BSW sub and amps installation

[chris_barry]

I've just installed my BSW sub along with the sub amp and a second amp for the door speakers. Thought that people would be interested in my installation as I had to make some brackets to fit two amps in the LH compartment.

Equipment installed incrementally is

BSW mids
BSW stage 1 MBquarts
BSW Sub and 200w amp
BSW supplied 4 channel amp 200w

I've had the mids and stage 1 in for some months. Latest upgrade is the sub and amps.

Background, my car is a 3.0d australian delivery with the very basic 6 speaker setup. This is similar to the Euro system with no external amp. I was pretty dissappointed in this sound esp considering what they charge for the X5 in australia. I decided to use BSW components as I like to support businesses who support communities like X5 world. Micah was very helpful with my questions and they have a good reputation on X5 world.

First upgrade was the BSW mids. These made a dramatic difference to the stock system and I would recommend them as mandatory for anyone who listens to anything but AM radio. In terms of value for money you cant beat them.

Next upgrade was the MBquart stage 1. My car didnt have any tweeters in the front doors so I installed the MBQ tweeters and crossovers in the front doors, and the mid/bass in the rear doors. Have to get some bezels for the rear door tweeters in the future. I set the front door tweeters to the -3db setting.

At this point, the sound was much better without the boomy noise of the stock drivers. Definition was much better but the lower frequencies were pretty much missing. I also got the impression that the stock head units amps were overworked resulting in muddy sound as the volume increased.

After some discussion with BSW I decided to upgrade power to the MBQs. Fortunately they also released the BSW sub at the same time, so I decided to install both amps and the sub at the same time.

BSW provided a plug and play cable which went between the head unit and standard loom. This made breaking out the speaker outputs to the rear of car easy, and also the return to the original loom. No cutting or shutting was required.

Mounting the BSW sub was easy. I did have to bend up some device which was on a bracket behind the lining so the sub could slide into place. Also bent the mounting bracket slightly so the sub enclosure wasnt touching the inside of the cars outer skin.



Next was the task of mounting the amps. I removed all the brackets in the electronics enclosure as I dont have Nav, TV or CD stackers. I found I could just fit the larger 4 channel amp behind the phone ULF on the back of the bracket. I had to mount the amp slightly skew to fit. I then made a bracket to mount the sub amp which I riveted in place. I made sure I could get to all the adjustments on the amps easily.

Once everything was in place it was time to tune and listen.

I ran up the 4 channel amp first. The door speakers output was immediately much better than with the stock head unit amp. There was no muffling with increased volume and no distortion at normal listening volumes. I set the amp for a 60hz high pass in preparation for the sub. This helped as well as the mid/bass MBQs seemed to be happier without the lower frequencies.

Next was the sub. What a difference it made. Suddenly all the low frequency detail on by CD's was back. The sub has a remarkable sound for its size. I found that I couldnt tell the difference between the cover on/off.

Summary - there is still some tuning to do once the sub breaks in but I'm finally thrilled with the sound in my X5. thanks to BSW and Micah for all their help putting the system together and for their support of the BSW community.