Upgrade Recommendations
 

I have a Pioneer AVIC-D1 head unit and have decided to upgrade the rest of my stereo system. My budget is $2,500 installed. I will do a subwoofer with fiberglass enclosure in the right rear well with an amp for the subwoofer in the left rear well. Should I also consider replacing the stock speakers and stock amp? The stock system is not DSP. Very interested in specific components, brands, etc. Any suggestions would be appreciated. FYI - my like my music crisp and detailed.

Well, crisp and detailed are often euphemisms for bright. I don't do bright much. I prefer smooth and warm.

JL Audio "slash" amps are good, as are DLS, Genesis, Brax, and Zapco.

For what you're describing you might like Focal or Rainbow. I think you would like Dynaudio or Morel or DLS (because I think everyone would with exposure), but they're not bright. I know Dynaudio can it and sound amazing.

I am not a big fan of Diamond Audio.

Budget does play a role, along with what fits. Are you having this professionally installed, I presume? And are you doing the rear doors?

I would say that a DLS UP6 set in the front, a set of M6 in the rear, and the MW110, powered by a CA41 and a CA21 should work very well and be installable in that budget.

When I used the terms "crisp" and "detailed" I was trying to contrast from "muddy" and "boomy." Thanks for the input and yes it will be professionally installed.

OK, got it.

Figure $500 to $700 for the fiberglass enclosure for a 10 that fits behind the door.

I'd figure $300 for the front and rear comps.

If your amps fit under the load floor, and they install them the way we did, then figure $250-400 depending on the lengths they go to to make the amp deck easily removeable for service.

So that's around $1400 of your $2500 budget. That leaves $1100 for gear.

DLS MW110 is a $170 woofer.

The UP6 are a $400 component set.

One kink is you can't easily use a 5-channel amp under the floor there because of the depressed circle the amps have to fit in with the screw down in the center. No long or large-footprint amps.

So a DLS CA41 is 50x4 and the 21 is like 200W mono. I'd rather use the reference series - better sounding, and flatter in form for better clearance- but they push us over the budget about $400.

As always, NOT doing rear speakrs would give you a lot better sound in front. any chance of that?

I am alone in my car 90% of the time so rear speakers would not be important if the main purpose of the rear speakers is for back seat passengers. El-Duderino, one last request, if the shop I have been working with cannot get DLS (and they really do not want to install products I buy on my own), from the lines they do carry (MB Quart, Zapco, FOCAL, DyneAudio -these are the other ones you suggested), what would be your thoughts. I truly appreciate your input.

Happy to help.

OK, without rear speakers, that's a big plus for your sound quality.

I'd use a Zapco 360.4 amp to run the speakers.

For a sub, of the lines you mention, the only one making any subs of consequence is Focal, and I don't have any experience with them.

OK, what I would do is use a Dynaudio System 240 GT in the front. The MW160GT woofers fit with a hiar of trimming into the BMW speaker spacer frames. The tweeters fit in the top of the dash very well, and they play a lot of upper midrange so you get a very good front stage. Don't listen to any stuff about how the mid shouldn't be too far from the tweeter. Theoretically that's true, but they also shouldnt be too far apart, and the lesser evil is to have a tweeter like the Dyne playing lots of vocals as far forward as possible filling the center. (Don't do this with Focal - tweets aren't going to perform the same way.)

Then I'd use a good 10" sub. They probably have someone else besides those for subs, but I know Focal makes some, I just don't know if you can get one around $200 that's any good. The Dyne subs don't play loud enough.

You should be able to get all that installed for about $2500 - depending on the labor.

What shop are you working with, and where? I'd be happy to talk them through OEM HU integration if they aren't conversant with it (and if they try to sell you on some kind of LOC, I really want to talk to them).

One last question. Would the Zapco amp you suggested run the front speakers and the subwoofer. If not, what amp for the subwoofer would you suggest? With respect to you last offer of help, no integration with the OEM unit will be necessary as I have already pulled the stock head unit and replaced it with a Pioneer AVIC-D1 navigation head unit.

Sorry, I didn't provide much detail there.

That is a 4-channel amp that can bridge to three channels, with 50 x 2 for the front and 180 x 1 for the sub. It would run the entire speaker complement. If your dealer tries to run any rear door speakers off of the head unit amp, resist.

If you have the AVIC-D1, consider popping for the Zapco Symbilink Transmitter up front. Your deck lacks the stronger "4V" preamp outputs and I suspect that in the X5 you would benefit from a stronger, balanced signal run.

Hey Berm -

Love to see some pics of the D1 installed. Did you get it custom or did you end up using a dash kit ?

Custom IMO looks the cleanest yet I don't know how well a D1 would fit in a X....I've seen pics floating around of double dins in 3'series and even with the vent work done, half of them are bumped out past the dash that it doesn't look good IMO. However, a think a D1 done right should look pretty damm sweet :thumbup:

-alan

The 3 has a big barrier behind the indash HU location (the OEM nav only has a single DIN's worth of rear protrusion). The X has a huge cavity with no barriers.

But I have seen pics of 2DIN installs in the 3 where they re-molded the ductwork behind and flushed it in (by Street Effectz in NJ).