Getting slowly tired about the sound quality of the stock DSP

[///Manuel]

My E36 M3 had the H/K premium sound system and sounded like crap in just about the same way that the X5 sounds. Poor bass, muffled sound, not clear or very detailed, the sound has no volume (doesn't fill the car) and is not well balanced.

I upgraded the head unit with an Alpine CDA-7894 (with pre-amp) and the sound quality improvement was simply amazing, I wouldn't need anything better. Cost of the upgrade $200.

Now regarding the X5, it looks like it's not that easy. The first thing I found out is that a speaker upgrade would help. But in the M3 scenario the poor sound wasn't due to the quality of the speakers but to the poor head unit, isn't it the same in the X5?

I really would hate throwing $500 on speakers and still have a level of unclear, busy sound where the lows, mids and highs all seem to interfere with each other. Or are the M3 speakers that much better than the M5, and the X5 unit better than the M3's?

EDIT: I just found the following quote browing through threads, which would explain some of my comments above; "I agree with the general consensus that the bottleneck in our audio systems (at least he non-DSP systems) is *MOSTLY* the speakers, and not so much the head unit."

[Wagner]

Try looking into a plug and play 10 or 12" sub.

[streetsoffire]

The X5 is a SAV, not a Club. It should sound like a SAV. I think the speakers are more than enough.

[///Manuel]

My stock Explorer from 92 with premium sound has a better sound quality. How can that be possible?

> Try looking into a plug and play 10 or 12" sub.
How would that affect sound quality? I don't want more bass really simply better quality.

[zerochief]

I upgraded my dsp with BSW MB quarts w/ mids and a mtx/pioneer stealth sub setup - about $800 total. SOUNDS MUCH BETTER! That was the 1st mod I did to my X.

[///Manuel]

Then you modulate the bass level through the regular interface?

[Quicksilver]

Just a few thoughts about the X5 Sound system.

Originally Posted by Acezoned

i think it's fine and i spend many hours the studio producing. DSP with Icelink and the correct settings you can live with it.

If your doing the studio thing then we are on the same page regarding the DSP thing. I have often said that it depends on what you listen to in the X5. I have an Eric Benet/Terry Dexter-buttered soul remix "Spend my life with you". That single sounds so good in the X that it's hard to believe it's the same system when i play other mixes. There are other selections that stand out also but i have been use to listening to music from a flat freq response for a long time so i have gotten used to what the X5 is gonna do with different music. The ears also play a part

Originally Posted by Acezoned

Exactly, bad in bad out. The crap you get off the internet is all over the map. Lame uploads and the music companies are spending millions of dollars putting bogus files out there to mess with you. You're getting songs in various bit rates that between the eq on ipod, eq in car, dsp, soundcheck setting in ipod and compressed bit rates at likely various levels you're getting a messy output.
Limewire is contributing to killing the music business and is loaded with spyware and usage tracking agents.
Save the music business, you'll thank us later.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bsws-mobile-e...t=audio+system

[zerochief]

Originally Posted by ///Manuel

Then you modulate the bass level through the regular interface?

I use a remote bass level controller for the MTX amp