2005 E53 d sport, stereo.....upgrades ????

[chelsea]

I am finding the stereo a tad crap to be honest considering the car was supposed to be top of the class at the time, I think the actual head unit may be ok if the speakers are upgraded etc?

I'm looking at replacing all the speakers in the car and adding a subwoofer somewhere out of sight (not a massive box in boot type!)

Q's are.........does sending the original head unit away for upgrade (what does it do??) make loads of difference and if it does and I did then what speaker choice have those that have done this suggest I go for??

I have a budget of maybe up to £600 no more.
thanks for any input on this 

[X5-D-Sport]

For just £100 or less from FleaBay you can get an under-seat  active sub driver.
You then run the door speakers with much less Bass & Lots of Treble, and the sub at about 80%...
the result is a mega Bass sound system that's nice n clear.
The door speakers are average at best, and the amp is simply not up to pushing good door speakers, let alone space in the doors for speaks with decent sized magnets.

Other people may tell you to spend ££ hundreds on this n that, but the sound system fitted does good mid & top end, just seriously lacking on sheer Power & Bottom end Bass... the under seat sub will fix this cheaply & easily.

You can spend limitless amounts of cash on sound systems if you want to be deaf by age 30, and unless you are a sound engineer professionally with an ear for a gnat farting at 3 miles away, the extra £500 spent will go un noticed, and could instead buy you some nice brake disks & Brembo pads, or essential bits to keep your machine safer on the streets.

[Steamyrotter]

I Have mounted a pair of subs under the boot floor....
nice inconspicuous install, but necessitated the removal of the 2 plastic trays in front of the spare wheel.

Peeled back the carpet, drilled some 14mm holes to let sound through, then re-fitted carpet and you dont know they are there.
Admittedly am running a 400W bridged amp to run them...

At least i cant hear the gearbox going again!!!!

[X5-D-Sport]

Boot floor....
Wish I'd thought of that location -
fab Idea, may move my under-seat unit if it fits.....
Good ideas come to those who..... "let some one else think of them"  ha ha

Regards to all.

[X5Sport]

[quote="Steamyrotter"]
At least i cant hear the gearbox going again!!!!
[/quote]

And you thought that rhythmic thump was your sub..... ) ) ) )

[chelsea]

cheers salisbury, sure I have read somewhere that you can upgrade the amp in the standard unit? point taken about magnet size and space/lack of !

Good point about the under seat self contained active sub woofer and I am either looking at a Clarion or kenwood one?? there are a few available, what do you have?
I need to upgrade/swap out the speakers tho as the driver side front one is a bit rattly at half volume, probably because of age so it makes sense to do all of them.
If deciding to mount the sub in the boot then are there any pre-out inputs in there for the head unit or do you have to run your own.....pretty sure I have the dsp wiring in the boot, can this be utilised at all?

Lol.....a post about stereos and another comment about naff gearboxes (steamyrotter) .....reminding me of the slight thud I get from 2nd into 1st .......yup new box at some point in the future....music first tho

[X5-D-Sport]

As far as I know, you gotta do all your own line out's and easiest to tap a crossover output from the rear door speaks....
Pull the speakers/door card off (gently), identify the colour codes & tap from the door pillars....

I stuck my sub/amp unit under the passenger seat after tieing all the wiring out of the way.... but allowing for set base movement...

There are lots of sub/amp units, but ensure you get one that has a remote volume controle that you can stuff in the centre cubby box....
.... every tune has a different bass response, and you may need regular level control.

Understand that the door speakers Bass levels will want to run much less than usual, more Treble & let the sub to the Grunt-Work thumping... this will make for a higher volume without belting out the door speakers...
The Sub/Amp unit I bought from Flea-Bay was a slim unit, approx. 300watts RMS, 20Hz>250Hz

The peak wattage output is usually Bullsh*t quoted on most audio devices....
Peak output is a micro-second output capability... meaning bugger all in reality.... the RMS/Constant output is what you need to look for, and anything over 200/300watts will deafen you and shake the plastic bits off the car nicely... and if you really do need more volume, then you will soon end up deaf as a bloody post most likely... 300watts rms is seriously loud.
All these poxy computer speakers quoting 900watts etc, are probably only 5watts RMS in reality...
So don't be fooled by the blurb..

The Hz quotes are worth looking at also. Anything that can do frequencies as low as 20>30Hz is going to sound very nice... we humans can only hear down to approx. 20Hz at the lowest.... most people only down to 35Hz.....
So, a sound reflex/response of 20Hz > 150/300Hz ish or higher is good, higher than that your door speakers can belt out without bottoming out.

Would also suggest you get a power cable kit - (typically £20>35) which will have a mungus great fuse &  holder, thick power cables & thick speaker cables too....

Hope this helps

[Steamyrotter]

my subs are off the 400w and the rest are running from a quad 200w.
yup 1200w
and that is RMS.

installed in the rear right cubby with another battery squeezed in behind them.

probably why the alternator regulator has given up!!

And before richard pips in, why the gearbox failed... its under excess loading....

O:-) )

[Steamyrotter]

[quote="X5Sport"]
[quote="Steamyrotter"]
At least i cant hear the gearbox going again!!!!
[/quote]

And you thought that rhythmic thump was your sub..... ) ) ) )
[/quote]

wish this forum had a like button....

>:D )

[chelsea]

lol