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Bose subwoofer upgrade

69K views 44 replies 28 participants last post by  boomer 
#1 · (Edited)
Excellent $115 upgrade. Completely transforms the weak Bose audio.

Rockville RW10CA 10" 800 Watts Peak/200 Watts RMS Slim Powered/Active Sealed Car Subwoofer With Bass Remote



  • Disconnect the Battery. The Red Fat wire, listed below, stays energized even with the key off.
  • Take the four driver seat bolts out and lean the seat out of the way, you don't need to disconnect the seat electronics.
  • Pull the wire harness connector out of the Bose subwoofer.
  • Take the flimsy POS Bose unit out by removing the 3 hold down screws and shoot it.
  • Put the 10" sub in place. There is a heater outlet in the middle of the floor underneath, so you'll need to mount the subwoofer up on four rubber block pencil erasers, or something similar to straddle the heater vent.
  • Strap the 10" sub box down. I cut two nylon straps and put screws through the ends, using the 3 original mounting screws and locations. The second strap loops around and tightens the first strap. See photo.
  • Snip the bose wire harness connector off.
  • Wire it up and you're done! See attached wiring diagram.


The Bose amp only sends the low subwoofer frequencies to these speaker wires. Set the subwoofer's switch to accept a low frequency input, not a full range input. That way it doesn't filter the input any more. The front/rear fader and left/right balance have no affect on the output level of the speaker wires. It is a mono sub channel already. I highly recommend using the included remote subwoofer volume control knob by attaching the included phone cord and tucking it under the plastic door runner and up under the dash. This gives you real time control of the sub output which can go from subtle, to making your rear view mirrors unusable. Disregard the wires in my photos coming in from the right (center console) those are for other stuff on my truck. You only need 5 wires from the Bose connector.

Note: You have to split the Bose single sub signal to connect to both RCA inputs, since the new sub-woofer has two voice coils driving a single cone. So even though the Armada/Titan sub-woofer signal is mono, if you only connect one RCA input, the new sub-woofer will operate at only half its potential power (although both coils are always energized, only one will have a signal). You can easily test if both coils are pumping by pulling off one RCA connector while playing music, you should hear a half-volume reduction.
 

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#24 · (Edited by Moderator)
Sorry for the delay! Just use any old RCA cable. Snip the wires going in to the red/white male RCA connectors so you have a foot or so of wire length to work with. Strip the rubber off using any old wire strippers: the outer wire is the ground signal and the center wire (usually red) is the positive signal wire. Positive is the center post of the round RCA connector, so you can double check your wiring using a continuity tester.

Solder the stripped wires to the existing Bose harness as shown in post 1, wrap with electrical tape or shrink tubing. Although the Bose only has one set of mono signal lines, you'll need to wire and solder two RCA jacks in parallel (i.e. make a Y connection) to energize both voice coils inside the sub and get the full 800W of power from it. If you only solder one RCA jack to the single Bose signal wires and leave the sub's second RCA input unconnected, you'll be running 400W instead of 800W.

I choose the left set of wires, you only need one set of wires. So I hooked the white Bose wire to the white L+ sub wire, and then Black Bose wire to the black/white L- sub wire. And you're done. You can hookup the ground if you want, I didn't. The other set of wires for the right speaker I capped and taped them up out of the way.


The sub sounds awesome, really glad I did the upgrade.

Hope this helps on how to hookup high level input with a Bose one channel sub system.
I think you are running the new sub at half power. The 10" speaker has two 400W voice coils driving the single cone, this makes the sub easy to install in audio systems without a true mono channel. We have a mono channels since the Bose was pre-wired that way. But if you only hook our mono channel to the left coil, the right coil does nothing. You might try connecting both the left and right +/- wires to the Bose mono signal wires and see if your sub power doubles. I'll bet it will, since you have one coil pumping, or so it seems. Just a thought, hope it helps!
 
#4 ·
I just want to know what you're smoking that you think the Bose audio is weak? Maybe it's just because I'm old, but I think it sounds great and has tons of bass already. Hahah..
 
#5 ·
You're old then >:D
The Bose system is NOT anything to write home about. No highs, no lows- must be Bose!
 
#9 · (Edited)
Thanks to Sgreenlyn for starting this thread and recommending the sub mod. Sounds awesome compared to the Bose. Big difference.

I choose to install using the high level input as oppose to the RCA. If you don't have RCA jacks and want to use the wiring harness that comes with the sub it's an easy install.

Reference Sgreenlyn thumbnail pics, the first post of this thread. The picture does a great job of showing how to wire up the sub. There are two ways to get input signal to the sub.

1. A low level input using RCA inputs, as illustrated in Sgreenlyn post. (the sub doesn't come with RCA jacks)

OR

2. A high level input using the wiring harness that comes with the sub.

I went with option 2. The Bose system on the Armada uses only one channel for input to the sub. There are a total of 5 wires that hookup to the Bose sub. 3 of the 5 are used for:

1. Power. (Red wire, thick)
2. Ground. (Black wire, Thick)
3. Remote on. (White and Green, Thin)

Now there are 2 wires left to hook to sub, One black and one white, both are thin wires. Not sure the gauge, but I'm emphasizing thin becuase there are 2 black wires in this 5 wire harness. AGAIN, reference Sgreenlyns post, he has a great picture how these 3 wires (mentioned above) are hooked up.

