[lucysparabola]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

This is adequate for a quick and easy look at what a system is doing:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....audioanalyzer

Use the Spectrum Analyzer function, C Weighting, Slow Weighting. You can use a pink noise CD for a source, but there's no need for that. Pink noise replicates typical music content, so real music content works just as well.

Without seeing frequency response, polar plots and THD measurements for both there's no way of knowing. But there's no reason to expect it to be the case. Neither is a five dollar piece of kit.

link is broken?

thanks to all. really really helpful.

[Billfitz]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....audioanalyzer

[lucysparabola]

So - just so I can clarify this from your posts that I've researched Bill - your professional opinion is that most (if not all) aftermarket speakers are not upgrades whatsoever? We can disregard the BimmerTech, Bavsound stuff as that I understand - but I'm talking like Focal ES100K components, Morel CDM 700, Dynaudio Esotec, etc - these fit in that category for you as well?

I grasp that the amp & subs are the weak points in the BMW systems as you've written. I'm just trying to further grasp that all of those levels of options I've listed are nowhere near worth upgrading to.

edit: the argument in my head I had about this this morning, is this -

We can go and buy a BMW and an American made performance equivalent, for the sake of discussion. But we both know that there are varying levels of build quality between a BMW and the American counterpart that make us choose BMW. I'm trying to see if there are similar arguments to be made with car audio pieces, or if this is just not a valid way to look at it as the latter is far less complex. I hope this makes sense.

[Billfitz]

There's only so much you can do with a four inch speaker, and the OEM speakers are doing it. They come out of the Harmon stable. So do JBL, Infinity, B&O, Mark Levinson and Revel. Why one would assume that BMW speakers don't meet Harmon standards is just plain silly. Yes, there are speakers that are very low on the quality scale. They cost $20 or less. In terms of the best you can get from a four inch speaker that comes in around $40. You can spend more, a lot more, but you won't get enough from that expenditure to make it worthwhile. That includes the OEM speakers, their prices are far higher than they should be, but almost everything on a BMW is priced higher than it should be. One thing that drives the price up is their unique connections and frame configuration. It's expensive to tool up for speakers that only fit one brand of car. Why they didn't use a standard 4 or 4.5 inch configuration makes no sense, so the beancounters must have been responsible for that decision.

[lucysparabola]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

There's only so much you can do with a four inch speaker, and the OEM speakers are doing it. They come out of the Harmon stable. So do JBL, Infinity, B&O, Mark Levinson and Revel. Why one would assume that BMW speakers don't meet Harmon standards is just plain silly. Yes, there are speakers that are very low on the quality scale. They cost $20 or less. In terms of the best you can get from a four inch speaker that comes in around $40. You can spend more, a lot more, but you won't get enough from that expenditure to make it worthwhile. That includes the OEM speakers, their prices are far higher than they should be, but almost everything on a BMW is priced higher than it should be. One thing that drives the price up is their unique connections and frame configuration. It's expensive to tool up for speakers that only fit one brand of car. Why they didn't use a standard 4 or 4.5 inch configuration makes no sense, so the beancounters must have been responsible for that decision.

really interesting stuff. OK, much appreciated. I'll settle in with the Match7 tuned + Earthquakes when they arrive next week and find an OEM replacement for that mid.

last thing. I have seen reference from you regarding adding crossovers to the HiFi system - do I have this right? Is there a tutorial somewhere for it? I swore I saw a diagram and had it pinned in Chrome but now I can't locate it.

[lucysparabola]

Originally Posted by dangerus_car

i just asked the same question a week ago, check my post here

the AudioFrog guide in this link is incredibly helpful and interesting. thank you. I'm learning how much I have no idea what I am even talking about with audio tuning now lol.

[Billfitz]

This is at least the fourth thread I've posted this in. It might even be further back in this one:

The original OEM setup doesn’t have crossovers between the midranges and tweeters. It only has a cheap NPE capacitor that keeps the midrange out of the tweeters. It doesn’t do a very good job of it, leading to distortion. There’s no filtering on the midranges to keep the high frequencies out of them, so literally a quarter of the high frequencies are lost going to the midranges that can't reproduce them.

This third order high pass filter is sixteen times more effective than a single capacitor in blocking midrange from the tweeters.



The low pass filter is second order. By using a third order high pass with a second order low pass polarity issues are avoided.



These are the parts:

8.2uf cap: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...acitor-027-426

20uF cap: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...acitor-027-436

0.1mH coil: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...r-Coil-257-020

0.2mH coil: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...r-Coil-257-024

These filters tap into the wiring to the drivers. The tweeters normally plug into the midranges, so you have to create a ‘Y’ in the wire leading to each midrange. One leg of the wire goes to the low pass filter and then to the midrange, the other goes to the high pass filter and then to the tweeter. The capacitor on the factory wire between the midrange and tweeter is discarded. The components can be hot melt glued and plastic zip tied to perf boards for placement in the doors.
https://www.parts-express.com/Red-Pe....5-x-5-260-180

[dufreyne]

Originally Posted by johnung

Match 7DSP (for the BMW base audio system)

Hi all, I'm trying to follow tips from @johnung for F34 Base Audio upgrade (from the first page): Match 7DSP + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5

Seems like an issue here: the underseat subwoofers get no separate power, instead simply connected together with the midranges, is that right?
The manual requires connecting those separately via System Connector 2, but according to the setup (Match 7DSP7 + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5), only System Connector 1 is used!

