tcmalibu

I used to be heavily into the car audio scene years back when I ran sales for a company called 'Soundstream'. Obviously, you can spend an incredible amount of money on the system. However my take on this, as I just picked up my 530i with the standard audio system, is that it needs at least a simple upgrade of the factory speakers, possibly just the tweeters in front, and it definitley needs some bass.

In fact, simply adding bass to this system is probably the first upgrade to try, and go from there.

I realize this system is more difficult to 'get in to' because of the electronics/fiber optics, so I am going to speak with a few of my old friends who are custom installers to see what the deal is, and what they reccomend.

tcmalibu

my530i

Would you please share your steps installing this subwoofer?

Thanks.

Merzbow

Would you please share your steps installing this subwoofer?

Thanks.
[/quote]

You're in the Bay... dude, give Kurtis a call at AMS Car Stereo at 408-248-1111, he did my entire system. He'll do just a sub for you if you want.

teriyaki88

Does anybody have a diagram of the speaker configuration? What size speakers? Who makes the stock speakers? Will the sound quality improve with new speakers? if so how much?

Teriyaki

subterFUSE

OEM system is by Harmon Kardon, which is a rather poor quality stereo company known more for home theater receivers than for car audio. (Very crappy home theater.... the kind you buy at Circuit City)

Bimmer06530i

I did not know that the standard system in the 5 Series was H/K. I do not necessarily disagree with you evaluation of the sound quality.

I thought the base sound system in the 5 Series was the same as the ?HiFi Sound Package? in Europe that most Europeans on this board like. The US dealer lit package for sales people said the standard stereo in the 5 Series was a 10 speaker system with two subwoofers. If the base US sound system has subwoofers I?ll eat my hat.

I however beg to differ on your characterization of Harmon/Kardon as a rather poor quality stereo company known more for home theater receivers than for car audio. (Very crappy home theater.... the kind you buy at Circuit City).

The H/K brand is from Harmon International who is Harman Kardon, JBL, Infinity, Revel, Audioaccess, Lexicon, Mark Levinson, Madrigal Imaging and Proceed names.

Harmon is the largest audio manufacture of car audio. Of the major car manufacturers other than GM and Nissan, and manufactures using Bose, H/K between either designing, making, or licensing their various company names owns the OEM car audio business.

I don?t want to take away from the likes of Yamaha, Denon, or Onkyo but as to H/K audio equipment, I can assure you in terms of solid state audio equipment, the characteristics an audiophile looks to in specs in terms of rise time, power, square wave response, and ultimately sound quality, H/K best them all.

Merzbow

Would you like salt with your hat? At least one small sub under the driver's seat - actually in the FLOOR.

acribb

I put in a JL 250 amp and JL 12w3 subwoofer in a box in my trunk. I think my system sounds very good now. Not too much bass to overpower the factory system, but enough to hit hard and sound good without upsetting the neighbors. I don't have Logic 7. I have the USA standard audio setup (called HiFi everywhere else around the world). This system actually has two pathetic subwoofers - one each underneath the driver and passenger seats. The standard USA audio system's bass is driven by a small puny amp in the back left of the trunk, while the head unit (MASK unit) in the dash powers every other speaker in the car. The head unit (MASK unit) sends a pre-amp level signal to the puny sub amp in the back left of the trunk, which then amplifies the signal and sends it to the subs underneath the front seats. I'm not sure if the pre-amp signal going to the factory sub amp is already crossed over to low frequencies by the MASK unit in the dash, or if that cross over occurs in the factory amp itself.

The route I took:

I used a line out converter to grab the bass frequencies from one of the two output channels of the factory sub amp and also to tapped into the remote turn on wire off the factory sub amp. I ran the power straight off the battery. Nice and clean.

acribb

I decided to finally take some pictures and document to make this process to make this easier for everyone else. It took some time and some careful research to figure this stuff out. I put in the system myself - the work is not that difficult, once you know what's what. The hardest part was splicing into the wires with a knife without cutting them in two. Take a knife, carefully shave off some of the insulation, then twist your tap in wire to it, then tape it up. You can also use tap-in connectors, but I didn't have any on hand at the time and I wanted to make sure I got a good, solid connection. Later on, I can easily take out this whole system in a matter of minutes, and then tape up the wires I tapped into. No holes drilled. Nice and clean.

Merzbow

Nice... you are using a fuse/circuit breaker, right?