BSW/MBquart install Aussie delivery 3.0d

[chris_barry]

I've owned my 06 3.0d for about a month. I was dissappointed with the stock sound system, especially considering the cost of the X5. My problems with the stock system was a lack of good bass, and a really annoying problem with what sounded like cone resonance in the mid range frequencies. This resonance would muddy anything but the simplest of music.

My previous car was a 00 SAAB 9-5 aero wagon. It has a Harmon Kardon tweeked system with a sub and was the best stock sound system I've ever had. I was really happy with the system in the SAAB.

Within a week of owning the X5 I ordered a BSW MB quart upgrade with their Midrange drivers.

I went to install it today and found the instructions good. I installed the mids at the windscreen base first and had a listen. They make a remarkable difference, and removed the cone resonance. By themselves they would be a worthwhile investment and take only a few minutes to install.

Next was the installations in the doors. You need to be careful when prising the door panel free so you dont yank the wire to the door handle light and break the clear plastic "light tube". I also found the centre mounting point was easier to put back together if I removed the black plastic part that remained on the door back into the door panel before reassembly.

One big surprise is the my car doesnt have any tweeters in the doors like the instructions suggested. There were yellow wires with red/brown stripes on each door. I checked with a multimeter and even an oscilliscope and found no signal on the wires at all. My car must have a basic sound system or perhaps the 06 has a more basic setup than other years.

I decided to fit the MB quart bass/midrange drivers and then experimented with front door tweeters. I found by temp wiring the MBquart crossover that the main door speaker hadnt had the tweeter signals filtered out so I mounted the crossovers above the speakers and connected up the tweeters. After listening to a lot of my favourite music I settled on the -3db setting for the tweeter. When combined with the mids on the dash the top end was overpowering on the 0db setting.

So how does it sound. I did some listening before I replaced the rear door speakers and was surprised that the original BMW speakers had a stronger bass and deeper bass. I thought that this could be due to different sensitivies of the drivers, and that I also hadnt refitted the front door panels so there would be some bass sound cancelling from the back side of the speakers. With the MB quarts installed all round the sound was much more accurate and I was able to hear detail in voices and instruments that I had missed since I got the X5. The only dissappointment is that the lower bass has been reduced vs the BMW speakers. Maybe the speakers surrounds will free up with use, but it may be a limitation of the smaller cones of the MBquart drivers.

Next step is to get some mounting hardware for the rear tweeters as my door panels have no cutout for tweeters.

Thanks also to BSW for putting together a good kit. I hope they produce a subwoofer kit soon that fits into the side of the trunk where the DSP sub would normally go.

Chris.