Bob,
I'm sure that Bose dealer demonstation was designed to sell. It sounded fine but, like I said, I'm not going to dumpster my old audio equipment. I recently saw a similar web posting alleging the poor quality of Fram oil filters. From what I've seen over the past 30 years, the use of, once reputable, brand names to sell 'junk' is pretty widespread.
I only mentioned the Bose concept as a possibility of getting an acceptable car system that didn't require hacking large holes in a vintage car interior. A friend has one of those $300 Bose Wave radios. It sounds nice, about as good as my '80s high-end Panasonic boombox but not quite as nice as one of my old Telefunken or Grundig table radios. Actually, if I was going to spend significant money, that Blaupunkt car subwoofer would be a possibilty. None of my local Walmarts stocks that 'inexpensive' amp I mentioned and the recent Ice-Age here in the DC area has halted my car audio experiments for now.
I will post more updates when I can.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW