2016 CX-5 Audio upgrade thread

LeeShadow · Sep 30, 2015

yrwei52 said:
What is your opinion on not replacing middle front dash speaker but only side dash speakers? At this time I'm thinking getting only a pair of Polk Audio DB351 to try out instead of two which will waste one speaker not been used. The rear D-pillar speakers will be the next. .

Given that it seems to be mostly used for fill-in/faux-surround when the CenterPoint setting is on, I think it is possible that just replacing the outer two front dash speakers will still make an appreciable difference. I can't remember if someone yet confirmed if that center speaker on the Bose system is still active or not when CenterPoint is off. I do know that I've come to prefer Centerpoint being on, even if it does change how any song sounds as compared to the original production.

PS: thank you for your kind comment!

Kegelhoff · Sep 30, 2015

CX-5um
The link provided to that Dayton Audio speaker is for an 8 ohm speaker. You need to search for the Dayton Audio RS225-4 8.
I would love to know if anyone here has purchased and tried these in the CX-5 as the front door woofers sound "muddy" to me.
I installed the Infinity Primus PR6500cs 6.5" speakers in the rear doors and then mounted the mini tweeters in the rear pillars to try and get better highs and more sound coming from the rear of the car. Bought them as they had 3 ohm rating and 93 Db. I was also able to direct the tweeters towards the front slightly. Overall the highs are better and the sound quality went up a notch but I still feel I need to take it up one more notch to be really happy. Not sure if that just entails replacing the front woofers or the three dash speakers or all of the above ??

CX-5um said:
To OP...and everyone with a BOSE system for that matter. I came across an old post from a Mazda6 forum regarding someone installing this speaker into the front doors (to replace his 9 inch BOSE speaker).

He installed these speakers. http://www.daytonaudio.com/index.ph...-series/rs225-4-8-reference-woofer-4-ohm.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)

If there are any other options please enlighten the rest of us!!! That said would this fit? https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)

LeeShadow · Sep 30, 2015

CX-5um said:
To OP...and everyone with a BOSE system for that matter. I came across an old post from a Mazda6 forum regarding someone installing this speaker into the front doors (to replace his 9 inch BOSE speaker).

He installed these speakers. http://www.daytonaudio.com/index.ph...-series/rs225-4-8-reference-woofer-4-ohm.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)

If there are any other options please enlighten the rest of us!!! That said would this fit? https://www.amazon.com/dp/ (commissions earned)

Since the Bose system is rated at around 1.25 ohms for the front door speakers, I'd be concerned that any 4 ohm speaker (which both of those options appear to be) would not have adequate volume/ooomph unless an amp designed to drive 4 ohm speakers was added. You also likely have to consider the power rating for any replacement speaker--most midbass and woofers are designed for use with an amplifier that is more powerful than what the Bose amp is probably sending to the front speakers. I've never run across the individual watts being sent to each of the Bose speakers from the amp, but I seem to recall that the total amp rating is "only" around 225 watts or something like that.

Finally, based on what others have noted, I think that one might be able to fit an 8" replacement, but I suspect 10" is too large.

One more related note--while helping my neighbor, I ran across this alternative speaker adapter which may be a better solution for the rear and eventually the front door. It seems to line up exactly with the factory mount points, and thus won't require any additional drilling as I had to do with my rear doors and the Scosche speaker adapter Crutchfield sent me. I also think the mount points for the non-Bose and Bose speakers are identical, but am not absolutely sure:

http://www.car-speaker-adapters.com/items.php?id=SAK112

http://www.car-speaker-adapters.com/items.php?id=SAK102

LeeShadow · Sep 30, 2015

FYI for ease of reference

CX-5 Bose Speaker Ratings possibly 2016.jpg

CX-5um · Sep 30, 2015

Kegelhoff said:
CX-5um
The link provided to that Dayton Audio speaker is for an 8 ohm speaker. You need to search for the Dayton Audio RS225-4 8.
I would love to know if anyone here has purchased and tried these in the CX-5 as the front door woofers sound "muddy" to me.
I installed the Infinity Primus PR6500cs 6.5" speakers in the rear doors and then mounted the mini tweeters in the rear pillars to try and get better highs and more sound coming from the rear of the car. Bought them as they had 3 ohm rating and 93 Db. I was also able to direct the tweeters towards the front slightly. Overall the highs are better and the sound quality went up a notch but I still feel I need to take it up one more notch to be really happy. Not sure if that just entails replacing the front woofers or the three dash speakers or all of the above ??

