The best audio upgrade for the X5

[lucysparabola]

Originally Posted by Matti123

Es100k has been used in applications where the door mids play down to 300hz, then the underseats are bandpassed around 80-300 and they have an additional subwoofer for sub bass.. But if you want to use only oem locations then es100k is a terrible choice

I've seen both situations, you're not wrong though. and a few of the shops (Audiofile-Incar in the UK comes to mind) have offered the Morel components as a higher end option vs the ES100Ks. appreciate the input.

[lucysparabola]

SlowX6M remind me, did you test your B&W underseat subs? Their impedance I mean?

[RL18]

Ight so lucysparabola
Made me second guess myself. So I ended up taking out my genuine B&W underseat and ran some tests against my “Fake” B&W underseat. Attached will be a bunch of pics comparing them, plus some testing. The results are a little shocking honestly…

[SlowX6M]

Originally Posted by lucysparabola

SlowX6M remind me, did you test your B&W underseat subs? Their impedance I mean?

Yeah, but I don't remember the results, I'm sure there is something in the thread.

[SlowX6M]

There are fakes too now???

[RL18]

I guess so… I guess they’re not necessarily “fakes”. Almost like they use all the same materials, they just make them themselves so the quality isn’t the same and the genuines are just slightly better when it comes to specs/output.

I was completely unaware until I took a closer look

[lucysparabola]

Word to the wise regarding the AliExpress B&Ws - my driver's mid blew yesterday after barely six months' worth of use. hilarious.

This was with no amplification outside of my normal HiFi amp and my Quidelix 5K DAC where I send my Bluetooth signal through.

thankfully I have some ES100Ks en route from Amazon and will do the replacement Saturday. I have 2x genuine B&W door mids, 1x genuine B&W center/rear mid and 2x genuine B&W diamond tweeters if anyone is interested. The diamonds are listed on eBay as a pair for less than the price of one new, and they're from a 2023 X5M. I just wasn't wanting to mix & match them with my Focals when I feel someone else can get better use of them.

TL;DR - beware of the counterfeits. shame, they sounded fairly nice and the testing is nice too.

[RL18]

Another interesting comparison…

I purchased some of the continuum midranges from the newer systems out of curiosity. So far only found in the XM and I5. I wondered if there was any difference compared to the aramid fiber midranges used in all the other B&W systems prior.

Before I post all my pics, these are basically exactly the same. The only difference is in the speakers Q parameters from the use of the continuum cone. Don’t mind the difference in FS it’s basically the same, both their impedance’s peak between 125-135hz, but the continuum has a peak that’s about 10ohms lower than the aramid fiber cone. From some research online about the Q parameters (QTS, QES, and QMS) it does seem that the continuum driver requires much less dampening from the mechanical suspension and the motor has more control. From what I can gather this means the continuum midrange is more stable and accurate at peak power. This makes sense because that’s what B&W markets the continuum cone as doing. Cool!

(Continuum left, Aramid fiber right)

[argento]

RL18 and All,

Had some time to do some RTA on the audio system. I've only been working the OEM side sound, not the Android side yet. I'm surprised at the results on the OEM side, pretty happy with sound quality.


Pic1 - OEM Tone Menu RESET/FLAT, Surround = OFF; Basically out of the box custom matched crossovers to B&W speakers.

Pic2 - OEM Tone Menu RESET/FLAT, Surround = ON; Not sold on surround mode...

Pic3 - OEM Tone Menu/EQ adjusted as noted, Surround = OFF; Good starting point...

Pic4 - OEM Tone Menu/EQ adjusted as noted, Surround = ON; Not sold on surround mode...

COMMENTS: Crossovers out of the box have a peak at 2kHZ. Just removing that peak wasn't enough, you have to drop the bass tone setting to get rid of some of the muddiness inherent in our system. A better description is a constant breezy noise. Then go from there. I was surprised I could get a decent curve with only a 7 band EQ and the tone settings. Turning on surround mode drops 200Hz to 16kHz a little more than a dB. It appears not all pink noise is the same. The first one I used was fine until I switched surround ON and it cut everything but the front speakers. The next pink noise track mostly and it's what's shown below, however with surround ON it made some sublte swooshing noises only in the rear doors and d-pillar speakers...not sure what the surround mode is doing. Overall I have a good starting curve to make fine adjustments from. Not sure it matters, but the OEM volume of 45 clicks required me to hit mute, then count the clicks to 45...basically about 59-61dB. Lastly, I did try to make it as flat as possible across all frequencies, and got in the ballpark, but 16Hz and beyond above 40dBA was piercing...so not the place I wanted to start from.


