I was just watching one of those home shopping channels and it had a Bose stereo on there with one of their blokes selling it. He said Bose stereos are meant to make you go wow when listening.
Relating this to my Alfa, I certainly went wow - I went wow this is pretty ****. Is that cause of the head unit & if so can anyone suggest a decent replacement that will work with the steering wheel controls / dash display?
:lol: Glad to see that I'm not the only one then! I've posted repeatly about the Bose System, I strongly suspect that it is the very cheap blaupunkt letting the side down..I'm ALMOST settled on the Alpine 9886 which does everything I want it to without costing an arm and a leg and covertors are avaialble for the Bose Amp and steering controls..
I've had alpine before and they never have dissapointed, I'd like to spend more but Alpine charge a fortune for USB and Bluetooth IMHO, at least on the 9886 one of those is standard!
I went through the exact same thing of really naff sound from my Bose; no radio signal to speak of and really poor volume and lots of distortion with the standard Bose setup. Having tried checking the aerial booster, cabling, speakers, setup and generally every connection I could get at I decided it has to be either the Bose amplifier or the headunit. disconnecting the Bose and using the Blaupunkt standard output just made it sound worse, so I thought I'd try a different head but as cheaply as possible. I went for an Alpine ixa-001 with bluetooth unit off the bay on the principle that if it didn't work i could sell it on again.
Difference? Night and day! I wired it up the same way as the Blaupunkt (ie speaker outputs directly to Bose). The result - volume increased, bass to shake my fillings out, and the radio now played a strong signal (easily better than the standard Blaupunkt CD - the aerial worked all along!) and now i get stations I never knew existed! I added a small hard drive (80Gb) and although no CD (but could add a changer if I needed) I now have the ability to work USB/bluetooth stream/radio/iPod.
Being Alpine, the built in standard steering interface controls worked too (no extra connectors etc. to buy). It took a bit of time to "tune" the sound to my taste as there's no manual EQ on the x-001 so you may want to go for a unit that has this facility. Overall though, I just wished i had tried this first as it'd have saved me many hours of grief taking the 156 to bits - as compensation, at least i have a better idea how it's all connected now.
I don't know how any Alpine would work with the display on a GT, presumably this would also require a head unit that had CANbus controls, as far as I'm aware Alpine only do one for OEM Vauxhall/Opel (Alpine Display adapter APF-D102OP), there may be other ICE manufacturers that do something but then you're probably back to needing a steering wheel adapter too.
Bottom line though - standard Blaupunkt head supplied with Bose by Alfa is really poor. Change it, but make sure you get a unit that can handle streaming bluetooth (you might not need it now but you will want it at your next phone change) and you can use your phone as a player as well as an iPod etc.
Thanks for all your replys glad I'm not the only one who through the sound was abot ify. Perhaps I'll see what Alfa ae offering as an upgrade if anything - at least that way it would be completly compatible. Failing that I think I'l just go for an Alpine or something similar - the current sound qaulity makes my ears bleed.
I know the original stereo in my AR 147 doesn't perform as it should be... but before I will spend some money on the new one, please does anybody can tell how I can find that all my speakers are BOSE speakers...?
The Blaupunkt is good enough, but loudspeakers are very bad. I upgrade mine with FOCAL drivers with a real passive crossover, sound is much better. :thumbs:
Nice Focals Alfa. I've a set of K2P's in my car big drivers to fit into the car lol.
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