Making a Quiet Ride, Quieter! Part 2 - More Sound Deadening and Improving the BOSE System?

So in Part 1, I covered my sound deadening efforts covering the Elgrand's floor, engine room, and front fenders. But I then decided to go further - not just making the car quieter, but since I was going to be opening up the front and middle doors, to try to improve how the Bose system sounds.

Starting with the driver's side door...

Taking off the inner panel revealed this weird plastic cover in the middle.

And while I was at it, I decided to swap out the stock 6x9 full range speaker

Because this Elgrand has the BOSE system, this meant this speaker was 2 ohm - thus limiting aftermarket options.  Luckily, I found a US company called PowerBass that had just what I needed!

Stock 838 grams!

Powerbass OE-693 at 1951 grams!

Of course, given the huge size of the magnet, this meant the stock speaker baffles had to be modified to fit.

So a half shield behind the speaker - I wonder if this was a cheap way to get more bass?

Test fitting, nope still need more taken off...

And thus ground away more, and then sand papered smooth

First perfectly now!

The Audio Technica sound deadening kit I bought, had these foam speaker baffles. 

It also had various foam pieces to prevent sound leakage, as well as the usual butyl based sound absorbers. These I applied around the door in what I thought would be a strategic manner.

The white stuff is 3M Thinsulate, to seal off even more areas where there could sound leakage

View of the passenger door, but without the Thinsulate installed

Close up with the foam baffle installed

the Audio-Technica Door Tuning Kit

Here are some of the butyl aluminum strips with adhesive

I installed most of this on the backside of the outer door skin to absorb outside vibrations

And then it was time to do the sliding doors. These were a nightmare to remove the inner skin, the backside which looks like this:

Same thing - 2 ohn speakers from PowerBass

753 grams for the stock speaker

940 grams for the PowerBass - not as big as a difference as the 6x9s

Oh, and with these being direct Nissan replacements, the plug snapped right in place with need for adaptors or splicing!

This Nissan kit, however, came with separate tweeters. So naturally, I figured I'd install those up front, where the OEM tweeters are.

Just snap off the grill piece - that was easy - the tough part was accessing by removing the A pillar covers

Here is how it looks underneath the grill

I measured the OEM in order to make sure the PB tweeter would fit

The PB tweeter came with these adaptors

This should fit!

And it did fit perfectly!

So the tweeter fit perfectly, but guess what - compared to the front door tweeter which immediately improved the depth of the sound - not as much of the usual BOSE "booming" effect- these tweeter did not sound good at all. Or rather, it turns out that the OEM tweeter is a full range speaker, so when real tweeters are added that have limited range, the sound stage does not feel as full, if that makes sense.

So, I went back and removed these PB tweeter and put the OEM full range small speakers back - I will have to research what to replace it with in the future!