Any help/advice, please?

[johnung]

Originally Posted by dufreyne

Hi all, I'm trying to follow advices from @johnung for F34 Base Audio upgrade:

Match 7DSP + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5

Not sure about proper connection of the subwoofers: the manual requires connecting those separately via System Connector 2, but according to the setup (Match 7DSP7 + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5, only System Connector 1 is used!

Any help/advice, please?

I’m in the middle of a busy day right now so I won’t have a chance to look at wiring connections in detail until later. Usually there’s some confusion because documentation typically shows two options to choose from:
A) use existing car speaker wiring, or
B) run new wires from the amp to the speakers.

Reusing the BMW wire to the door speakers is fine. Apparently the BMW Base Audio system uses pretty thin gauge wire the the underseat subwoofers, and the new amp puts much higher power to the subwoofers. So ideally new wire would be run from the amplifier to the underseat subwoofer locations. I used 14 gauge twisted speaker wire for this. A 25ft spool was really cutting it close so I’d suggest buying a longer length.

I highly recommend replacing stock 6.5” subs with 8” Earthquake SWS-8Xi (2-ohm) subwoofers with a pair of Earthquake 8” spacer rings (Part# R8-SWS). Billfitz has posted repeatedly about these Earthquakes being the only subs on the market with the specs to sound good in the small BMW speaker cabinets. Don’t believe marketing hype about other subs.

Note: BMW uses the same size subwoofer cabinet to hold 6.5” subs in the Base audio system and the 8” subs in the HiFi and Harman Kardon systems. So you can replace a 6.5” sub with an 8” sub in the same cabinet.

TIP: Sometimes stock subs are glued into the plastic underseat subwoofer cabinet. Remove the entire cabinet and place it in the freezer for maybe a hour. The glue becomes brittle so a plastic trim tool can be used to work around the edge of the stock subwoofer to pop it out of the cabinet.

I have these Earthquakes in my car and they totally changed my car’s audio. Family/friends thought I had replaced my entire system when I swapped in the Earthquakes with an amplifier that could power them (like the Match 7DSP or the Match 7BMW in BMW HiFi Audio system models). In the US, I’ve seen Earthquakes available direct and discounted on Amazon, eBay, ECS. They are available in Europe also. Links below.

EARTHQUAKE SWS-8Xi (2-ohm)
https://www.earthquakesound.com/inde...rs/item/sws8xi

EARTHQUAKE SPACER RINGS (sold by the pair)
https://www.earthquakesound.com/inde...ies/item/r8sws

Earthquake Sound in Europe
http://www.earthquakesound.eu/

[dufreyne]

Can't appreciate enough your detailed answers, johnung! I've already bought those woofers, but I don't really need the rings because I found these nice adapters here in Europe.

Basically I'm going to
1. Upgrade all midranges to HK + HK tweeters + Earthquake Subwoofers, using existing wires.
2. Match 7DSP + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5 as displayed on the picture above. Maybe someone can shed some light why this method uses System Connector 1, not both here.

Also I wonder if MATCH PP 62DSP can be used here for the Base Audio, it's ~270 EUR cheaper than Match 7DSP (800 EUR)
The key difference according to their table is less output power: 4x45W+4x40W vs 5x80W+2x160W which is fine if using existent wires and worse if using separate woofer cables?
(I'm a complete newbie to car audio)

Thanks!

[johnung]

Originally Posted by dufreyne

Can't appreciate enough your detailed answers, johnung! I've already bought those woofers, but I don't really need the rings because I found these nice adapters here in Europe.

Basically I'm going to
1. Upgrade all midranges to HK + HK tweeters + Earthquake Subwoofers, using existing wires.
2. Match 7DSP + PP-AC13a + PP-ISO 5 as displayed on the picture above. Maybe someone can shed some light why this method uses System Connector 1, not both here.

Also I wonder if MATCH PP 62DSP can be used here for the Base Audio, it's almost 200 EUR cheaper than Match 7DSP

Actually you would still need the Earthquake R8-SWS spacer rings. They perform two functions:

1) Spacer rings adjust the mounting height of the Earthquake SWS-8Xi (2-ohm) subwoofers inside the plastic BMW subwoofer cabinet. See photo for height difference.

2) Spacer rings have built-in spring loaded speaker wire connectors/posts. The actual speakers have smallish spade connections underneath. The two wires from the spacer rings form a strong connection with matching spade connectors.

If you use the wiring harness adapter at the link that you posted, it would be simple to connect their loose wires directly to the spacer’s spring loaded posts. Rigging spade connectors and probably longer wire lengths from the harness adapter wouldn’t be as reliable of a connection.

You may want to go back and reread Billfitz’s concerns about the thin gauge of the BMW wire that feeds the underseat subwoofers in the Base Audio System being inadequate when the upgraded amplifier puts 150 watts at 2-ohms through it.