Pic1 - OEM Tone Menu RESET/FLAT, Surround = OFF; Basically out of the box custom matched crossovers to B&W speakers.


Pic2 - OEM Tone Menu RESET/FLAT, Surround = ON; Not sold on surround mode...


Pic3 - OEM Tone Menu/EQ adjusted as noted, Surround = OFF; Good starting point...


Pic4 - OEM Tone Menu/EQ adjusted as noted, Surround = ON; Not sold on surround mode...

[RL18]

argento

I hope you’re wearing ear protection!

That peak from the midrange isn’t really from the crossover, but it’s the crossovers fault for not taking care of it. This is why I’m doing my own crossover, a standard LR 12db crossover just doesn’t work well with the b&w midrange in that aspect. The 16khz sounding ear piercing is why I don’t like aluminum dome tweeters, I wonder how the Diamonds contribute to this. Diamond tweeters are suppose to be best of both worlds warm sounding in the lower end of the “highs” and light and airy in the peak of the highs, not harsh.

Your adjusted curve looks good though! I think you could add a little bit more bass into the bass maybe +2 clicks, then see if adding in the 100hz & 500hz helps boost 250hz any. Where you have 2khz down -10 clicks, try reducing 1khz & 5khz -2 clicks to see if it improves 2khz. Then try adjusting 10khz down -1 or -2 clicks and see if you can raise the treble setting a little bit without adding harshness. Oh and before you do that go in the “RTA” tab, tap on “octave” in the bottom left corner and change it to “1/3 octave”. That way to get a closer look at each frequency between those octaves is doing making those adjustments. I’m wondering what frequency ranges the “bass” & “treble” are controlling, must be below 100hz and above 10khz. The “EQ cheat sheet” and “Eqing Vocals” articles I linked can help you figure out where you need to cut or boost to get the sound you want if you get stumped.

You mind taking a pic or screenshot of what your android parametric eq looks like? I’m wondering if it would be more useful to be using that in some of those areas I mentioned.

Also if you’d like I can take a screenshot on my RTA of what my system looks like fully tuned with pink noise

[argento]

Originally Posted by RL18

argento

I hope you’re wearing ear protection!

That peak from the midrange isn’t really from the crossover, but it’s the crossovers fault for not taking care of it. This is why I’m doing my own crossover, a standard LR 12db crossover just doesn’t work well with the b&w midrange in that aspect. The 16khz sounding ear piercing is why I don’t like aluminum dome tweeters, I wonder how the Diamonds contribute to this. Diamond tweeters are suppose to be best of both worlds warm sounding in the lower end of the “highs” and light and airy in the peak of the highs, not harsh.

Your adjusted curve looks good though! I think you could add a little bit more bass into the bass maybe +2 clicks, then see if adding in the 100hz & 500hz helps boost 250hz any. Where you have 2khz down -10 clicks, try reducing 1khz & 5khz -2 clicks to see if it improves 2khz. Then try adjusting 10khz down -1 or -2 clicks and see if you can raise the treble setting a little bit without adding harshness. Oh and before you do that go in the “RTA” tab, tap on “octave” in the bottom left corner and change it to “1/3 octave”. That way to get a closer look at each frequency between those octaves is doing making those adjustments. I’m wondering what frequency ranges the “bass” & “treble” are controlling, must be below 100hz and above 10khz. The “EQ cheat sheet” and “Eqing Vocals” articles I linked can help you figure out where you need to cut or boost to get the sound you want if you get stumped.

You mind taking a pic or screenshot of what your android parametric eq looks like? I’m wondering if it would be more useful to be using that in some of those areas I mentioned.

