11-25-2020, 01:29 PM | #1 |
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If you were cursed with the base audio system then like me you might of heard something like “this is as loud as it gets?”. Well I took that personally and instantly I felt the need to do something about it. My first vehicle ever had a decent aftermarket audio system in it and since then I’ve had 2 other vehicles with lousy stock audio system. It was time for some change, and for such a capable platform, I decided to dive into my first big project on my x5d. Addressing that damn LOUSY "base” audio system. Stock system has two 4" speakers upfront in parallel with the underseat 6.5" woofers, then two 4" midranges in the rear with no amplifier. Not sure the power rating but it’s not a lot. The original plan was to add just an amp for the door speakers, new 4" midranges, add tweeters in the front/rear then a sub in the trunk, eliminating the underseat woofer... once I did that I realized I had this massive gap in my bass, mid-bass, and low midrange region that was unacceptable. The 4" speakers couldn't play low enough to crossover with the sub and I didn't want my sub playing any higher than 80hz... So you’re kind of stuck with using the 8” underseats (which you’ll find is actually better). So I found an audio-control dm-810 for a good price and started there. With 10 output channels now available to use and tweak I used all 10 channels. Anyways, here’s how the build sits now... Speaker specs:
Amplifier specs:
DSP specs: Audiocontrol DM-810 with 10 output channels configured as: - Ch. 1-2: front door speakers - Ch. 3-4: rear door speakers - Ch. 5-6: d-pillar speakers - Ch. 7-8: underseat woofers (stereo) - Ch. 9-10: trunk subwoofer (mono) Listening impressions edited (5/3/23):
Now for the amps...
Now that I’ve gotten back into this I’ve been doing a ton of testing. I recently acquired an SMD IM-SG+ which is a signal generator and pink noise generator. This has been a huge help in making up my mind since I’m able to test a speaker’s frequency range, see how the midrange and tweeter will react using a passive crossover. It’s taken a lot of guesswork out of the equation. The direction I’m headed in currently is going back to the b&w midranges paired with the morel mt120n tweeters, currently testing the best passive crossover setup before I move forward with installing them. Later I’ll most likely seperate the front and rear tweeter and power them separately & process them on their own channel. The d-pillar I’m working on doing a three-way setup. Then the subwoofer I’m either doing dual sealed or one with a passive radiator once I get more info. The underseats will stay the same other then some testing with modifying the enclosure. I got rid of the musway dsp/amp and with be going with their smaller ds1 4ch amp/6channel dsp then I’m also looking at adding an audiocontrol D.6.1200 which is a 6ch amp/dsp with an output channel for a subwoofer. This is the plan for now anyways. Here's some pictures I've taken during the project (I’ll try to post up more, but I’m terrible at taking pictures as I go):
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2011 X5 35d tuned by B.R.R. Last edited by RL18; 05-03-2023 at 08:07 PM.. |
12-08-2020, 12:48 PM | #2 |
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Thanks a ton for documenting this!! I’ve been thinking about upping my base audio but honestly don’t know enough on the subject at all to start. Is your factory head unit outputting to the 810? How’s that work?
And wow, seems like you had to do a lot of wiring to wire in the new amps. You had to rewrite basically the entire audio system, right? How much would you say this cost you in total, not counting time? |
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12-08-2020, 02:49 PM | #3 | |
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So for the wiring I ran two 9 wires to the front from the trunk area... One was speaker wire from my amps going to my speakers, then with the other 9 wire I picked up the signal from the front speakers from the headunit. The front and rear speaker locations I spliced into the factory wiring. The underseats I ran new wire and the d-pillars, which I added, I also ran new wire. To grab a signal You just need a full range signal for the DM810 dsp, so just grab the front and rear signals coming out of the headunit. How it all works is the audiocontrol DM810 processor. The program made it super easy to get the sound I was after. The amps pretty much were left untouched not much tweaking is done other then gain. Filters are wide open, crossovers, level matching, and eq is all done in the dsp. Everything on the stock headunit is left alone completely. Once you level match, get your gains set(which I only have slightly tweaked up) and get a base “flat” EQ. I also have an SMD tool that detects clipping which is what I use to set my gains by playing pink noise and white noise… Then I just spent some time sitting in the passenger seat tuning the EQ on my Ipad mini with an rta microphone to how I like my music to sound. It’s a lot of work honestly but total worth it if you put the time into it. If dsp tuning isn’t your thing though I don’t see why you couldn’t do the install yourself then bring it to a car audio shop to tune it for you. Total cost was a lot. I found some good deals on a lot of things, but when it comes to car audio it’s expensive. Some mistakes were made and my mind changed about speakers and amps so I paid more than I needed to. Basically If you really want amazing sound you'll spend the money on it. If you don’t want crazy you could go with cheaper amps and speakers and such, but at the very least you’ll want atleast 10 channels if you want to run the underseats with a sub. If you don’t care for sub-bass and just want the underseats you could go cheaper and do an 8 channel dsp. The b&w underseats put out plenty of bass and sub bass I feel to satisfy most people’s needs for lower frequencies.