Now the 2 remaining wires, one black, and one white. There have been questions on how to hook these 2 wires to the provided wiring harness for high level input. The wiring harness provided with the sub has 5 wires. Of the 5 wires you only need to use 2.

There are 2 wires for the left speaker +/- (2)
There are 2 wires for the right speaker +/- (2)
One wire for a ground. (1)


I choose the left set of wires, you only need one set of wires. So I hooked the white Bose wire to the white L+ sub wire, and then Black Bose wire to the black/white L- sub wire. And you're done. You can hookup the ground if you want, I didn't. The other set of wires for the right speaker I capped and taped them up out of the way.


The sub sounds awesome, really glad I did the upgrade.

Hope this helps on how to hookup high level input with a Bose one channel sub system.
 
#13 ·
Here's a pic with settings on the sub. I installed my sub so I could access the settings from the front seat position. When you secure the sub be careful the length of screws you use. The gas tank in under the drivers seat, so don't use screws too long for the job.

There are 3 settings on the sub, and the remote level control. The cool light on the remote control is bright, I've not permanently mounted mine yet.

Anyways the settings. I set the remote level at the 10 o'clock position.

On the sub;

Low Pass Filter is about 1130 o'clock position
Bass Boost is about 2:00 o'clolck (keep in mind my remote knob is at the 10 o'clock)
Gain is at the 2 o'clock

With these settings I don't have any distortion and seem to have enough range using the remote level control to either increase or decrease bass. I only have a little over an hours time with this new system, so far impressed with it, and like the above settings. If I hear distortion I'll have to make some adjustments.
 

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#14 ·
Even though the sub is mono, you need to split each of Nissan's single channel sub signal wires (the thin black and thin white wires) using a simple Y to feed the signal into BOTH the left and right input lines (as shown in my original diagram.

If you only feed the signal into one side, the sub will operate at half power since it has two powered coils, one for the left input and one for the right input, driving the single 10" speaker.

This is easy to verify by trying it both ways. If you like the bass at half power, you'll love it at full power once you split the signal to feed the second coil!
 
#21 ·
i cant answer that fully. you could reach out to a vendor at the bottom of this forum that deals with stereo systems or "Tech12volt" (use to be around here all the time) is a MASTER of armada systems.

you can bing search his name or if you are handy (sounds like you are) pick up the service manual for your car online and the schematic is there. you can get it free.

you can look at a 2014 2013 2012 armada as they are all the same in this regard (with the exception of maybe the wires being different colors throughout the years)
 
#22 · (Edited)
marctronixx - found the wiring diagram which shows that there is one amp driving all of the speakers. It sends speaker level to the subwoofer unit under the seat, thus, I should use speaker level inputs on this Rockville amp that is on its way to me. Thanks.
------------
OK, what I wrote above was wrong. The sub amp is part of the amp assembly. Thats why there is power going to the unit. So, line level is the correct choice as I found out during the install today. Sorry for the confuasion.
 
#28 ·
If the replacement is DVC and you are hooking up a SVC feed, the best way would be to bridge the coils to the speaker if there isn't an option on the unit panels. The caveat to this is you are changing the amount of Ohms the speaker measures. This could blow the amp! To work around that, you could do something like posted previously and split the two, which would make the the two coils operate the same but individually. Usually higher end systems like Bose use a "digital" subwoofer line.. it looks like RCA, fits RCA, but isn't RCA because of how the signal is handled. They make digital to analog audio conversion modules and with the right ones, you could integrate into your system to split your audio feed into a true L/R output. Then the amp should be really happy.
 
#29 · (Edited)
Does the 2017, 2018 Premium Bose System have a sub woofer at all? I got a platinum reserve and as far as I can tell my "premium" Bose system has no subwoofer at all. The deep lows are simply missing. My 2014 Explorer Sport (that I traded in for the new Armada) had a much better sounding stereo system even though it was a Sony not a "premium" Bose. I'm wondering if you guys know if the new Armada does in fact come with a subwoofer, if so where its located and how do I upgrade it. I'm not interested in adding any big boom boxes and would like the Sub hidden or in stock location.

Thanks,

Paul
 
#31 ·
In the older models, it was located under the driver seat. Take a peak there. Also, although they are Bose, the quality of Nissan Bose sound systems has always been poor if you ask me. Bose is over-rated and over-priced. I installed a $120 amp/sub and replaced the Bose amp/sub speaker under the driver seat. It sounds 10x better too! Those instructions are on this forum.
 
#33 ·
I found out that the sub on the newer models is located on the driver's side behind the third row in the trunk. The side panel needs to be removed to gain access to it. I really had to listen to it in order to even hear that there is anything there. I still say that Bose really sucks. I ordered the Rockville 10" sub and will be adding it to get more bass and more punch as I must say the Armada sound system is really lacking. My Ford Explorer Sony system was way superior.
 
#34 ·
There is nothing premium on these Bose systems that Nissan/Infiniti uses in the current Y62 chassis Armadas and QX56/80s. The speakers, tweeters and sub are still constructed with the same cheap, paper-like materials they were using on the first-gen Armadas and QX56s.
 
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