Has anyone opted to get the extra sound deadining with the speakers, should I get it?

 

I bought the sound deadening with the speakers but I don't think it makes much of a difference unless you can feel the panels vibrating now. Well actually I'm not impressed with the BSW speaker upgrade at all. Sure it sounds OK but its not worth the money you pay for it. My L7 speakers on my Hi-Fi set-up sounded better. Too bad I sold them before i installed my BSW speakers.

Actually the problem is that the BSW speakers need to be driven hard to make them sound good. I think they sell the same speakers as part of their L7 set-up as well and that might be better because there you have a amp driving the speakers. I now need to crank up the volume a lot more to push those speakers.

I'd do things differently if I did it again.

 

Can I have your thoughts on what you would do differently?.....

 

would you say the L7 amp with bsw speakers work better, since its a bigger amp?

 

I'm surprised by the negative review, so many people seem to be happy. What would you suggest instead?

 

Many people will not tell you anything negative about a purchase that they have made, especially if it is not cheap. I don't have that problem.

The BSW speakers are great because they are the perfect shape as the old BMW speakers and everything is plug and play. This is where they stop having an advantage. These speakers are actually a lot less sensitive than the factory speakers and so they need to be driven hard for them to sound decent. This is one of the reasons BSW will tell you not to listen to the system until you have changed all the speakers in the car. The reason for this is otherwise the lack of sensitivity is very apparent. I left one set in the car and called my wife to audition the car and see said it sounded fantastic and pointed to the one side that I had not changed, thinking that was the side I had!!

The problem is that BSW sell the same speakers for both the L7 and the Hi-Fi systems, just that in the L7 kit you get more speakers. On the L7 set-up the amp is directly driving all the speakers and its much more powerful than the HU driving the speakers in the Hi-Fi set-up.

I brought my concerns to BSW's attention and they were quite defensive about their product. However when I pushed them further they finally admitted that many people have had great results with driving their speakers using external amplifiers e.g. blaupunkt p&p amps. My point is that if I was going to go through the trouble of re-wiring the entire car I would not have chosen BSW in the first place. They even told me that because I had up graded my subs to an Earthquake set-up it was messing with the dynamics in the car. I swapped them back to the old OEM subs and the system sounded horrible, so in fact the Earthquakes were a required upgrade - except I've had to turn the gain down on the amp driving the Earthquakes because otherwise they overshadow the BSWs.

Maybe if I had gone from the Hi-Fi directly to the BSW I would have been more impressed (however I doubt that). But the fact is I had gone from the Hi-Fi speakers to the L7 speakers and then to the BSW. So in many ways my system has taken a step back from the L7 speaker set-up that I had.

I think the guys with the L7 kit may actually be happier with the BSW upgrade.

Ofcourse trust your ears and its a good thing you get a 30 day money back return warranty. In my car I wish I could return them, but having taken so much trouble to get them from the US to UK it would be rather pointless to send it back.

Don't get me wrong, its not a bad set-up. Its just not worth the money you pay for it.

 

Thanks for saving me over $600

 

Bruce, thanks for your review of the BSW and for referring me to the L7 speakers. Did you get to compare impedances of the HIFI, L7 and BSW drivers? If not I'll send you my HIFI and L7 impedances. I might get some 10"x10" Dynamat to go with my front mids.

http://www.dynamat.com/products_auto...at_xtreme.html

 

I ended up going to a pro audio installer for door panel removal. An earlier driver door repaint resulted in wrong clips being installed on the door panel and I had a really hard time trying to pry the panel off. According to the installer (who does high end cars like the 'Vette, Lambo, and Porsche), the doors are not going to benefit from pieces of sound insulation. It is pretty well insulated from the factory. A full professional grade sound insulation job would be the way to go for any measurable improvement. We skipped the door insulation. The rear deck is also well insulated from the factory.

 

the key is doing the upgrade if you already have L7 because you will have the amp required to power the speakers and give you the dynamics you are looking for otherwise like Bruce is saying, its probably not worth it for the money

I have L7 and its an upgrade ive been looking at for some time now