Speaker size

Itsjustme · August 2, 2019

I'm working on the sound of my 2019 Silverado w/o the Bose. Sounds great up front, but can barely hear anything in the back. I replaced the rear speakers with a set of Pioneer 3-way 6.5" speakers. I got a slightly better sound, but still not what I'm looking for, which means I need to look into a amplifier. However, I don't want to do that without replacing the front door speakers as well. So my question is, does anyone know what size the front door speakers are?

14 Silvy · August 2, 2019

I think they are 6x9’s

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Rob41 · August 2, 2019

Yep, 6x9's fit in the front.

Itsjustme · August 2, 2019

That's what I thought too, but I'm just looking for confirmation.

mafd2 · August 2, 2019

I have a Bose system and the rear speakers are low.

Itsjustme · August 2, 2019

I wouldn't expect that from the Bose system. I to put the fade towards the rear and then turn the volume at least halfway up to get any sort of decent sound. It sounds like they reversed the door speakers because my '16 double cab had a better sounding, stock, audio system then this one.

mafd2 · August 2, 2019

My '16 Sierra had louder rear speakers. The Bose sounds great with nice bass and highs but the rear speakers are low. I thought there was something wrong until I tried other Bose and non Bose trucks at the dealer. It's the design. There's a thread about low rear speaker volume on the '19's. An amp will amplify all the speakers but the rear will still be lower than the fronts.

Itsjustme · August 2, 2019

I'm looking into installing a factory amp if I can find out where it goes. The tears sounding low afterwards is just a matter of changing the fade to balance it out. I just don't want to be that high in volume for it to sound decent.

Chris walker · August 2, 2019

Deleted - duplicate post

Edited August 2, 2019 by Chris walker

Chris walker · August 2, 2019

Its the logic in the Bose system..If you have spotify and play test tones through the frequency scale you will see that the rear speakers are intended to only play within a certain frequency range (mid bass). They are not full range speakers from what my ears can tell (I havent hooked up an RTA). When the frequencies that are intended to be played out of these speakers (which are managed by the crossover) are sent to the speakers it sounds closer to a normal volume. The challenge is that alot of music is light in these frequency ranges that appear to go to these speakers..Again, I havent hooked up an RTA to confirm but this is what my ears are telling me when listening to a frequency sweep.

The back speakers seem to be for a specific mid range but not the subsonic bass frequencies. Its extremely odd because the front speakers have a gap in the frequency range to accommodate the rear speakers but the front speakers seem to pick up at about 80hz and below for the bass.

The following is the test I conducted (If memory serves me right).

I played a bass heavy tone 50hz and faded all the way to the rear and had very little sound volume. I faded all the way forward and had loads of bass. I played a 125hz or 250 hz mid bass tone (cant remember) and faded to the rear with significant volume increase. I faded to the front with the same tone and very little volume.. ..It makes no sense to me from a design perspective. I did this a month or so back so you should run your own test and validate my memory.

...There have been several people that have tapped into the rear speakers that have complained about Subwoofer volume after they've added a sub. My thought process is that the rears are midbass with minimal "leak" for true bass frequency range. Its why their subs are quiet. They frequencies they are trying to pick up and amplify through the sub arent being sent down the wire. They are picking up "leak" and trying to amplify it. If you tap into the front which appear to pick up the 80hz and below tones the bass seems normal. The guys at LCI seem to have figured this out because their harness pulls off of the front speakers for a subwoofer addition and not the rears. I purchased their adapter and my single 8 inch sub hits like a sledgehammer..It appears you need to tap into the front speakers if you want to add a subwoofer.

The Bose system is really a joke. If you play with test tones in your car for five minutes you can figure out something is very wrong. GM either put extreme limitations on the Bose engineers or the Bose engineers dropped the ball in a huge way. The crossover is a mess, the signal processing is a mess, the speaker locations/choices are a mess and the end result is a disaster. The idea that GM sells this as an upgrade is pretty pathetic.

In the end if you want true clarity you need to run an RTA or have a shop run an RTA to truly figure it out. I havent had time and dont intend to. The sub I added made significant improvement for closing the gigantic hole between the front and rear speakers. Im not going all out on a build for this truck because I will rip out the entire system, build fiberglass kick panels and spend weekends with an RTA tuning and thats not where I want to end up...

Edited August 2, 2019 by Chris walker

Mountain boy · August 2, 2019

I added the factory sub, it’s sounds better but I am thinking of disconnecting the Bose sub in the console. On an RTA it looks really weird. I have a 36 channel parametric eq that will take a high level input for 6 channels. If I get a place to work inside this winter I might hook it up. I need to find my calibrated mic for the RTA and spend some time testing.