Also if you’d like I can take a screenshot on my RTA of what my system looks like fully tuned with pink noise

FWIW here's one opinion on B&W diamond tweeter's from the high end speaker designer I worked with:
“The main advantage they [diamond tweeters] have is that the membrane works as a piston higher in frequency allowing greater clarity but other than that, they have a rolled off top end and sound harsher than metal. The metal domes can be made thinner and easier to dampen the ringing, also the metal domes weigh less and had more output at the top..........there is much more to be said, but won’t go into it too much here. I designed many hi-fi tweeters. Personally, I would go with the metal dome over the diamond dome as the diamond will have a lack of air due to its fall off above 10khz. Since you are listening off axis mostly in a car, you want a boost above 10khz, not a roll-off."

I've been listening and entering minor adjustments all week, it's going well. I switched to Android mode with flat EQ and with no adjustments it sounded great...the USB DAC makes a huge improvement on depth. Still have to do more listening before I touch the 10band EQ. Below are the images of the Android/UAPP EQ:





And YES, share your RTA...

[RL18]

argento

Interesting! Most diamond tweeters usually have better response above 10khz. Most are actually praised for having great response up to 40khz. Maybe because it’s not a true diamond membrane but just diamond flake reinforced, like a drill bit! Yeah aluminum dome usually have a good response higher up than silk/textile dome tweeters. But they’re low frequency response low isn’t usually good, in my experience anyways. Pretty sure the bmw aluminum domes have a capacitor at 6 or 8khz which I feel isnt ideal for the midrange since it’s having to play from most likely 250hz to whenever it’s response drops off, it starts to beam around 4khz. I’m gonna be eventually experimenting with cutting my morel tweeters off around 8-10khz and put some super tweeters in custom mounts in the headliner, I’ve heard super tweeters are extremely hard to integrate but I might have a trick up my sleeve for that. That won’t be till I get a crossover made and get myself a 3d scanner though. I have too many projects going on 🥲

Anyways I’m glad it’s sounding good and the rta helped you get the eq to your liking 🙂

I’ll work on posting up a rta with pink noise on my system tomorrow

Btw looking at the android eq. You might have better luck adjusting that now that you have the stock EQ flat

[RL18]

argento

As promised:

(Btw the dip you see from 125hz-1khz is partially because I have since lowered the gain on the underseats amp because I’m finding that they can’t take all the power I’m giving them, I’ve also lowered the lp to 350hz. Above 400hz-1khz Is most likely just because my midranges suck, plus our ears are very sensitive to that range and any distortion so taking out some eq is okay. The highs are also louder because the tweeters are 3.5 ohms so they’re not properly level matched with the midranges. I like the curve but I think -3/-6db attenuation would be ideal. Just thought I’d explain my curve a little bit)

[Matti123]

Originally Posted by RL18

If you’ve been following along in this thread, which I guess you aren’t, the B&W underseats are 8ohm woofers. That’s nominal. So you’re sending them 40w each. You must know though that a speakers impedance changes constantly, some factors could be an open window, enclosure type and size, and it’ll change depending on the frequency it’s playing. Ive gone over all these things already in this thread. And great you have a vented enclosure you are already getting more out of them then we are since our enclosures are sealed. And Idk where you got the xmax numbers but I DOUBT its 10mm. A morel elate carbon mw9 doesn’t even have 10mm of xmax and it a MUCH better speaker for the job. And their Fs is exactly 46hz. Idk where you’re getting all this info but we already know just about everything there is to know about the b&w speakers. I’m still doing some testing with porting the underseats, and creating custom crossovers for the b&w midranges and morel m120n tweeters, but other than that we know just about everything we need to know.

Little bit more to this thread now with winisd speaker modeling. Here is earthquake sws8, b&w sub and morel elate carbon mw9. Morel has the worst response. Best is sws8, in same 10 liter enclosure.
But this is just one part of it, if I look at cone excursion the morel mw9 runs out of its xmax already at 60 watts. How about b&w sub? With a light guess of 7mm xmax, it runs out at 90 watts. Also aftermarket bmw product like audison apbmws8 has better response than mw9 and can handle 100 watts. And the sws 8x has enough xmax for 900 watts but other things won't handle that before the xmax is the limiting factor. Do you still think the morel mw9 will outperform b&w sub? I mean the difference is not huge, but it is clearly worse.

