RL18's "base audio" upgrade

[RL18]

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:

• 6- 4 ohm grs 4” midranges (300hz-4.5khz)
• 6- 3.5 ohm Infinity Reference 3/4" textile dome tweeters (2.5khz-20khz)
• 2- b&w 8” underseats (80hz- 300hz)
• 1- Audiomobile 10” evo 2410 subwoofer (20hz-70hz)

Amplifier specs:

• 2- Focal compact 4ch amp 58w x 4 @4ohms, 100w x 4 @2ohms, 200w x 2 bridged @4ohms
• 1- focal FDP 1.900 mono amp 550w x 1 @ 4ohms, 850w x 1 @2ohms
• 1- focal FDP 4.600 4ch amp 150w x 4 @4ohms, 200w x 4 @ 2ohms, 400w x 2 @4 ohms bridged

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):

• The Grs 4” midranges were reinstalled, finding a proper crossover for the b&w woofers became too much of a challenge with them being higher impedance. A new crossover was installed, its an audiopipe passive crossover with a 4.3khz crossover point for the woofer. Tuning wise it’s been much easier to get these to sound good they are cut off at 300hz. They sound much better with the passive crossover installed not much low midrange though, they kind of seem to drop off pretty steeply around 400-500hz so boosting in the eq is needed. I’ve done some testing with some midranges and I think I’m gonna go with the b&w midranges when I get the right passive crossover.
• At the top of the frequency spectrum I have 6- 3/4" infinity reference tweeters... they bypass the passive crossover and just use their inline filters. They sound good but the one issue I’ve found with them is their impedance is quite low (3.5ohms) which I can’t use them on the crossover I’m using, so I don’t have much control over how they sound not hooked to the passive crossover, their EQ is tuned down quite a bit. I’ve finally decide on using morel mt120n tweeters. With the testing Ive done I really like how they sound and the 8ohm impedance will make finding a crossover much easier.
• Filling in the bass, mid-bass, lower midrange, and some of the sub bass I am using B&W 8” underseats from the newer models with the b&w systems. These underseats are absolute units. They have atleast 250w if not more. I am more then happy with these. They play as low as 25hz and have surprisingly good sub bass response with proper dsp tuning. The bass and mid bass are where these really shine. Really nice punch to them. Don’t be fooled either they can take a solid amount of power. I have done some testing on the frequency response on these and they are actually seem to be better suited for a vented enclosure. I’m going to be working on modifying the stock enclosure since I saw improvements of 10db below 80 hz and an overall flatter response from 40hz to 500hz.

• Now I’ve finally added a proper subwoofer. I was running a 10” JL w1v3 for awhile, but after swallowing my pride and dropping the “bigger is better” mentality I stumbled upon audiomobile. My one need was a shallow mount subwoofer that I could easily fit in the sub floor in the trunk completely hidden away. After all the entire system I want to be a stealth build, hidden under the sub floor. For awhile I was between one 13.5” jl tw5 or two 12” jl tw3s but there was a review on youtube comparing the audiomobile evo 2410 10” to a 10” JL tw3, which was another option I was considering, and their evo 2410 10” woofer blew it away with its performance. So I took the leap and bought one and I am more than happy with it. I’m now powering it with a focal fdp 1.900 sending about 550w @ 4ohms. It’s clean, punchy and loud. I have it tuned for SQ using my DD-1, but it definitely gets down. The lowend response is nuts for a 10” shallow mount sub.

Now for the amps...

