Quote:
Originally Posted by redwoods22
does this affect the power going to the speakers at all, or just the signal processing?
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Both. Just to give a better explanation:
The base audio system contains six speakers: a mid-range in each of the four doors along with two 6.5" subwoofers under the front seats. The speakers are driven directly by the head unit (no external amp) and the front channel is shared between the front door mids and the subwoofers so that's one of the reasons for the added DSP. Also, since there are no tweeters in the sails they use DSP to drive the highs way up there. For this reason if you don't either remove or undo the DSP, and you drive an external amp directly from the OEM base audio signal, it will sound like crap. For more info read the first post here by VP Electricity/el duderino, who detailed a build he did on a 2010 X5:
http://www.xoutpost.com/electronics/...intensive.html
The HiFi audio system (option $676) has more speakers but more importantly it uses an external amp to drive them so that's why the signal coming out of the HU is 'clean'. Any DSP added in the HiFi system is done by the amp, not the HU.
There is one drawback with recoding, though. You are telling the vehicle that you have the BMW OEM amp installed so if you need to have it serviced and BMW hooks up the diagnostic equipment it will fail when it tries to query the amp because it doesn't exist. From what I've heard they cannot continue with the diagnostics because the software doesn't let them. I find that a little hard to believe and think there must be a way to skip that module and continue, but for me I would probably just remove $676 from the VO before getting service. BTW, for regular service it won't be a problem, it's only when they need to read fault codes from the entire car where it fails because it ends up querying all modules.
Also, if you search around you will find that some people have complained that the chimes/gongs and PDC beeps were either too loud or soft (I can't remember which) after adding $676. This is true even for the official Alpine upgrade that BMW supports. The issue is that when you add an option to the vehicle it may affect more than one module. For example, with the HiFi system with external amp, it obviously affects the head unit (CIC module) but it also affects the module(s) that control other sounds like the gongs and park distance control beeps. When you add $676 to the VO you have to "default code" all affected modules so that they can reconfigure themselves based on the updated information in the VO. e.g. HU: I now have an external amp so let me switch my outputs to the fully balanced signal with DSP disabled. What many people forget to do is default code the other modules. I can't remember what additional modules I default coded but initially I had that problem until I found it. I definitely did the CIC and PDC modules, and may have also done the footwell module, but whatever it was it fixed the issue for me immediately.
I know it's a lot of info to take in and sounds like a bit of a pain to manage but if you are familiar with coding it's really, really easy to do and also really easy to restore if you need have service.
Quote:
Originally Posted by redwoods22
btw one of the lamest moves yet i've seen bmw make to have tweeter pods in car with a $63k sticker (premium package, technology, and some other stuff) and no tweeters in there.
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This x 1000000!! I bought my '10 as a CPO and to be honest, I was so focused on the other options that I never even thought about checking out the sound system. It never crossed my mind that BMW would put such a lackluster system in a $60k+ vehicle so I stupidly never even tried it out before buying (duh). Boy, was I wrong about that. My wife has a 3 series with the Logic7 system which sounds great compared to the base system I had. But seriously, BMW?