Excuse the correction required for the link. Yeah keeping my eyes open as well.

RLCarrington said:
Since the Bose system is rated at around 1.25 ohms for the front door speakers, I'd be concerned that any 4 ohm speaker (which both of those options appear to be) would not have adequate volume/ooomph unless an amp designed to drive 4 ohm speakers was added. You also likely have to consider the power rating for any replacement speaker--most midbass and woofers are designed for use with an amplifier that is more powerful than what the Bose amp is probably sending to the front speakers. I've never run across the individual watts being sent to each of the Bose speakers from the amp, but I seem to recall that the total amp rating is "only" around 225 watts or something like that.

I may be able to live with a 4 ohm (2 ohm even better yet) speakers in the front doors depending on how much volume is lost. That said I've altered (not physically) the sound of my BOSE system by first changing my settings to fade 3 clicks to the rear, disable any center point crap, set treble to + 3 clicks, and set bass to + max clicks. My audio sources are 1. via a Samsung Galaxy s2 through bluetooth with some an app EQ intended for a flat EQ with slight emphasis for bass. It made the car's sound surprisingly better to my ears. 2. CDs it sounds less muddy to my ears with better bass response.

brillo54 · Sep 30, 2015

CX-5um said:
That said I've altered (not physically) the sound of my BOSE system by first changing my settings to fade 3 clicks to the rear, disable any center point crap, set treble to + 3 clicks, and set bass to + max clicks. My audio sources are 1. via a Samsung Galaxy s2 through bluetooth with some an app EQ intended for a flat EQ with slight emphasis for bass. It made the car's sound surprisingly better to my ears. 2. CDs it sounds less muddy to my ears with better bass response.

I've done something similar with my system with satisfactory results for my ears and listening preferences: fade at 0 or 1 to rear, treble and bass both at +3, Centerpoint - OFF. My audio source 95% of the time is mp3 at a 320 mbps bit rate ripped from the original CD, put onto a USB drive. I am used to running a higher fader setting to the rear but on the Bose, the front door woofers are tied into the front fader, so decreasing the front level too much decreases that bass and relies more on the bass from the rear door speakers. That's what works for me but everyone is different. Good luck to all finding what works for you.

pdlpsher · Sep 30, 2015

Here are the tools I used for the install. It helps to have two different lengths of driver bits.

Here's the difference in height between the two speakers.

Here you could see the defroster vent pipe. You cannot move it but it's semi-rigid formed plastic.

Here you could see the speaker resting on the vent pipe before I put the screws in.

Here's the speaker after the screws are tightened. Note that I didn't tighten the screws all the way. There's no need. Too much pressure on the screws might damage the vent pipe. The pipe does give a little so it could take some pressure from the speaker. NOTE: for some reason the driver side has greater interference than the passenger side despite both sides appear to be identical to the naked eye.

I purchased this connector on eBay per someone's recommendation on this forum. They are useless. The pin spacing and pin length don't match up to the factory connector. The pins are also significantly thinner than the factory pins.

Here's the factory connector on the stock Bose speaker. De-solder the wire and remove the connector.

Transfer the connector to the Polk speaker and solder the pins. They match up perfectly! Watch for the polarity. The green wire on the factory harness is the negative side.

Another view of the transferred connector on the Polk speaker. Due to the vent pipe you want to orient the connector towards the front. There's plenty of clearance for the connector. That's it! Connect the factory harness and tighten the screws and you are done.

yrwei52 · Sep 30, 2015

cmceleste said:
... All pre wired. The middle looked the same.

Colors appear to be a reddish-orange and green. Maybe a stripe on both???? I didn't want to get crazy with stripping anything out.

hollis said:
I was looking at the front 3.5" dashboard speaker connectors and brainstorming what I already had to use without building a custom cable.

Guess what, these little motherboard 3 pin fan extension connectors work perfectly!

Their about $1-$2 a piece on ebay, one seller has (5) for $3.67 shipped.

Two of the three pins fit right into the speaker connector while still attached to the white bracket, the spacing between the pins is right with the last pin sits outside the speaker connector. All together, its a snug / secure fit and you just need to crimp some blade connectors on the other side of the cable and your done.