[RL18]

Originally Posted by Matti123

Little bit more to this thread now with winisd speaker modeling. Here is earthquake sws8, b&w sub and morel elate carbon mw9. Morel has the worst response. Best is sws8, in same 10 liter enclosure.
But this is just one part of it, if I look at cone excursion the morel mw9 runs out of its xmax already at 60 watts. How about b&w sub? With a light guess of 7mm xmax, it runs out at 90 watts. Also aftermarket bmw product like audison apbmws8 has better response than mw9 and can handle 100 watts. And the sws 8x has enough xmax for 900 watts but other things won't handle that before the xmax is the limiting factor. Do you still think the morel mw9 will outperform b&w sub? I mean the difference is not huge, but it is clearly worse.

As a midbass driver? Yeah lol. The earthquake sws is a subwoofer and the B&W underseat is somewhere in between.

You don’t even have half the parameters needed on the b&w to model it either

Show us an rta with pink noise on your sws8 in your system and we can compare it to argentos

[Matti123]

Originally Posted by RL18

As a midbass driver? Yeah lol. The earthquake sws is a subwoofer and the B&W underseat is somewhere in between.

You don’t even have half the parameters needed on the b&w to model it either

Show us an rta with pink noise on your sws8 in your system and we can compare it to argentos

Well the mw9 does have more output above 100hz, so if thats what you are shooting for, go ahead. What makes sws8 a subwoofer and b&w underseat not a subwoofer?

Try winisd and you will see it calculates half the parameters by itself. I don't have sws8, because they are too expensive in my area.

[RL18]

https://earthquakesoundshop.com/prod...s-8x-open-box/
^That’s the specs on the 4ohm earthquake sws8x. It says 5.2mm xmax, 23mm is the xmech. The 2ohm version sws8xi says xmax is 23mm but that’s obviously false. So really not so different from the mw9 huh? Either way the mw9 wouldn’t fit the underseat location without serious modification and it’s better suited in atleast a 0.75 cu ft enclosure or in a door panel or custom fiber glass door panel, which would probably get you close to a leaky sealed 0.75cu ft. Also you don’t increase the power over the rms rating to increase the xmax (atleast not that much over it), if you want to increase the xmax you change the enclosure type or increase enclosure size. Manufacturers use rms ratings for a reason, the voice coil can only take so much power before it’ll over heat.
I know on the e90 forums there’s been more done with the underseat enclosures and I’ve seen people say they’re anywhere from 0.1-0.2cu ft into the side skirts, technically “sealed” but leaky, someone has turned them into Infinite baffle. I’m not sure what the E70 is like but I’m sure it’s similar. So lets be generous and use 0.2cu ft for the underseat enclosure. If you do modify the underseat “enclosure” to IB then you need be very careful about how much power you give the underseats or use a speaker rated for IB because you can easily exceed their xmax. The one good thing about IB is you can get the response to play deeper and the speaker is much more efficient, meaning it’ll need less power to reach it’s xmax. I’ll link some pics of tests done with the Earthquakes and some other well known brands. All are getting their rms power, and all are in a 0.2cu ft enclosure. They all are within a safe xmax too, which makes sense. You can see that the earthquakes are nothing special. And for shits and giggles I threw my subwoofer in there so you can understand why I say use a real subwoofer .

Edit: I did some more research and found a way to input the B&W woofer somewhat accurately I’ll update the pictures below. Also will show what the Parameters look like on the “cone excursion” picture. I’d assume this to be a pretty accurate representation of the B&W woofer, if someone sees an issue please feel free to correct me. I also created a vented version. Basically a .2cu ft box with a 1.75x.25 port that is 7.5” long, which got a pretty good bump down to 20hz.

Edit: updated pics with cabin gain added for the SPL graph. This is an estimation. Cabin gain starts at 56.25hz. Feel free to correct me if my estimation is wrong

[SlowX6M]

I may be doing another Bowers & Wilkins speakers upgrade on my newly acquired K1600GTL. It only comes with a standard, non branded audio system, and as expected its hot garbage, however the speakers appear to be the same size and shape, just generic, probably equal to base speakers in BMW cars. Gotta look up some diagrams to confirm compatibility.

Photo from an ebay site of the standard speaker.