finally: MB Quart review (sorry for long delay) :(
 

Hey everyone-

Please accept my apology for this belated and long-awaited review of my relatively newly-installed MB Quart speakers (including the mids). I've been doing a lot of travelling in betwen my part-time law firm work this summer, and finally just had a moment to sit and write a brief piece about the speakers.

DISCLAIMER: while I like to consider myself a true audiophile, I think my intermediate/advanced knowledge of audio equipemnt renders me more along the lines of "audio enthusiast." Just something to keep in mind when reading this. Oh and another thing: I usually listen to trance/electronica, flamenco, persian/arabic, and certainly a good helping of hip hop. Now and then I'll put on some baroque or classical music as well. My priority is audio FIDELITY -- clarity -- and second is a desire to crank up the volume, but I do not need to "BUMP" to the point of holding a block party with my car lol.

Simply put, when I first tried the speakers, my breath that I'd been holding as I waited for the music to start playing never really let out with the satisfaction I was hoping for ... while they definitely seemed to sound a bit less muffled, it wasn't the day/night experience I was anticipating.

Nonetheless, I continued listening to them and kept trying different types of music.

And that's when it struck me: my older iPod music had been unintelligently sampled ussing AAC @ 128 kbit/sec. So I quickly switched over to MP3 @ 192 kbps and even CD audio, and then FM and XM.

And I'm pleased to announce that yes indeed, there is a day and night difference after all :)

The mids and highs are brilliantly clear. In my opinion, the best type of music to showcase these speakers -- any audio setup?! -- is spanish flamenco music, especially the more modern "nouveau flamenco" genre. Similarly, arabic and/or Persian music is particularly good as well and reveal the brilliant detail the speakers are capable of producing.

Curiously, such a good demonstration also reveals the peculiar -- understandable? -- shortcoming of the speakers: while being brilliant at reproducing the mids and highs, they produce virtually NO low-end sound at all, except, curiously, with a few audio sources, most notably and curiously, FM radio. Solution? I've been saving up for get a good sub unit installed at the end of the summer to complete the package.

Another bit worthy of mention: 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. This seems to be the case as the audio quality is crystal clear (again, for mids and highs) so long as you do not crank the radio up to high: then you start to get distortion, which I would PRESUME to be caused by the amp rather than the speakers.

Anyway, Micah if you're reading this, thank you so much for all your advice, everything you said was spot on. To anyone considering buying these speakers, my advice is simple:

YES, get them ... but be advised you WILL want to add a sub down the road.

I plan to do so within a month, and I will certainly let you know how it turns out as soon as I do.

Please let me know if you have any questions; if you're in the SF, LA, or SD area and would like to meet up and sample the speakers in person, I'd be happy to oblige you. I'll be in LA in 2 weeks for my bday and back in SD after the 15th of August.

--Marc :)

Good review! We have MB Quarts as well with our DSP system. Nothing but audio pleasure. Just remember, the sound will free up even more once the speakers are broken in ;).

no way? so you mean it's not just my imagination that they've started sounding better during this past month?!?! i was about to mention something about that but sounded kinda dumb writing it -- thought for SURE it was my imagination!! EXPLAIN!!!!! :)

There is such a thing as break-in! The speaker surrounds, which is usually rubber (sometimes a composite used these days), connects the cone to the speaker basket. It's usually pretty stiff from the factory. imo, it usually takes a week or so depending on the speaker and how you use it. Just vary the types of music and volume, and don't crank it up too much initially. Heavy heavy bass at high volumes- not a good idea for break-in.

interesting!!

question though: at a certain frequency, i hear a bit of "buzzing," sort of like a resonance. however, it SEEMS to be coming from only one speaker .. i can't be sure. any thoughts?

I might just take you up on that if you don't mind marc. Will be in SD in early Sept and I have a local (here) installer researching the installation..........

Let me chime in here again about the BSW speaker upgrade - if you really like crystal clear sound and cannot live without your tunes - this is the best mod for your X - I had BSW install the upgrade,sub w/amp, and IceLink in my '06 (vs BMW Premium Sound Package) - well worth the price IMHO - I'd be doing it in the '01, if I wasn't planning on selling it.

burkleymh , you mentioned you got the Sub, is it something you can remove if you need the cargo space? Does it chew up a lot of room? I have the BSW MB Quarts now but I really want the sub as well. Just don't want some big old box in the cargo area - of course having good sound... And I like what the speaker upgrade did for the sound quality too.

Marc - GREAT review. This is on my short list of mods as well.

Mike

I've had a set of MBquarts in my 06 for two weeks now. While I'm happy with the much better definition and detail there is significantly less bottom end/bass than there was with the stock speakers. I'm hoping they will loosen up with use as people say. They have had at least 20 hours so far.

The bass issue should be fixed by a Sub. I fold the seats down a lot so waiting for someone to develop an enclosure to fit in the void for the DSP sub.

What really bugs me is that considering the cost of the X5 in Australia, the stock sound system is of such an average sound quality.

Chris

I was wondering if you played MP3s sampled at 192kbps with the old speakers as well, or only 128kbps AAC files? If not, then that probably explains why you had the day/night experience after playing the 192kbps files and not before. I'm in LA and definitely would love to hear how the speakers compare to the stock ones. I play only files that are 192kbps and up and I think the stock speakers aren't that bad if you have the DSP set properly. When will you be here in LA and where in LA will you be?

Hey everyone-

I'm glad to see my little review was at least somewhat informative. To answer a few of the questoins:

(1) while I never listened to 192 kbps music with the stock speakers, I DID used to listen to CD-audio now and then and certainly the radio; and I can say that these speakers DEFINITELY improved on boht CD-audio and radio as well, not to mention XM

(2) I'll necessarily be in LA *NEXT* weekend (22-24) for my birthday, and MAYBE this coming weekend (14-17). This weekend I'd be staying in Beverly Hills and next weekend I'd (most likely) be staying in the Valley (Tarzana).

Quick question, guys: How do you change your Ipod to play from 128kbp to 196kbp? Another one is that I have a 60Gb Video Ipod and at roughly two thousand songs, it took up 12.6 Gb of hard drive space. I know the Nano 4 Gb can hold up to 1000 songs. Am I doing something wrong or is there a compression feature that I did not activate? Most of my songs were converted to ACC file using the Itune software.

Justin.

It's IN the iTunes software. Set Quality to Highest. But if the file's already been compressed, you are out of luck, you have to re-burn it.

If you get the song from iTunes it's NOT at highest, but some places were selling better-quality songs.

Thanks Ken,

Justin.

Thanks for the review Marc!