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04-18-2023, 09:10 PM | #5 |
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Wow man you went all out, congrats. I've been driving very little lately, but if I ever get into it, I want to keep my B&W setup as is, but swap out the factory L7 amp with something programmable so I can do flat EQ and get it professionally tuned.
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04-19-2023, 06:06 PM | #6 | |
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Yeah the logic 7 is tricky. Best thing to start with would be to get an rta microphone, like the audiocontrol one I’m using. That’ll help you get a baseline of your current system output and you could see how the stock eq changes things, from there you can figure out what you really need out of your system, before going down the dsp route. (Keep in mind to double your output (3db) you need either 2x the power or 2x as many speakers with the same power. 10db is what we perceive as being twice as loud 3db is the lowest increase in db that we can notice. Speaker sensitivity and impedance is also very important, but I’ll only get into that if you want me to.) I suspect the low midrange, midbass, bass and sub bass are all under powered compared to the 4” midranges and tweeter which get a pretty solid 350w total (@4ohms), the underseats are under powered with only 250w (@8ohms) total. If you could double the power and give them 500w total (250w each) then tune the EQ via a dsp with a frequency range of 30hz to about 400hz, you’d see a big difference. Just that frequency range is incredibly important for any music, so it being under powered is a big problem. Btw 99% of music is refined to 30hz, only some edm and maybe some rap/hip hop going lower, you could certainly still tune lower but you’re really not missing out on much. I have mine cut off at 40hz now with the addition of my sub.
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04-19-2023, 07:14 PM | #7 | |
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I may research a good amp that can replace the stock L7, and then bring it to an audio shop for professional balancing. |
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04-21-2023, 09:54 AM | #8 | |
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Plus I plan on doubling the power going to the underseats. I keep forgetting the B&W underseats are 8ohms (nominal impedance) meaning my focal amp putting out 200w @ 4ohms is likely only powering my underseats with about 100w each. So I’m planning on getting an amp that’ll put out 400w @4ohms which will give me about 200w @8ohms. The problem that I’m seeing though is even though ohms law states that when you halve impedance you double power (in watts) most amps don’t seem to operate this way because of fluctuations in voltage and heat. There’s more to it but I don’t know that much lol. Anyways, this is making it difficult for me to spec out an amp that’ll get me close to 250w @8ohms so I can properly power these underseats.
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04-21-2023, 12:25 PM | #9 | |
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Surprisingly enough, the HK system in the M2 is really good to my ears, far better than the L7. |
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04-21-2023, 02:52 PM | #10 | |
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So say you have a 4ohm speaker with 87db sensitivity @ 1 watt and a 8ohm speaker with 93db sensitivity @ 1 watt. To get 100db from the 4ohm speaker you need 16watts and only 4w from the 8ohm speaker (remember to double the output 3db, you need 2x as much power). So now if we apply the fact that doubling the impedance halves the power output, if you’re amp is putting out 16w to that 4ohm speaker and you replace it with the 8ohm speaker, you’re giving that 8ohm speaker 8w now, which will be 3db louder (double the output) of the 4 ohm speaker. This doesn’t necessarily apply to the b&w underseats because the sensitivity is unkown, but you can get an idea of what output you can expect from speakers of different impedances and sensitivities based on the power you give them. And in some cases you get more output from less power! In the case of your x5m with logic 7 I suspect the b&w woofer is more sensitive than the stock L7 undersseat and that’s why the output is possibly double, just by changing the woofer.
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05-03-2023, 07:15 PM | #11 |
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Some progress on the build… Decided to wire in my power block and ground block. Also finally added the focal fdp 1.900 for my sub AND got myself a focal fdp 4.600 for the B&W underseats. I ended up 3d printing an amp rack out of tpu to stack the focal amp since they’re the same size, which does it’s job now but when I’m properly set up to print ASA I’ll be reprinting in out of that instead for stiffness. . I’ll attach some pics of my messy subfloor, ugh, please don’t judge my mess I had some time to install the amps but haven’t had time to neaten up my wiring and placement of everything, it’s all roughly installed lol, it bother me as much as it bothers you. And the duct tape on the sub grill is temporary too lol it’s been popping off when the sub is playing, I need to install the threaded inserts in the sub enclosure which should make it so the grill doesn’t keep popping off.
Anyways the difference with the focal fdp 1.900 is staggering. The subwoofer went from muddy and boomy to clear, tight, and vibrates the shit out of everything. Biggest vibration culprits are the overhead switch panel and the plastic trim piece between the two panos… so I have some sound deadening to add. Other than that it’s great though! As for the underseats they really came alive. I forgot how snappy and punchy the underseats can be, it seems like I could only have one or the other (tight & snappy vs bassy) before distortion became an issue. But it’s a lot clearer and wicked snappy with a ton of bass and mid-bass. With their new focal amp they’re getting plenty of power, possibly too much. I’m honestly not sure how much they’re getting, but the focal amp puts out 400w each @4ohms bridged, so it might be a smidge over 250w. I dialed it down a hair from where I had the gain set using my dd-1 though and they seem very happy, no weird smells. I have some other projects with the upper frequency range still in the works but I’m still doing some testing so nothing worth talking about right now.
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