X5 Audio Upgrade Advice..

[Essam Khafagi]

You can also check this from another forum:
BMW X5 • View topic - Where's my amp

[one_happy_canuck]

BSW recommends staying with the 'standard' config for their stage 1 speaker upgrade rather than converting to DSP and then upgrading the speakers.

Otzme for awhile I thought I had 6 speakers - the door tweets are inaudible when sitting - but with an ear to each of the door speakers I find that there is in fact a driver behind each grille, and 2 mids in the dash, and in further reading it seems that there is a base 6 speaker system, a 'hifi' option with 10 speakers, and a DSP option that adds sound field options and sub.

EESam the Pioneer 10" sub looks very interesting and I'm busy pricing out the parts for that. You mention that you replaced all of the drivers except the mids but I couldn't find any more info about driver replacement in your post - could you elaborate on that? What drivers did you use? Where did you source the parts? Was the result worth it? Any idea what kind of freq response you get from the Pioneer in that enclosure?

[Essam Khafagi]

Originally Posted by one_happy_canuck

BSW recommends staying with the 'standard' config for their stage 1 speaker upgrade rather than converting to DSP and then upgrading the speakers.

EESam the Pioneer 10" sub looks very interesting and I'm busy pricing out the parts for that. You mention that you replaced all of the drivers except the mids but I couldn't find any more info about driver replacement in your post - could you elaborate on that? What drivers did you use? Where did you source the parts? Was the result worth it? Any idea what kind of freq response you get from the Pioneer in that enclosure?

I installed the complete BSW stage1 solution and did not like the sound at all ... I returned them back all the way from Saudi to the US and I only kept the tweeters.

Then I replaced the 4 midbass speakers with Pioneer dual cone speakers (TS-G1612R) ... they give far better sound than BSW's and of course OEM's

As for frequency response of the sub, it would be within the range in the specs (20-144Hz) as long as you stick to the recommended enclosure volume (9.9L to 19.8L) .. of course I have no capability to measure the real frequencies, but what I know is that I have amazing bass

[one_happy_canuck]

Thanks Eesam.. Did you have to do any fabrication to get the TS-G1612R's to fit the X5 mounts or did they bolt right in?

[Essam Khafagi]

Check this Xoutpost.com - View Single Post - Subwoofer Project FINISHED!!! (Enclosure Dimensions Included)
Just make sure it is 16cm speaker (6.5 inch approx.)
This will make it fit as I described
BSW midbasses are 13cm (5.25 inch approx.) and they are using an outer ring as an adapter

[one_happy_canuck]

Eesam I'm busy sourcing the parts to build your custom sub In the meantime I've got one of my doors apart and I thought i'd post some info and pics about the components there..

The midwoofers in the front/rear doors are a 6 1/2 poly cone model with a 2 ohm impedance, with what looks like rubber surrounds. The driver basket is plastic so they're obviously not audiophile quality speakers, and they are glued into a plastic tunnel enclosure which bolts onto the door. The drivers have a depth of about 3" and use the entire volume of the door as a rear chamber so there is no particular need to go with a shallow depth driver to replace them. I haven't pulled the trim off the rear doors but Crutchfield indicates that the same drivers fit in the front/rear doors so I'm assuming that the situation is pretty much the same there.

The front tweeters in the door pillars are 8 ohm 1 1/8 'ish soft dome models which look like decent quality units, but based on the lack of highs in my stock system I'm guessing that they're just low efficiency models. The front mids are a 2 1/2 poly cone although I don't know their impedance.

I can't source the Pioneer speakers that Eesam recommends here in Canada so my plan at this point is to pickup two pairs of decent quality 6 1/2 component speakers with separate woofs/tweets and simply swap these into the front and rear doors without introducing any additional xover components at the speakers. I'm probably going to source 4 ohm midwoofs/tweeters rather than the 2 ohm / 8 ohm combination used by the stock config, so the eq will certainly be off, but Eesam reports positive results from replacing the 2 ohm drivers with 4 ohm drivers and I doubt that the change will produce results worse than the stock config

I'll be leaving the dash mids in place and building the sub enclousre recommended by Eesam / adding a decent power dedicated amp for it, but otherwise I'll be leaving the existing non-DSP nav/head unit and amp in place, which i did manage to find underneath my changer in the equipment bay.

