Bryan

Before even considering any critical listening of the system, set the fader control all the way to the front, then turn off any signal processing, including bass, treble, ambient, driver, etc.

If you typically turn on the loudness control, or boost treble or bass to make a system sound better, you are not discussing quality, but quantity. In my opinion, the quality of the Bose system in the coupe is fairly good. It plays loud enough (and louder) for my needs, doesn't seem to have any glaring frequency anomolies, and is musically OK. No, it doesn't play much below 50Hz, but you wouldn't be able to hear that anyway. It doesn't have an "image", but that's not really important to good sound anyway. The "rear" speakers serve no real purpose, other than allowing back seat passengers to have sound shot into their ankles. Honestly, though, I didn't even listen to the stock system. After all, it's only $610, and if you ever try to sell the car, people (Americans) will ooh and ahh over the Bose nameplate. If you have an equalizer in your home system, and the sliders from the shape of a smiley-face, get the stock system and replace it with something from the "experts" at the local U-Boom shop.

Buellwinkle

I'm assuming you're talking 'bout the C230 and it's useless rear speakers. I tried replacing the rear speakers with high quality Polk speakers and they sounded the same as the factory 6 1/2". To me this means that the front speakers are amplified considerably more than the rear. I'm wondering if you amplified the rears how much better they will sound. Also if you took a four channel amp and used it to power the rear speakers and bridged the other two channels for a subwoofer it may sound great.

Bryan

I don't know why one would even want to use speakers in such a poor location. Putting something else there is not going to improve the results. Power will not improve the poor position of these speakers, and will likely make your system sound worse, as you will only be increasing the volume of crap. My opinion at the moment, is that they should not play at all. There is really nothing good to be gained in hearing them.

As far as the amplifier is concerned, there is no reason to believe a different amplifier will perform any better than the stock unit, other than possibly providing more output. Bose's standard operation procedure (at least in GM models), is to use low impedence drivers, which cannot be effectively driven by any aftermarket amplifiers. This is fine, as I have little faith that car audio manufacturers are designing anything of special sonic merit in the first place. At least with premium package, in some cases, you may get a system somewhat suited for the interior of you vehicle, and the other electronics, whilst the person at the local shop has little understanding of audio other than which subs "hit" harder.

Buellwinkle

Unfortunately there aren't any good places to put speakers of any size in the coupe. The 10 airbags seem to get in the way. You can't easily put it in the parcel shelf without some serious re-inforcement. You can nix the package shelf and put a enclosure in the hatch area with what ever speakers you want but that limits the effectiveness of our beloved hatchback. I think that with proper amplification just for the rear speakers they can sound good. Of course you'ld have to lose the factory Bose speakers there and replace them with something that's compatible with the amp. The funny thing is the rear speakers sound way better in the sedan.

What I think may be more useful than more power is an equalizer to balance the sound out so that it sounds good at low volumes.