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My wife and I took delivery of a 2001 allroad in December of 2001, which replaced her 1992 Saab 9000 Turbo. Over the holidays we fitted the Thule roof box, stuffed the car with kids, clothes, and presents, and headed to Philadelphia.
After a short period of time, it became apparent that the Bose™ sound system did not meet our expectations.
It's important to understand our bias - I own and operate a recording studio, and my wife teaches piano. When we choose to listen to music, we do so on systems capable of accurate playback, or choose another activity. I don't say this to be arrogant - but to better explain why I tore a pretty expensive stereo out of a three-month old car.
If you are driving an allroad with the Bose stereo and are happy with it, enjoy! Don't let me bum you out, so stop reading!
If you are contemplating an audio upgrade, read on!
After extended listening the following month we realized that the sound was really quite bad - to the point that neither one of us would turn on the stereo when driving the car. Complaints stemmed from a very uneven frequency response characterized by:
Manual adjustments of the Bose EQ made mild improvements, as did adjustments to the hidden EQ setting, but not enough for our tastes.
I set out to design and install an integrated audio system with the following goals:
The allroad with the Bose stereo does have several features that I feel were worth exploiting. They include:
In the following pages I will document the steps I took to improve the audio in the allroad.
I have no connection to either Audi or Bose, and the information that I provide may not be accurate for your car. Please use this information as background research only, and investigate your particular vehicle before attempting any modification.