Total cost looks like it's going to be in the $250 USD range all in - including the Subwoofer, 2 pairs of cheap but decently reviewed Soundstorm component speakers, the Alpine amp and the sub enclosure, which I'll fabricate myself. For that price I expect to get a vast improvement in the bass and at least some improvement in mids/highs based on Eesam's experience. I'll post some pics/comments as I get the parts and have the time to put things together.

Thanks again everyone for the input and EEsam in particular

[Essam Khafagi]

That's a great plan
Keep us updated with the results ...

[NyMench]

[QUOTE=Essam Khafagi;622398]I installed the complete BSW stage1 solution and did not like the sound at all ...

[oztme]

Thanks for all your help so far guys. Subwoofer + iBus interface goes in tomorrow.

Mr Canuck(great name),

The midwoofers in the front/rear doors are a 6 1/2 poly cone model with a 2 ohm impedance

That sounds unusual. Did you measure them with an impedance meter, or an ohmmeter? The value read by an ohmmeter will ALWAYS be <= actual impedance. For speakers with a decent voice coil inductance, you can often have an impedance of 8 ohm, but resistance of only 1-2 ohms. This has a bit of an explanation: Electrical impedance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Z is the impedance, R is the resistance, X is complex component of the impedance, which is related ito the inductance (and to a lesser degree, the capacitance) of the speaker.

Tweeters frequently read a higher resistance (8 ohms) as they would only have a very small (=low inductance) voice coil, or no voice coil at all (piezo perhaps).

The front tweeters in the door pillars are 8 ohm 1 1/8 'ish soft dome models

I didn't realise you had tweeters. DId you originally think you had a total of 6 speakers as I do? Is your amp in the wheel well? I think I found mine there.

....
You can also try this link for wiring diagrams Xoutpost.com

Thanks Essam. Sweeeet link. One thing I can't find though, is a parts location diagram. There's a very basic one off the main xoutpost page, but it doesn't show things like the alternate locations of the amp, where my TV box is, etc..

Cheers + thanks again to all...
Scott (One happy skippy Skippy the Bush Kangaroo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

[carlgo]

Do the Essam sub, or buy the sub from BSW or JL. Huge improvement.

Get the BSW speakers. I got the BSW tweeters and midranges, front and rear, and also Alpine 6.5 mid-subs because I did it in stages and BSW didn't sell the midsubs separately (out of stock at the time).

Essam had bad luck with his BSW midsubs, but others reported great results. The sound from the BSW mids and tweeters is fabulous, so I suspect that Essam's case was unusual.

For most people I recommend the BSW midsubs as they are easier to hook up.

No need to worry about DSP, or amps at this point.

This will give you great, clear sound.

Don't obsess over technical data. Note that the BMW amp has all these channels and a fancy cross-over system and weighs next to nothing. Clearly it is more clever than powerful. BMW uses a very complex way of distributing the sound to get good results with cheap components.

This is often the case even in expensive cars. We used to laugh at Lexus systems that used $10 speakers in elaborate enclosures with all sorts of resonance chambers. I guess it was cheap to make plastic enclosures. And it worked, Lexus systems sound good.

If BMW uses 2 ohm speakers it must be because they work well with that little amp. I chose the Alpines because they had 4 ohms and that was lower than other similar speakers. It worked out well. No odd settings required.

You are saying that you have no mid-range dash speakers, tweeters in the front door posts or rear door midranges? Don't just rely on your ear. BMW divides up the sound in specific ways and some tunes the sound from any given speaker may be very faint. This faked me out for awhile, I thought that my rear mid-subs weren't hooked up properly. Another cut and there was no doubt that all was well. The door post tweeters just tweet. Hardly a good sound out of them, but combined with the other frequencies of the other speakers it is all clear and sparkly and oh so much better.

Interestingly, the OEM BMW speakers do not seem to be real cheap or anything, and the BSW replacements are not noticeably heavier or exotic in any way. They just work better. It might be that ohm thing. Who knows.