For decent home speakers, one can buy kits to replace the surrounds. In theory one could do it with car speakers too (4x10s excepted.) But the drivers that most car manufacturers use are not that great. So most folks just replace them with aftermarket.
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96 Suburban huh? I have a 95....a 3/4 ton, the last with the throttle body injection (which old fogeys tell me was the best).

BTW my factory CD player as a CD stuck in it that won't eject
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onevoice said:
There are several people who couldn't stand the Bose system in the Gen2 cars and upgraded the subwoofer and other speakers and/or replaced the subwoofer amplifier. I might not be audiophile, but I could not stand the boominess of the Bose subwoofer and the lack of clarity in the tweeters. So following some advise in this thread about audio system upgrades, I replaced the Bose subwoofers with Dayton subwoofers, and the tweeters with Dayton tweeters, as well as replacing the subwoofer amplifier with a more powerful amplifiers. I also added mass-loaded vinyl sound proofing in the trunk area and the Bose subwoofer enclosure area to reduce the boominess. For less than $500, the audio system in my Volt sounds really nice and no more boomy subwoofer. It is a lot of work to make the modifications, but it is well worth it, and you can follow the advise of the above mentioned post to get some guidance in upgrading the sound system.
Click to expand...
Which tweeters did you use? I tried these tweeters and they didn't fit:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/air-motion-transformers-amt/tianle-amt65-4-3.5-amt-tweeter/
They are 3.5" tweeters whereas the original tweeters are 2 3/4". I'm not sure what to do now. I could try a custom faceplate, but I don't know how or if I can remove the existing one.
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The flange in the Dayton tweeter has to be removed.

vtech said:
Which tweeters did you use? I tried these tweeters and they didn't fit:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/air-motion-transformers-amt/tianle-amt65-4-3.5-amt-tweeter/
Click to expand...
I think you have the same size tweeter as what I ordered, even though your model number is different. I paid $69.90 each from Amazon, which was actually sold by Parts Express.
Dayton AMT2-4 from Amazon

Initially the tweeters didn't fit as they were shipped. I had to remove the metal flange around the tweeter, by taking out the screws in the flange. With the flange, total diameter is 3.5 inch. After removing the flange, if it is about 2.5", then it will fit as it is without anything else in the original hole that the OEM tweeter sits in (it is a snug fit). After removing the flange, the tweeter itself fit perfectly into the opening in the dash. I angled the tweeter slightly toward the driver/passenger so that it would have better projection.
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Thanks, I was able to remove the flange by removing the screws in the back of the tweeter. But how did you secure it to the car? Did you do something besides just press fit? Also, did you use the 15uF capacitors that were suggested in the original thread?
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vtech said:
Thanks, I was able to remove the flange by removing the screws in the back of the tweeter. But how did you secure it to the car? Did you do something besides just press fit? Also, did you use the 15uF capacitors that were suggested in the original thread?
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Yes, I just press fit. It fits perfectly in the opening as it is. I angled them back toward the center of the car for better projection of the sound. And I also used the recommended 15uf Dayton capacitor. Our cars are harsh environment for the capacitors, so it is best to go with the highest quality capacitor. I bought these from Amazon:
Dayton 15uf Capacitor. I soldered them in as suggested in the original thread.
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onevoice said:
Dayton 15uf Capacitor....
Click to expand...
Those are good caps. They do sell 1% versions for those that want to spend more, but I've found that those "5%"
ones are well matched, even years later. By that I mean you could buy a second one years later and it would still match the value of the older one.

I am pleasantly surprised by my '11 Bose system some times. I did a lengthy comparison between the original CD and the unknown (to me at least) format on the hard drive after transferring the CD to it. Also compared transferring 320K MP3's to the hard disk. Bottom line for me, the CD is a bit better. but the hard drive sounds good enough, as long as it's recorded from CD. MP3 does not like being rehashed onto the hard drive, but can sound OK-ish straight to the speakers.

Bose's reputation was OK until they started advertising mass market crap to unsuspecting, uncritical consumers. Stuffing a couple of 2" "midwoofers" into a tiny enclosure and adding a "sub" woofer may have been highly profitable, but many considered it unethical. Oh, and the missing frequencies between the sub and sats??? We wondered how they got away with that, and the answer was simple: Marketing.
First time I saw a "professional" Bose speaker was when it came in my shop with about 6 speaker frames broken after being dropped. Plastic speaker frames... Box did not have a mark on it. Marketing again.
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volt3939 said:
Bose's reputation was OK until they started advertising mass market crap to unsuspecting, uncritical consumers.
...
First time I saw a "professional" Bose speaker was when it came in my shop with about 6 speaker frames broken after being dropped. Plastic speaker frames...
Click to expand...
After I removed the OEM Bose 8" subwoofer and compared to the Dayton Audio RSS210HF-4 8 Reference HF Subwoofer, the OEM subwoofer was a joke. The OEM Bose subwoofer has a very flimsy steel frame and very light-weight magnet. The Dayton subwoofer on the otherhand, had steel frame at least twice as thick and solid vs OEM and magnets that are at least 3 times the weight of the OEM subwoofer. After I removed the OEM subwoofer, I chucked it.

I do have Bose OEM audio system in my 2003 Acura TL that I've transferred to my daughter. The Bose subwoofer in that car I liked, it had nice bass sound without boominess that is present in the Volt implementation. I did have to replace the head unit in the Acura with much better head unit. I suppose I was spoiled earlier when I bought for about $1600 Harmon Kardon Citation component system (Citation 21/22/23), back in 1988 when they pioneered the High Ampere, High Power system. The cassette tape recorder/player I bought was capable of 20-20,000HZ +/- 3db. And I bought Infinity Kappa 7 speakers in solid oiled Oak box that weighed 65 pounds each. I still have the system, and it still sounds great being about 30 years old. The Citation 22 Power Amplifier was conservatively rated at 200 watts/channel (stereo) at 0.05% distortion. At the distortion level commonly advertised these days, it could produce over 1,000 watts/channel without breathing hard.
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