87 Bose Stereo sounds like crap

[mint87]

I love my car, but this stereo has got to go <g>. I'm not very familiar with these bose systems so I'm looking for advice from the experts. My system is the bose with the casette player and tiny mechanical buttons. My biggest complaints are:

- tinny, thin sound, but uncontrollable sub-base. Do these have sub-whoofers ?

- no CD player

Whats the best option to make it sound decent and get a cd or mp3 player ? I tried to look on crutchfield but there was no match on speakers for my car. I don't want something hacked and I don't want to cut on the car to make stuff fit. I looked at a lot of posts on bose here, but I'm still confused.

 

[silver 80]

I just tried to take a pic but it's to dark out.
I got a unit from a place in TX that rebuilds bose, they had a nice unit that had a cd that was plug and play, now i have alot of bass. I post a pic tomorrow.

 

[silver 80]

here is what I have in the 87

 

[berky2500]

I was able to put 6 1/2s in the front of mine without any cutting. I did have to fab a sheet metal mount for the rear with a round hole to slide behind. But I was able to make the cut with just a jig-saw and a metal blade. I then made a filler plate out of 1/8" black plastic to convert the round speaker to the square carpet opening.

Looks fine in my opinion, and sounds awesome!!

I'll try to attach some pics.

 

[berky2500]

Silicone to keep if from squeaking.

 

[OSU-VETTE]

I put a new Sony CD/MP3 player in my 85, had the stereo shop use the aftermarket harness that allows you to use the Bose amps in the speakers, so you are only changing your radio, not the wiring and amps. This way you can put the original back in if you want to. Total cost was round $400, and I love it. Tried BestBuy and Circuit City, they were not the most up to speed on not splicing, a local car stereo expert shop was great, prices were the same, and I felt much better about using them. Good luck, let us know how it turns out.

 

[mint87]

thanks everybody. Hey Silver 80, can you give me some info on the place you got the rebuilt bose from ? How much did it cost ?

If I totally replace the unit with somthing other than bose, I'll probably ditch the amps and speakers as well. Too much touble from what I've seen on these boards. Too bad somebody doesn't make a drop in speaker replacement for these systems.