E53 4.8is Stereo upgrade starting in a few weeks

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Maruzo

Are you going with Seicane or Dynavin 7?

Neither! LOL

That's a Xtrons branded unit. Same screen as Seicane that somebody did, but I found that Xtrons advertised one with 8 core, 4GB RAM, 32GB ROM and Android 8.0. I think the Seicane now has this unit up on their site. That's how fast these things change. 3 weeks ago, it wasn't there. (or I missed it) My experience with the Eonon in my wife's E46 was consistent with my experience with Android phones and tablets:

Android will use any resource you can throw at it. So the more you can buy, the better it will be.

I installed a quad core with 2GB RAM and only 16GB(?) ROM in the E46. A few months later, I installed the 8 core. The difference was incredible. Downloading offline Google maps was nearly impossible in the quad core. It's very speedy now.

I've tested this unit in an E39 for a few minutes and it is outright speedy. I'm looking forward to installing the IBus adapter and fiddling around in the couple months before our next ~6k mile Summer road trip.

[Justings1]

If you're having problems finding the correct speaker mounts, I found that if you go to crutchfield and choose the speakers that fit your specific vehicle and put them into the shopping cart, crutchfield adds the brackets to the cart for free. Then subtract the speakers you already have and just order the brackets from them. I found my jl audio c2 components for the price of c1s on Amazon. $100 less a pair than crutchfield and got the brackets from crutchfield.

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Justings1

If you're having problems finding the correct speaker mounts, I found that if you go to crutchfield and choose the speakers that fit your specific vehicle and put them into the shopping cart, crutchfield adds the brackets to the cart for free. Then subtract the speakers you already have and just order the brackets from them. I found my jl audio c2 components for the price of c1s on Amazon. $100 less a pair than crutchfield and got the brackets from crutchfield.

Very cool tip!

[Justings1]

Put your speakers into the crutchfield shopping cart and they automatically load the proper mounting brackets. Then remove the speakers and buy the brackets. Should be 10 or 12 a pair.

[crystalworks]

So, it sounds like crossovers can offset DSP requirements?

You won't need any DSP if removing the factory head unit. Your aftermarket amplifier has all the crossovers you need. Plus the android unit will have some tuning options as well.

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by crystalworks

You won't need any DSP if removing the factory head unit. Your aftermarket amplifier has all the crossovers you need. Plus the android unit will have some tuning options as well.

Well now I'm confused. I am replacing the DSP amp with a JL 4 channel and I am using external/passive (I think?) crossovers. I understood that we *needed* to do this to produce good sound.

So is your answer bc of the amp that he chose or am I completely off on what an amp does (or doesn't do) for crossover?

[Crowz]

Each speaker is designed for a specific frequency response.

Tweeters want high frequencies and will distort if bass or low frequencies are sent to them. Some midrange frequencies can distort them badly too.

Midrange speakers as the name suggest are designed to handle "middle" frequencies. Usually above 200 hz and below 10,000 hz. Above 10 kHz is where the tweeters hang out but this doesn't distort the midrange speakers much as they just can reproduce it.

Low range or bass speakers or subwoofers are designed for very low frequencies. Midrange signals while not distorting them shows up as distortion since they cant move fast enough to really respond cleanly to them. High frequencies are just ignored completely by subs.

So each of the 3 types need to be fed a signal they can work with. THATS what the crossovers are for. The factory amp has these built in per channel. Rare actually.

Aftermarket amps like the one your looking at have crossovers but not enough channels to drive all the speakers you have. So some (if you use one amp) are going to overlap. That's where external crossovers come in. To use on the speakers in place of the inputs to the amp or the amp itself.

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by Crowz

Aftermarket amps like the one your looking at have crossovers but not enough channels to drive all the speakers you have. So some (if you use one amp) are going to overlap. That's where external crossovers come in. To use on the speakers in place of the inputs to the amp or the amp itself.

OK. This is exactly where my head has been prior to CW's reply. I was confused by it.

Since I never got around to replacing the tweeters I installed in the rear door mids, I expect the passive JL crossovers I am using will send the higher frequency there.

This may work out better than I thought with only the 4ch amp bc of the little OE 'in line' crossovers for the dash mids. My bet is that they allow only the frequencies they want to the dash mids. My hope is that they will become a small but key part of the 'crossover network' including the passive JL's.

[crystalworks]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

Well now I'm confused. I am replacing the DSP amp with a JL 4 channel and I am using external/passive (I think?) crossovers. I understood that we *needed* to do this to produce good sound.

So is your answer bc of the amp that he chose or am I completely off on what an amp does (or doesn't do) for crossover?

Sorry, should have expanded. As Crowz said, different speakers are designed for different frequency ranges. Sending them different frequencies can cause damage (or poor reproduction). The DSP amplifier has 10 channels of amplification (and Xovers) + the subwoofer channel(s).

Typically, a combination of active (the crossovers in the amp) and passive (the crossovers included with component systems like your JL's) are used. You would usually set the amp's Xover network to full range and tune in the middle and let the passive Xovers for the components do the rest with splitting the correct frequencies to the correct driver.

Going full active (amplified Xover for each driver) in the e53 is the "ultimate" upgrade because of the number of speakers we have (10 not including subs) when replacing the DSP while keeping the factory speakers, or using a set of non-passively tuned aftermarket drivers. This is what I think I am going to do on my truck. But doing so will require 2 4 channel amplifiers, and using 2 channels on the android head unit's internal amp. I am also going with JL audio gear as I already have a 500/5 on hand. Will be a complicated install, but should provide me with hours of fun toiling over the minutia of tuning each set of speakers.

Below is a set of e53 DSP speakers for illustration. I have BSW setup, but those are also not filtered or Xover'd in any way as they were designed as a drop in replacement for the factory DSP drivers.

[Maruzo]

Is the subwoofer in the picture from bsw as well?