Bose Subwoofer Mod

ducks1978

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• Aug 23, 2010

• #1

Hello again,

Was bored yesterday and went through so many forums and sites and stumbled accross one that talked about the Sub in the A3 was not giving them the punch and thump they were expecting as there was not enough airflow.

I find that sometimes on mine and they talked about pulling back the liner and cutting a hole in it and placing a grill over it to give it some air. Its supposed to be a 30 min mod

Has anyone done this?

 

Boydie

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• Aug 24, 2010

• #2

Haven't personally seen this done but as said, an easy job. As far as I know, the sub is an enclosed unit therefore does not require the extra air from the boot space via a grill. Wouldn't be an expensive part to replace the panel if you didn't like it so if you think you will gain extra noise/bass, then go for it

 

DeckedS3

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• Aug 24, 2010

• #3

You can replace the unit if that's what you mean?

 

L

LWNY

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• Aug 24, 2010

• #4

The Blowse subwoofer seems to be based on a transmission line design, which allows for a puny woofer to achieve relatively low bass. Transmission line designs has long group delays so your bass would not be as dynamic as a direct driven sealed one. You would need more than a mod like that to change the characteristics of the sound. In fact, not allowing the woofer to breathe as well is one way to slow down the air and simulate a larger enclosure, hence all the stuffings they put into subwoofers.

 

D

dunk

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• Aug 24, 2010

• #5

the fact that its built in to a tupperware box made of bendy plastic doesnt help the bass much either....

cutting a hole in the trim isnt going to improve things much - stiffening the box might help a bit, although to improve things significantly involves a complete replacement sub with its own amp and at that point you might as well go for a 5 channel amp and replace the door speakers with decent ones as well.

 

AndyMac

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• Aug 25, 2010

• #6

Totally pointless exercise that will have no effect at all. the problem with the Bose sub is that it is underpowered, is mounted in the same tupperware box that the non Bose unit occupys and is set at a very high low pass, so it has a wide frequency range making it sound woolly, rather than punchy. Subwoofers by their very nature need very little airflow to operate and there is more than enough behind the boot panel. The panel itself is so flimsy it probably increases the bass response from the sub. If you want punch then install a proper sub or one of my stealth subs. Unfortunately there are no easy fixes.

 

V

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• Aug 25, 2010

• #7

NHN nailed it.

It's not just the size that's a problem though.

Like all super-tuned boxes (band-pass, transmission-line etc) the impulse response is 'late' and generally useless. You won't change the character of the bass from this unit, no matter what you do.

'There's no replacement for displacement'. Anything else is a cheat.