You people suck. 12 years later, I finally replace speakers.

[Ricky Bobby]

^^^Mike great work you are officially the first one to install these - Although many E46 guys love them -

Yes I agree half of the difference is due to the closer impedance to the factory 3ohm in your E46, but the Vifa is a much higher quality driver than original in general - its a great swap and besides a bit of dremel work on the housing almost a perfect fit!

The Founteks are much better suited to our OE 8ohm drivers on the E53 (front dash, rear midrange), but obviously you can step up to the 4ohm Vifa's too with no ill effects!

I'm sure Clockwork Mike will enjoy them in his E53 -

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Yes I agree half of the difference is due to the closer impedance to the factory 3ohm in your E46,

I was certain he'd replaced his HU with an Eonon. If this is true, the OE ratings should not matter as much for him- like mine. My rear JL's sounded terrible until I replaced the HU but it wasn't impedance. It was that the JL's needed more minimum wattage than the OE HU would push. The 45w amp in the Eonon made the rear JL's sound WAY better.

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

I was certain he'd replaced his HU with an Eonon. If this is true, the OE ratings should not matter as much for him- like mine. My rear JL's sounded terrible until I replaced the HU but it wasn't impedance. It was that the JL's needed more minimum wattage than the OE HU would push. The 45w amp in the Eonon made the rear JL's sound WAY better.

Prop, I think even the base model units of the e53 use external (to the head unit) amplifiers. What the head unit delivers (OE or Eonon) in terms of wattage will not affect how much output the OE amp has to the speakers. It could affect the signal to the amp, but I don't think that will yield substantial differences. Where the Eonon might help (in a non-dsp car) is the Xover network or EQ settings available in the head unit.

[semcoinc]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

I was certain he'd replaced his HU with an Eonon. If this is true, the OE ratings should not matter as much for him- like mine. My rear JL's sounded terrible until I replaced the HU but it wasn't impedance. It was that the JL's needed more minimum wattage than the OE HU would push. The 45w amp in the Eonon made the rear JL's sound WAY better.

Yes, a couple years ago I upgraded the E46 factory NAV to an Eonon GM5150. I was leery of the Android system at the time. The GM5150 has 65 watts/side to drive things so I've got no problems in that department.

Here is a video showing it running iGo8



https://youtu.be/gKfVR90aIRY

Just finished installing the other Vifa/Peerless in the driver door and WOW, what a nice difference in the mid ranges with both sides pumping out of 4 ohm quality mids. The 15 year old factory rear mids are crying in comparison with some distortion evident. They will get the Amazon mids shortly.

Clock, I'll PM you now about the liberated Founteks that are ready to ship.

Mike

[Ricky Bobby]

^^I agree with you on that for sure - the only thing I will say is unlike going from 8ohm in the E53 to 4ohm where your amp will still deliver a lot of power to the drivers, if you go from 4 to 8, you are delivering half the power to the same speakers thus why he thought they needed more power to drive -

On the E53 this is pretty much moot since the drivers are all 8ohm, except for the woofers on the non-DSP cars - but yeah on the E46 even if you replace the HU with Eonon, if all those HK speakers are 3ohm and they are all replaced with 8ohm drivers you would notice they would take more input control (volume knob) to achieve the same "loudness" -

[Clockwork]

I WISH those Vifa were offered in the 8ohm version (ie NE65w-08). they look like a nice looking speaker, but I'm not wanting to put a 4ohm speaker in the 8ohm system. BMW's are tricky enough, and if you go about changing electrical requirements you COULD open a can of worms.

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Clockwork

I WISH those Vifa were offered in the 8ohm version (ie NE65w-08). they look like a nice looking speaker, but I'm not wanting to put a 4ohm speaker in the 8ohm system.

FWIW, I have replaced each OE speaker in my E53 with 4ohm. I rocked my 1st roadtrip today after the transmission. Very, very happy!

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

FWIW, I have replaced each OE speaker in my E53 with 4ohm. I rocked my 1st roadtrip today after the transmission. Very, very happy!

I'm still not sure why this works... but am extremely happy it does. Thanks for bringing it to the attention of the forum.

Oh, and I think I am going to start saving my pennies as well for trans replacement. Nothing funny happening yet, but I am getting ready to take it in for what I would assume is it's first trans fluid flush/fill at 111,000.

[Clockwork]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

FWIW, I have replaced each OE speaker in my E53 with 4ohm.

the key her is you replaced ALL speakers with 4ohm. So somehow the amp is still powering them and thats great, but if you were to mix and match the speakers impedance, then the 4ohm speakers would sound quieter than the 8 ohm, from what I've been reading anyhow.

needless to say I'm sure the 8 ohm Fountek's will be ok for me since I'm ok with the factory DSP stereo as is, but just looking for more high end (tweeters is all I probably need to replace honestly but I may as well go full meal deal)

[Ricky Bobby]

Originally Posted by Clockwork

the key her is you replaced ALL speakers with 4ohm. So somehow the amp is still powering them and thats great, but if you were to mix and match the speakers impedance, then the 4ohm speakers would sound quieter than the 8 ohm, from what I've been reading anyhow.

needless to say I'm sure the 8 ohm Fountek's will be ok for me since I'm ok with the factory DSP stereo as is, but just looking for more high end (tweeters is all I probably need to replace honestly but I may as well go full meal deal)

Mike - you're overthinking again and its ok because it worried me at first too - each speaker gets a separate channel input from the amplifier so this is not an issue as they aren't wired parallel, on a home stereo setup this could be an issue depending on how you are wired - but its not an issue on our cars (as you know on non DSP cars there are 2ohm woofers x4, and 8ohm mids x4 and 8ohm tweeters x2)

The Founteks, JL's, Vifa/Peerless, Memphis all will be fine in their own right trust me - even just having (currently) the Memphis in the dash and the rest of the drivers are still factory 4ohm there is no issues with sound quality or something being quieter etc -

The only issue SemcoMike had was opposite impedence going from a 3ohm HK driver to the 8ohm Fountek on his E46 - Since we aren't going in the opposite direction there is no problems on our E53 to worry about -

We are only really debating midranges anyway but want you to stop worrying and just enjoy the better quality drivers -