Anathema said:
Dash Speaker Wiring Adapter: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX5934 I only used the connector and not the wires that comes with this part as I was not keen on using 26AWG wiring inline with the dash speakers. In theory it should be fine as they are 25W at 4omh speakers but it does put you pretty close to the limit on that cable for current so I soldered leads onto the connector...
...
Close up of the wiring adapter that was soldered onto the other end with the 26AWG wiring removed

pdlpsher said:
... I purchased this connector on eBay per someone's recommendation on this forum. They are useless. The pin spacing and pin length don't match up to the factory connector. The pins are also significantly thinner than the factory pins.

Here's the factory connector on the stock Bose speaker. De-solder the wire and remove the connector.

Thanks pdlpsher! Your info and photos will be very helpful for doing the Bose dash speaker upgrades. So apparently the dash speaker connector on Bose and non-Bose is different? That's too bad! Can you comment on sound difference after the speaker change only to two side dash Bose speakers with Polk Audio DB351s but keeping the middle Bose dash unchanged?

ryan4130 · Oct 1, 2015

RLCarrington said:
Of course, all of this is just my impressions, as I didn't do any type of actual testing with sound meters or other such instrumentation....and I'm still not happy with the front door Bose midbass speakers, but I still haven't run across a replacement that I think makes sense for the Bose system. I may try a powered subwoofer connected in ahead of the Bose amp, as someone on here did so more recently and had absolutely no negative effects on the rest of the sound, which others have reported as occurring. I think but would have to confirm that he tapped into the rear door lines ahead of the Bose amp......

I installed a Kicker Hideaway powered subwoofer under the front passenger seat and found that to be a very good location since the stock bose amp is also under that seat so the wires are right there to tap into. I tapped into the rear door speaker lines pre-amp, as in between the headunit and amp, hoping for them be low level inputs. I have the sub selected for low level inputs and it works well. I still don't know how to properly configure an amp's input gain and crossover frequency... I need to do more research on that.

pdlpsher · Oct 1, 2015

You're welcome. The factory connectors should be all the same (Bose vs. non-Bose). Just the colors are different.

With just the two new speakers I really couldn't tell any difference. I have a hunch that the problem to mediocre sound isn't in the speakers but rather the low power (clean power anyways) of the factory Bose amplifier. Someone had said the factory amplifier is rated at 225 watts total. No specs are provided on the distortion at 225 watts. For all we know it could be 10% THD at 225 watts. With nine total speakers each speaker is allotted to only 25 watts on average. Higher efficiency speakers will help the cause but only to a point. We don't know how efficient the factory speakers are. Clean and high power amplifier is expensive to come by so the mediocre sound is probably the result of some overzealous bean-counters at corporate Mazda.

pdlpsher · Oct 1, 2015

ryan4130 said:
I installed a Kicker Hideaway powered subwoofer under the front passenger seat and found that to be a very good location since the stock bose amp is also under that seat so the wires are right there to tap into. I tapped into the rear door speaker lines pre-amp, as in between the headunit and amp, hoping for them be low level inputs. I have the sub selected for low level inputs and it works well. I still don't know how to properly configure an amp's input gain and crossover frequency... I need to do more research on that.

I think a powered subwoofer is a great idea as the factory Bose amplifier has too low of an output for nine speakers. With the addition of a powered subwoofer one could reduce the low bass of the factory system and hence make the factory amplifier work less hard (i.e. produce cleaner power with lower distortion). I'm interested in hearing the sound quality of your installation once you get everything dialed in. As I mentioned I think the mediocre sound quality of the factory is attributed to high distortion at higher power levels.

LeeShadow · Oct 1, 2015

Excellent upgrade install guide, pdlpsher! Glad you had the patience to unsolder/resolder the OEM connectors to avoid cutting and splicing the wiring as I did.

CX-5um · Oct 1, 2015

pdlpsher said:
I think a powered subwoofer is a great idea as the factory Bose amplifier has too low of an output for nine speakers. With the addition of a powered subwoofer one could reduce the low bass of the factory system and hence make the factory amplifier work less hard (i.e. produce cleaner power with lower distortion). I'm interested in hearing the sound quality of your installation once you get everything dialed in. As I mentioned I think the mediocre sound quality of the factory is attributed to high distortion at higher power levels.

This looks like an excellent opportunity to "fade" 1-3 clicks of sound towards the rear. I mean think about it, 225 watts powering 9 speakers with an emphasis towards a front soundstage. Fading towards the rear seems to take some power away from the front dash speakers and gives it to the rear (where ryan's subwoofers are tapped into rear lines). The bad= Yes it takes volume away from the 9 inch front door mid bass but the Good= takes away excess volume from the front. Solution is to just turn up the BOSE master volume knob a bit. Fading 2-3 clicks to the rear seems to be the sweet spot is you want max power (BOSE amp) routed to the door speakers. Not just to my ears but I can physically feel it too. Especially on some of my hip hop songs that have thumping or deep bass. Just need to replace the said door speakers with ones made of higher quality materials to move more air.

This is why I personally won't upgrade my stock front dash speakers with higher powered ones. The highs are more than enough for me. Upgrading the front door speakers or in Ryan's case installing a powered subwoofer will be my options. Primarily due to budget. Just my 2 cents. That said I appreciate the OP and everyone's comments and pics here.

yrwei52 · Oct 1, 2015

pdlpsher said:
The factory connectors should be all the same (Bose vs. non-Bose). Just the colors are different.

I guess I got confused here. hollis and Anathema used computer fan connector as the non-Bose front dash wiring adapter without any problems, but you said it doesn't fit yours. Can you look at the pictures of Mazda non-Bose dash speaker connector provided by cmceleste and see if it's the same as yours with different color? Thanks!

pdlpsher · Oct 1, 2015

yrwei52 said:
I guess I got confused here. hollis and Anathema used computer fan connector as the non-Bose front dash wiring adapter without any problems, but you said it doesn't fit yours. Can you look at the pictures of Mazda non-Bose dash speaker connector provided by cmceleste and see if it's the same as yours with different color? Thanks!

To be 100% sure I'd like to see a picture of the female connector that is on the speaker. In any case why would anyone use an adaptor when the female connector can be transferred to the new speaker. You have the Bose unit, correct?

pdlpsher · Oct 1, 2015

After listening more on the new speakers the factory Bose sounds decent at medium volume. At higher volume there's distortion and the low bass is lacking. This isn't a 1200 watt Mark Levinson system but this Mazda isn't priced like a Lexus either. For me the upgraded speakers alone is satisfactory. Any other changes will require more resources and I'm not totally convinced the improvements will be significant without spending a ton of money.

ryan4130 · Oct 2, 2015

Yeah that's where I am at right now. The kicker hideaway is decent and doesn't hit incredibly hard but there are definitely diminishing returns. If you throw 200% more money and time at the audio beyond replacing speakers and adding a compact subwoofer, will it sound 200% better? Probably only 100% better. And if you throw 500% more money at it, system would probably only sound 150% better.... Etc.

yrwei52 · Oct 2, 2015

Adding a self-powered sub-woofer is the way to go to add bass quality on CX-5's Bose system. Just found out while I was at the Mazda dealer yesterday that even the Bose 7-speaker Sound System standard on 2016 CX-3 GT comes with front dash tweeters and a spare-tire sub-woofer!

2016%252520Mazda%252520CX-3%252520Bose%252520Spare-tire%252520Sub-woofer_02.jpg

yrwei52 · Oct 2, 2015

pdlpsher said:
To be 100% sure I'd like to see a picture of the female connector that is on the speaker. In any case why would anyone use an adaptor when the female connector can be transferred to the new speaker. You have the Bose unit, correct?

Yes, I have Bose. I hate soldering and would like to keep stock speakers intact for later putting it back. Here are some pictures provided by Anathema from the other thread for his non-Boise dash speakers which can be fitted fan connector as dash speaker wiring adapter:

The black receptacle connector on non-Bose dash speaker showing on the pics does look different from the white receptacle connector on your Bose dash speaker, doesn't it?

chriscabob · Oct 2, 2015

yrwei52 said:
I guess I got confused here. hollis and Anathema used computer fan connector as the non-Bose front dash wiring adapter without any problems, but you said it doesn't fit yours. Can you look at the pictures of Mazda non-Bose dash speaker connector provided by cmceleste and see if it's the same as yours with different color? Thanks!

I also used the startech fan power connector with no issues upgrading a 6 speaker GS 2014. Put in infinity reference 3.5 in the dash using the power cord and 6 inch infinity reference in the doors.

2016 CX-5 Audio upgrade thread

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