It’s really best to install new thicker gauge speaker wire to the underseat subwoofer locations. (I used 14 gauge) The car’s interior trim pieces are very simple to remove. Interior pieces already need to be removed to run the Match cable harness from the Match amplifier location in the left trunk alcove up the left side to the BMW head unit in the dash. So it’s simple to run a new speaker wire to the left underseat subwoofer location. It would only take removing a few more interior pieces to run new speaker wire over to the right subwoofer location.

I haven’t looked at the specs on the lower end Match amplifier in detail to understand how it differs from the 7DSP. Two things jump out at me:

1) It does NOT have the two separate high power channels to feed the two underseat subwoofers! Besides the advanced DSP, this is the feature that makes the Match 10DSP, Match 7BMW and Match 7DSP amplifiers sound so great as BMW upgrades.

2) it would have one less channel which would eliminate the ability to add a center channel with midrange & tweeter. There are probably other differences as well.

Note: The BMW HiFi system has a center channel midrange speaker, and the Harman Kardon system has both a midrange & tweeter for its center channel. I’m sure the speaker bracket that holds them fits the Base Audio cars and it may already be in place in the dash.

Hope this helps!

[dufreyne]

1. I'm going to use the existing wires before buying/installing the amp. I've got those rings to use for height (as you said) but why can't I use the mentioned adapter to connect the speaker directly to the bmw harness? Further question: new 14g twisted cables should go directly to the amp to the "System Connector 2"?

2. If you think that 7DSP will be better than 62DSP for my needs, I'll go for 7DSP then.

Thanks again!

[johnung]

Originally Posted by dufreyne

1. I'm going to use the existing wires before buying/installing the amp. I've got those rings to use for height (as you said) but why can't I use the mentioned adapter to connect the speaker directly to the bmw harness? Further question: new 14g twisted cables should go directly to the amp to the "System Connector 2"?

2. If you think that 7DSP will be better than 62DSP for my needs, I'll go for 7DSP then.

Thanks again!

If you intend to try using existing wires then you would use your adapter AND the Earthquake spacer rings. See diagram that I drew in attached photo.
Match 7DSP amplifier is far superior for your needs. Well worth it.
I’ll try to look at wiring specifics later when I’m not on the run

[dufreyne]

Thanks, I can do it but actually the adapter cables are long enough (see photo 1)

One more question, bought 4 HK midrange speakers on ebay and 2 of them are having some dents in the center of the white plastic piece, is that a big deal? (see photo 2)

Thanks again

[Billfitz]

Those dents probably won't have any effect.

[meyer1son]

Originally Posted by Billfitz

This is at least the fourth thread I've posted this in. It might even be further back in this one:

The original OEM setup doesn’t have crossovers between the midranges and tweeters. It only has a cheap NPE capacitor that keeps the midrange out of the tweeters. It doesn’t do a very good job of it, leading to distortion. There’s no filtering on the midranges to keep the high frequencies out of them, so literally a quarter of the high frequencies are lost going to the midranges that can't reproduce them.

This third order high pass filter is sixteen times more effective than a single capacitor in blocking midrange from the tweeters.



The low pass filter is second order. By using a third order high pass with a second order low pass polarity issues are avoided.



These are the parts:

8.2uf cap: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...acitor-027-426

20uF cap: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...acitor-027-436

0.1mH coil: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...r-Coil-257-020

0.2mH coil: https://www.parts-express.com/Dayton...r-Coil-257-024

These filters tap into the wiring to the drivers. The tweeters normally plug into the midranges, so you have to create a ‘Y’ in the wire leading to each midrange. One leg of the wire goes to the low pass filter and then to the midrange, the other goes to the high pass filter and then to the tweeter. The capacitor on the factory wire between the midrange and tweeter is discarded. The components can be hot melt glued and plastic zip tied to perf boards for placement in the doors.
https://www.parts-express.com/Red-Pe....5-x-5-260-180

Is this a substantial improvement over oem setup?

[Billfitz]

The OEM setup is garbage. It's unconscionable.

[dufreyne]

Billfitz, maybe (in order to simplify connecting HK speakers) it may be worth trying using this cheap Y cable and cut it in two pieces with loose ends:

1. With male connector (to go to the midrange), loose end connects to the low pass filter.
2. With female connector (for twitter), loose end connects to the high pass filter

Any chance buy those filters already soldered?

[Billfitz]

You could do that. I used the existing connectors. There's no source for my crossovers, it's my own design. Soldering isn't difficult. The main rule is to heat the joint and apply solder to it, not the other way around. I bet there's a hundred youtube videos on soldering. For instance:

[dufreyne]

"The capacitor on the factory wire between the midrange and tweeter is discarded."
Should it be removed or simply ignored?

I believe this is the right setup for 2 front doors?

Thanks a lot.

[Billfitz]

Throw it away. You may find sources for the components more local to you, they just need the same specs. I'd use separate boards for the low pass and high pass, putting them both on the same board can lead to confusion.

[dufreyne]

Right, I need 4 boards. Actually this is the local website (EU-based in Netherlands). Prices are basically the same as at parts-express