The best audio upgrade for the X5

RL18 · 12-30-2020, 06:54 AM

@SlowX6M yes you are right. They are the same 4" speaker but have different brackets or bezels. I'm fairly sure that all e70 audio systems use the smaller bracket type in all speaker locations. Like I said though the bigger bracket fits in the front door of my e90 335d so I'll be using them in my e90 with a set of infinity tweeters.

Yes that would be nice to know the impedance of the b&w tweeters to see what the final impedance would be using both speakers in parallel...

GreenYamo · 12-30-2020, 01:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

thought I'd chime in on the topic. recently I upgraded my x5d from $677 top_hifi to $752 individual and it was a big step up. $752 sounds clear, crisper, subs are louder and the sound stage is completely different. with individual it seems the centre channel works harder because when listening to music if sounds if the vocals are coming from the dash with the rest of the music from the sides. Overall I am very impressed but it can still use a dedicated sub in the cargo area to hit those lower frequencies.

Then took $677 that I removed and sold it to a friend and installed it into his base audio x5. he couldn't be happier with the upgrade. It's amazing BMW even offered the base audio because it was pretty bad. the subs seemed to weigh less that the mids lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

thought I'd chime in on the topic. recently I upgraded my x5d from $677 top_hifi to $752 individual and it was a big step up. $752 sounds clear, crisper, subs are louder and the sound stage is completely different. with individual it seems the centre channel works harder because when listening to music if sounds if the vocals are coming from the dash with the rest of the music from the sides. Overall I am very impressed but it can still use a dedicated sub in the cargo area to hit those lower frequencies.

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Then took $677 that I removed and sold it to a friend and installed it into his base audio x5. he couldn't be happier with the upgrade. It's amazing BMW even offered the base audio because it was pretty bad. the subs seemed to weigh less that the mids lol
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Sorry to diverse, what trim is that?

sunny_j · 12-30-2020, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenYamo

Sorry to diverse, what trim is that?

factory carbon fiber

GreenYamo · 12-30-2020, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenYamo

Sorry to diverse, what trim is that?

factory carbon fiber

Thanks 🙏🏼

sunny_j · 12-30-2020, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RL18

That crossover is interesting. I'm not sure what that three pin wire is for. Maybe there's another speaker in series with the front door midranges? I know my front door mids were parallel with my underseat woofers, so I'm wondering if you have another speaker wired in with the midranges and tweeters. I wish bmw was better about posting audio specs like you would find on aftermarket audio gear.

can that be the centre channel speaker?

argento · 12-31-2020, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

can that be the centre channel speaker?

In post 79 and 82, schematic, the three pins are labeled 3, 4, 5. They go to the front door diplexers and help create a parallel wiring scheme to provide LPF to the midrange and HPF to to the tweeter.

I think the center channel location is fed by the amp. BMW specs say the S752A amp is 9 channel (two d-pillars, four door, one center, two subs).

RL18 · 12-31-2020, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

can that be the centre channel speaker?

Well from what I gathered from the wire diagram argento provided... the power comes from the amp, goes to the 2 pin connector (pin 1: is negative, pin 2: is positive). Pin 1 goes to midrange negative, pin 2 gets jumped to pin 3 on the three pin connector.

Then on the three pin connector, pin 3 (which is positive) goes to the diplexor pin 9 then gets split and runs through each filter. Pin 4 is negative from diplexor pin 8 (jumping to pin 1). Then pin 5 is positive (filtered signal) going to the midrange, from the diplexor pin 7. So the midrange and tweeter are wired in parallel which brings the final impedance to about 2.6ohms.

Hopefully that makes sense. I'm guessing they had to use a 3 pin connector to keep the speakers in parallel, otherwise they'd be in series and we don't want that. The center channel should have its own channel on the amp because you'd run into phase issues. The diplexor adds a whole lot to the wiring, where you could use a simple crossover and make the wiring a lot simpler.

argento · 01-01-2021, 10:51 AM

RL18 Heads up, I updated the original schematic in post 82, so please update this one ^ or reference back to the original that I keep updating.

As my pin tracing is continuously improving, I realized Pin 7 and 9 are indeed continuous, but only because I think the path goes 9 to Lm to 7, not directly from 9 to 7.

I also found you can reuse the oem S752A diplexer but requires soldering to the new B&W midrange. However, due to higher impedance of the B&Ws, the xo filter points drop. The custom XO is the way forward...but I'll leave a little room for the F90 diplexer which I have on order. I should be able to at least determine the XO points that diplexer is using.

RL18 · 01-01-2021, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by argento

RL18 Heads up, I updated the original schematic in post 82, so please update this one ^ or reference back to the original that I keep updating.

As my pin tracing is continuously improving, I realized Pin 7 and 9 are indeed continuous, but only because I think the path goes 9 to Lm to 7, not directly from 9 to 7.

I also found you can reuse the oem S752A diplexer but requires soldering to the new B&W midrange. However, due to higher impedance of the B&Ws, the xo filter points drop. The custom XO is the way forward...but I'll leave a little room for the F90 diplexer which I have on order. I should be able to at least determine the XO points that diplexer is using.

Good call! I updated it, thanks for the heads up.

I do have some audiopipe crossovers that I'll be testing soon with crossovers set points as:
woofer: 20hz-4.3khz
Tweeters: 3.39khz-20khz

Which I'm thinking is exactly what we need since the crossover points are pretty ideal and they're relatively cheap at $25 for a pair. I just want to be sure these work as intended before I recommend them. Once supplies starts coming in I'll be updating my current system and get some data on how the reworked system performs.

argento · 01-02-2021, 09:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RL18

Good call! I updated it, thanks for the heads up.

I do have some audiopipe crossovers that I'll be testing soon with crossovers set points as:
woofer: 20hz-4.3khz
Tweeters: 3.39khz-20khz

Which I'm thinking is exactly what we need since the crossover points are pretty ideal and they're relatively cheap at $25 for a pair. I just want to be sure these work as intended before I recommend them. Once supplies starts coming in I'll be updating my current system and get some data on how the reworked system performs.

Are those xo points calculated or of your choosing? ALSO, sorry, had to update the schematic again...the front door uses -193 tweeters at 8 ohms (not the -194 at 4 ohms), so xo point changed.

RL18 · 01-02-2021, 11:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by argento

Are those xo points calculated or of your choosing? ALSO, sorry, had to update the schematic again...the front door uses -193 tweeters at 8 ohms (not the -194 at 4 ohms), so xo point changed.

Those are crossover points given by the manufacturer. Once I play with the tuning on my dsp I'll find out if these are really doing their job. I'm hoping that these b&w speakers can take a little lower frequency than the grs midranges. Right now I have it cut off at 150hz, I'd like to get below 100hz if I can.

RL18 · 01-04-2021, 03:47 PM

Here's a visual of the difference in the b&w speakers. Left is the door speakers, which DO NOT fit in e70s. Right is the center channel speaker, which DOES fit in e70s

SlowX6M · 01-06-2021, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RL18

Here's a visual of the difference in the b&w speakers. Left is the door speakers, which DO NOT fit in e70s. Right is the center channel speaker, which DOES fit in e70s

Just in case anyone else is reading through this, it varies from model to model. It just happens that on the E70 all the speakers are the same, but on many other models some locations get the speaker with the bigger bezel.

argento · 01-06-2021, 04:18 PM

Are the connectors the same on both speakers?

sunny_j · 01-06-2021, 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by argento

Installed the center dash B&W speakers and did a comparison with Individual Coax. And, FWIW, my initial findings are that I hear a tangible difference with increased SPL, clarity, and tweeter frequency levels which appears we don't have with the individual coax speaker.

I bought a center dash mount off ebay and mounted the B&W mid and tweeter, perfect fit for both as SlowX6M reported, plug and play. So I was able to play the same song, via CD, with Equalizer = flat; Fade = Center; L/R = Center; Volume = 55; Surround = OFF; I swapped back and forth between the B&W setup and the Indiv. Coax speaker. I also adjusted the fader to full front then back to center for comparison.

The SPL was apparent as my first reaction was to reduce the volume and the under dash seemed to reverberate. I'm going to place acoustic foam behind the center dash speaker to mitigate this.

I hear an improved clarity over the muddy coax, but with the materials of the B&W it was inevitable.

With the coax there appears to be a hole in the middle and the L/R door tweeters doing all the work. With the B&W working in the center dash it's a great compliment. I felt that with an upgrade in door tweeters, this system would have to be exceptional. I don't feel like now I have to upgrade the door tweeters and if I wasn't all-in to the upgrade I could enjoy it as-is for a while...for some it may be enough to fill in the middle front with these improvements.

I don't think any of this is new info as it squares with what SlowX6M reported. REALLY HAPPY so far, thanks for sharing your findings.

Disclaiming again, I'm not an audiophile and my goal is to get the best OEM sound possible, which I understand will never exceed a custom setup.

Pix...

argento how's the B&W center channel holding up? I'm debating swapping out the 752 coax with the same setup as you or running the Eton B100XCN center channel

RL18 · 01-06-2021, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by argento

Are the connectors the same on both speakers?

Yes the speaker on the left just has it pointing down (if it was installed) rather than the right which has the connector pointing towards the back. Same 2-two pin connectors though

argento · 01-06-2021, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunny_j

Quote:

Originally Posted by argento

Installed the center dash B&W speakers and did a comparison with Individual Coax. And, FWIW, my initial findings are that I hear a tangible difference with increased SPL, clarity, and tweeter frequency levels which appears we don't have with the individual coax speaker.

I bought a center dash mount off ebay and mounted the B&W mid and tweeter, perfect fit for both as SlowX6M reported, plug and play. So I was able to play the same song, via CD, with Equalizer = flat; Fade = Center; L/R = Center; Volume = 55; Surround = OFF; I swapped back and forth between the B&W setup and the Indiv. Coax speaker. I also adjusted the fader to full front then back to center for comparison.

The SPL was apparent as my first reaction was to reduce the volume and the under dash seemed to reverberate. I'm going to place acoustic foam behind the center dash speaker to mitigate this.

I hear an improved clarity over the muddy coax, but with the materials of the B&W it was inevitable.

With the coax there appears to be a hole in the middle and the L/R door tweeters doing all the work. With the B&W working in the center dash it's a great compliment. I felt that with an upgrade in door tweeters, this system would have to be exceptional. I don't feel like now I have to upgrade the door tweeters and if I wasn't all-in to the upgrade I could enjoy it as-is for a while...for some it may be enough to fill in the middle front with these improvements.

I don't think any of this is new info as it squares with what SlowX6M reported. REALLY HAPPY so far, thanks for sharing your findings.

Disclaiming again, I'm not an audiophile and my goal is to get the best OEM sound possible, which I understand will never exceed a custom setup.

Pix...

argento how's the B&W center channel holding up? I'm debating swapping out the 752 coax with the same setup as you or running the Eton B100XCN center channel

Sounding great. It's almost the same impedance as w the coax and sounds strong and clear when compared to the higher impedance of the BWs at the d pillars IMO. I'd hate for you to upgrade and be unhappy, but I really like the improvement. Would love to hear another opinion.

SlowX6M · 01-06-2021, 09:04 PM

Haven't tested the impedance on the B&W tweeter yet, will do it in the next couple days.

cat82 · 01-09-2021, 08:14 AM

SlowX6M.... i have a question. Why didn't you use the bower& wilkins back door tweeters for the front doors? As i recall you said you are going to use some infinity instead of b&w diamond tweeters?

By the way much respect for your info and work..... i have a e70 with top hi-hi audio and i am in the process of swapping some bowers wilkins speakers

RL18 · 01-10-2021, 09:57 AM

We I have some interesting news... I ended up installing the b&w midranges just in the front doors, with the crossovers wired in. I ran into a few obstacles but have figured out where to go from here. Here are a few things I noticed anyways...

The impedance is about 1.9ohms as measured. They do sound great btw and I'll be sitting down and tuning them in the dsp to get full potential soon, they are running the tune for my grs midrange without any distortion though. Also with the crossover installed the sound was also MUCH cleaner, no more screeching at high volumes. I can't really tell if it's the speakers upgraded or the added crossover points that are making it sound better though.

Now like argento pointed out, using a speaker with a different impedance than the crossover was designed for will "shift" the crossover points. My final impedance of about 1.9ohms paired with these 4ohm crossovers has a slight shift in crossover points. So my crossover points are a bit higher not a big deal though the midranges still play very clearly. The tweeters are just using the supplied hpf for its filtering.

Today I'll will be swapping the rest of the speakers and putting the supplied infinity hpf back in the front, then later I can swap the crossovers for a higher midrange cutoff.

Edited: not sure what kind of tricks my meter was playing but the speakers did measure out to about 2ohms not 10ohms after checking again.

SlowX6M · 01-11-2021, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cat82

SlowX6M.... i have a question. Why didn't you use the bower& wilkins back door tweeters for the front doors? As i recall you said you are going to use some infinity instead of b&w diamond tweeters?

By the way much respect for your info and work..... i have a e70 with top hi-hi audio and i am in the process of swapping some bowers wilkins speakers

B&W rear door tweeters look to be very similar to the L7 tweeters - very generic made by HK. But even more important they have in inline filter, so I went with bimmertech tweeters.

Haven't had the change to measure impedance yet on the single diamond tweeter that I got.

RL18 · 01-18-2021, 05:56 PM

So I've spent a few days tuning in the dsp to get these b&w woofers reproducing correctly with the infinity tweeters. I still need to play with the accubass level and threshold setting on my dsp since I haven't turned it on yet but I feel like the b&w are clearer and handle the midrange better than the grs woofers even without it. Tuning the tweeters was a bit of a challenge since the b&w handle much more power but I did get them tuned up to compliment the b&w's nonetheless. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the output.
If you do decided to go with these I think I would recommend using the matching b&w tweeters or use a tweeter with an impedance of 6ohms for a final impedance around 3.6 ohms I just think the tweeter and midrange would just be better matched level wise at that impedance. You could do a 4ohm tweeter and it would probably be louder but I'm just unsure if the factory eq has enough adjustment to match the midrange and tweeter level.

On another note, I think I'll be experimenting further with these woofers by putting together a 3-way system for the d-pillar speakers, which depending on how that goes I may apply to the front and rear doors or just create another channel in the trunk. Not really sure which I'll choose, but I'll probably be cutting some holes either way. I just don't feel like these 4" midranges can mesh with the 8" underseats without one or the other reaching their limit as far as frequency range goes. So I want to find a solution to help fill from about 250hz to 500hz and maybe get some extra bass too.

12-30-2020, 06:54 AM	#89
RL18 Major 274 Rep 1,054 Posts Drives: 2011 335d sport Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Maine iTrader: (0)	@SlowX6M yes you are right. They are the same 4" speaker but have different brackets or bezels. I'm fairly sure that all e70 audio systems use the smaller bracket type in all speaker locations. Like I said though the bigger bracket fits in the front door of my e90 335d so I'll be using them in my e90 with a set of infinity tweeters. Yes that would be nice to know the impedance of the b&w tweeters to see what the final impedance would be using both speakers in parallel... __________________ 2011 335d tuned by B.R.R. 2011 X5 35d tuned by B.R.R.
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01-01-2021, 10:51 AM	#96
argento Captain 538 Rep 872 Posts Drives: 2013 X5M Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Houston iTrader: (0)	RL18 Heads up, I updated the original schematic in post 82, so please update this one ^ or reference back to the original that I keep updating. As my pin tracing is continuously improving, I realized Pin 7 and 9 are indeed continuous, but only because I think the path goes 9 to Lm to 7, not directly from 9 to 7. I also found you can reuse the oem S752A diplexer but requires soldering to the new B&W midrange. However, due to higher impedance of the B&Ws, the xo filter points drop. The custom XO is the way forward...but I'll leave a little room for the F90 diplexer which I have on order. I should be able to at least determine the XO points that diplexer is using. __________________ 2013 X5M AW/Blk Build Thread: https://www.xbimmers.com/forums/show....php?t=1499820 Last edited by argento; 01-01-2021 at 11:01 AM..
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01-04-2021, 03:47 PM	#100
RL18 Major 274 Rep 1,054 Posts Drives: 2011 335d sport Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Maine iTrader: (0)	Here's a visual of the difference in the b&w speakers. Left is the door speakers, which DO NOT fit in e70s. Right is the center channel speaker, which DOES fit in e70s Attached Images __________________ 2011 335d tuned by B.R.R. 2011 X5 35d tuned by B.R.R.
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01-06-2021, 04:18 PM	#102
argento Captain 538 Rep 872 Posts Drives: 2013 X5M Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Houston iTrader: (0)	Are the connectors the same on both speakers? __________________ 2013 X5M AW/Blk Build Thread: https://www.xbimmers.com/forums/show....php?t=1499820
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01-06-2021, 09:04 PM	#106
SlowX6M Lieutenant 288 Rep 593 Posts Drives: 2021 X6M, 2012 X5, 2018 M2 Join Date: Jun 2020 Location: NY iTrader: (0)	Haven't tested the impedance on the B&W tweeter yet, will do it in the next couple days.
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01-09-2021, 08:14 AM	#107
cat82 New Member 5 Rep 9 Posts Drives: e70 3.0sd Join Date: Jan 2021 Location: românia iTrader: (0)	SlowX6M.... i have a question. Why didn't you use the bower& wilkins back door tweeters for the front doors? As i recall you said you are going to use some infinity instead of b&w diamond tweeters? By the way much respect for your info and work..... i have a e70 with top hi-hi audio and i am in the process of swapping some bowers wilkins speakers
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-10-2021, 09:57 AM	#108
RL18 Major 274 Rep 1,054 Posts Drives: 2011 335d sport Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Maine iTrader: (0)	We I have some interesting news... I ended up installing the b&w midranges just in the front doors, with the crossovers wired in. I ran into a few obstacles but have figured out where to go from here. Here are a few things I noticed anyways... The impedance is about 1.9ohms as measured. They do sound great btw and I'll be sitting down and tuning them in the dsp to get full potential soon, they are running the tune for my grs midrange without any distortion though. Also with the crossover installed the sound was also MUCH cleaner, no more screeching at high volumes. I can't really tell if it's the speakers upgraded or the added crossover points that are making it sound better though. Now like argento pointed out, using a speaker with a different impedance than the crossover was designed for will "shift" the crossover points. My final impedance of about 1.9ohms paired with these 4ohm crossovers has a slight shift in crossover points. So my crossover points are a bit higher not a big deal though the midranges still play very clearly. The tweeters are just using the supplied hpf for its filtering. Today I'll will be swapping the rest of the speakers and putting the supplied infinity hpf back in the front, then later I can swap the crossovers for a higher midrange cutoff. Edited: not sure what kind of tricks my meter was playing but the speakers did measure out to about 2ohms not 10ohms after checking again. __________________ 2011 335d tuned by B.R.R. 2011 X5 35d tuned by B.R.R.
	Appreciate 0 Quote

01-18-2021, 05:56 PM	#110
RL18 Major 274 Rep 1,054 Posts Drives: 2011 335d sport Join Date: Nov 2017 Location: Maine iTrader: (0)	So I've spent a few days tuning in the dsp to get these b&w woofers reproducing correctly with the infinity tweeters. I still need to play with the accubass level and threshold setting on my dsp since I haven't turned it on yet but I feel like the b&w are clearer and handle the midrange better than the grs woofers even without it. Tuning the tweeters was a bit of a challenge since the b&w handle much more power but I did get them tuned up to compliment the b&w's nonetheless. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the output. If you do decided to go with these I think I would recommend using the matching b&w tweeters or use a tweeter with an impedance of 6ohms for a final impedance around 3.6 ohms I just think the tweeter and midrange would just be better matched level wise at that impedance. You could do a 4ohm tweeter and it would probably be louder but I'm just unsure if the factory eq has enough adjustment to match the midrange and tweeter level. On another note, I think I'll be experimenting further with these woofers by putting together a 3-way system for the d-pillar speakers, which depending on how that goes I may apply to the front and rear doors or just create another channel in the trunk. Not really sure which I'll choose, but I'll probably be cutting some holes either way. I just don't feel like these 4" midranges can mesh with the 8" underseats without one or the other reaching their limit as far as frequency range goes. So I want to find a solution to help fill from about 250hz to 500hz and maybe get some extra bass too. __________________ 2011 335d tuned by B.R.R. 2011 X5 35d tuned by B.R.R.
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