BSW Amplifier Upgrade Kit
 

Does anyone know when this amp kit will finally be available? My oem amp is defective, and i really dont want to buy a new one if the bsw amp will be coming out soon

That is a good question. I have been waiting on this amp for over a year now. Well, not actually waiting as I gave up on it long ago. It would be nice if BSW would share ANY kind of information.

I emailed them 10/12/2010 and they said it was still a couple months away.

So hopefully that will become my christmas present!

I have a question regarding sound quality and different components. If I purchase one of those hualigan/dynavin/ euro version of head units they make for the x5, is there still a need for the factory amp? I know that those aftermarket head units are supposed to slightly increase sound quality and increase the watts per channel, but so does the BSW Amplifier. Basically if i purchase one of those head-units and the BSW Amplifier as well, will that be overkill? Will the Hualigan units and the one from tv-in-motion.uk recognize the BSW amplifier?

My AVIC installation made the sound of the stock speakers far better than they were before, so instead of spending money on a "BSW" amp (probably relabeled Alpine anyways), just get an aftermarket deck like one of the ones you mentioned, then hop onto the subwoofer enclosure thread if you're looking to add some bass to your setup.

Yeah I dont think i wanna drop $700 for an amp, i'll probably wait until the one from uk comes out. As far as bass goes, i have a 12" Orion HCCCA 3000W sub, so im good on that lol. But is there a difference in sound quality from the subwoofer when I get that new head unit? Right not i have one of those $10 line out converters. The signal is tapped from one of the rear speakers. Bass sounds really good and i had this setup for a few years.

Having an RCA signal will have a higher line voltage output, so you'll have a cleaner signal and can turn down the gains a little, cleaning up the noise as well. Plus a dedicated subwoofer-out from the deck will mean you can turn it off, adjust the frequency and level on the fly without it affecting the stock speakers. The only downside if using converters is that if you crank the bass on the deck, you increase the chance of distortion from the stock little speakers, but you won't notice it since it's downed out from the subwoofer. For the sake of testing, crank the bass on your current setup, turn it up to a good level that isn't quite distoring, then unplug your sub...I'll bet your stock speakers will sound like crap from working harder than they were designed to for those frequencies, but you never noticed it.

Yeah i know what you mean. I have rca's going from the converter to a bass knob in the front of the car, the other rca's from the bass knob go to the sub amp. I can turn the sub up or down without affecting the speakers but I bet I could control the sub better with one of those head units. If the signal is cleaner from the head unit that will give me tighter bass.

That's good you've got the knob. I've got adjustments on both the deck and the knob, but the knob is so much easier since it's mounted between the seat and the tranny tunnel. The el-cheapo setup in my other truck is like I was referring to where I have to turn up the bass everywhere in order to get more sound from the sub.

Yes. Unless you want to rewire your connections (not worth it IMHO). By the way the current models only work with non-DSP systems. The one being created by tv-in-motion may support DSP.

No. If the head unit is connected to the factory amp then the head unit's power is not used. The head unit will only supply a signal to the amp.

Now we are getting back on topic! BSW has not shared all the specs on this amp. I believe it will work with DSP systems. I am unsure if it works with aftermarket systems. Their main motivation for creating this amp is for owners that want to keep everything stock but want a better amp than the factory one.