• The focal compact amps ( 2- 4ch.) are no joke. They put out some serious power for their size. Not to mention they are stackable and will fit perfectly in the stock amp location... The focals are super efficient and built extremely well. Currently I’m only using the 2-4ch amps one is doing the front and rear door speaker and the other one is doing the d-pillars on one ch. Pricey but worth the investment for a stealthy upgrade with its compactness and versatility
• Focal FDP 1.900 - A power house. The power this is suppying my sub is night and day. Very clean output with a ton of punch. Surprisingly compact for it’s size. I don’t particularly like it’s mounting situation though. My amp rack works well but a redesign in this area would be appreciated
• Focal FDP 4.600 - also a power house. I get the best of both worlds with the underseats with the clean power these are supplying. Same mounting set up. Crossover setting are nice although somewhat limited as two channels are set up run a sub (bridged) or two subs, then the orher channel is for a 2-way or 3-way set up. It’s nice the have a “flat” setting though which bypasses all the filters. Another weird thing is since i bridged both channels I had to use two rca splitters on my dsp output for my underseats and run two sets of rcas to the focal amp, just weird.
• The Audiocontrol Dm-810 is basically the brain, well I'm the brain behind it but you get what I mean. My system could of been good without it, but now it's about 10 times better with it. It was my first time ever using a dsp but with some research on tuning and the really user friendly program I was easily able to get the most out of my system. Audiocontrol tech support was also great in walking me through the different program functions and to learning how to fine tune even more. You can not create a system like this without a dsp btw. And the greatest thing is all tweaks are made within the dsp. Simply amazing what it can do. I was skeptical about them but now I'm a believer definitely worth the crazy price if you want the best sound. It’s made me such a believer that I bought another one to add even more control and fine tuning.

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):

[Spyro235]

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?

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Spyro235

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?

I figured I wasn't the only person unsatisfied with the audio system lol!

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.

[RL18]

Updated!

[SlowX6M]

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.

[RL18]

Originally Posted by SlowX6M

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.

Thankyou sir! Yes kind of. I still have a lot to tighty up, especially with wiring and amp/dsp placement, but getting there.

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.

[SlowX6M]

Originally Posted by RL18

Thankyou sir! Yes kind of. I still have a lot to tighty up, especially with wiring and amp/dsp placement, but getting there.

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.

I'm just not sure I have the dedication to do all that. I know that I can figure it out if I put my mind to it, but I don't see myself having the leisure time to do it for the next couple of years.

I may research a good amp that can replace the stock L7, and then bring it to an audio shop for professional balancing.

[RL18]

Originally Posted by SlowX6M

I'm just not sure I have the dedication to do all that. I know that I can figure it out if I put my mind to it, but I don't see myself having the leisure time to do it for the next couple of years.

I may research a good amp that can replace the stock L7, and then bring it to an audio shop for professional balancing.

I have a new fancy tool coming in, which will allow me to get all the T/S parameters on the b&w speakers so stay tuned for that as it’ll help us better understand these speakers and how to best optimize their crossover points and such. It’ll be especially helpful since I’ll be able to figure out exactly what size and type of enclosure the B&W underseat will work best in. That way if you or anyone else decide to add dsp capabilities to their system you can get the best optimization from the b&w speakers. Lots of good stuff coming…
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.

[SlowX6M]

Originally Posted by RL18

I have a new fancy tool coming in, which will allow me to get all the T/S parameters on the b&w speakers so stay tuned for that as it’ll help us better understand these speakers and how to best optimize their crossover points and such. It’ll be especially helpful since I’ll be able to figure out exactly what size and type of enclosure the B&W underseat will work best in. That way if you or anyone else decide to add dsp capabilities to their system you can get the best optimization from the b&w speakers. Lots of good stuff coming…
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.

I tried swapping my daughter's M2 understeat HK subwoofers with B&W, but apparently the HK amp in the M2 is only 2ohm, so it did not power them at all, they were barely audible compared to the HKs.

Surprisingly enough, the HK system in the M2 is really good to my ears, far better than the L7.

[RL18]

Originally Posted by SlowX6M

I tried swapping my daughter's M2 understeat HK subwoofers with B&W, but apparently the HK amp in the M2 is only 2ohm, so it did not power them at all, they were barely audible compared to the HKs.

Surprisingly enough, the HK system in the M2 is really good to my ears, far better than the L7.

That’s because the impedance is much higher. Lets say your amp puts out 200w @ 2ohms, @4ohm that’ll be 100w, @ 8ohms it’s 50w. In principle, every time you double impedance of a speaker your power gets halved. But also this doesn’t necessarily mean a 2ohm speaker will be louder then an 8ohm speaker because, usually, a higher impedance speaker will have a higher sensitivity rating, meaning it takes less power to have the same or more output.
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.

[RL18]

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.