[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by f30bmw320i

In my base f30 2013 with the 6 speaker system. The mid rangers killed themselves with too much bass but the woofer is good. I can’t crank up the bass without killing these small speakers. For me even the 14 speaker harman kardon in my mercedes isn’t good enough in terms of bass. Can anyone recommend what to do?

I think you’ll need to augment your system with a trunk sub if none of your cars are doing it now. Also for mid bass those 6 inch underseat woofers won’t take much power so replacement will be necessary if you go for a match 7. With trunk subs a 10 inch does well.

In terms of aftermarket verse factory, if you choose wisely you can tailor the sound more to your liking and can exceed the carity and dynamics of the BMW systems from my personal experience. But also treatments such as sound deadening door panels and door cards does help.

For audio with a trunk sub check out Mobridge 8.1.1 amplifier, ticks so many boxes, Full dsp, 9 channels of
Audio with 400 - 500 rms on sub bass, Large voltage rails for underseat wooder amp channels ( 2-8 ohm no prob ) uses BMWs most digital audio for music and all idrive sound functions. One box solution rather than 3 if going using Match to achieve the same.
.

[f30bmw320i]

Mine only has 6 speakers actually and the the speakers in the front doors are blown

[NealfromNZ]

I’m also running with the six speaker positions that was derived from base audio. Have replaced door speakers with components , underseat woofers were 6.5s replaced with Harman Kardon ( they are ok ) and then replaced again with aftermarket. I don’t have center channel or rear parcel shelf speaker mounts.

Other than more sound treatment for trunk / boot it’s sounding really good. 10 inch sub however is less hassle from working through rattles than what I’m running.

Hopefully give you some ideas

[siggs22969]

Originally Posted by kierownik

Basic system. I wanted to get a bit crispier sound without having to spend too much money. The subwoofers are good enough for me to be fair. Don't need more bass. I guess I'll just stick with the stock speakers then. Thanks

I have owned several bmws. I started by replacing the subs. It sounded much better than the stock HK. Next I replaced all 16 speakers throughout the car. Sounded much better especially when you stream music through Bluetooth. The satellite radio signal is very poor from bmw, honestly im not sure why. Just try it with the system you have now. Lastly I replaced the amplifier. This upgrade made the biggest difference of all. Not cheap but definitely worth it. Direct replacement. If I were you I would start with the subs then the amplifier. Even cheap paper cone speakers sound 10x better with more power and less distortion. Good luck which every rout you take

[howe9191]

Guys Im having the 676 Hifi system, was wondering which upgrade sounds better?

BMW logic 7 Surround amplifier (with rear bookshelf adding) OR Match 7/8UP plug play?

[Onizukachan]

Match up7bmw with my or someone else’s tune file.

[SoundHound75]

I recently installed this the SWS 8 in my G31, but I used the ESX QM500.4 amplifier. The sound appears less clear and more bass-heavy compared to before. It feels like there's an entire section of the frequency spectrum missing. I'm curious about how the frequency range of this component compares to the original BMW HK woofers. If a part of the range is indeed missing, adding a DSP may not be the solution.

[Billfitz]

The range isn't missing, you're just hearing the lower extension of the SWS combined with less upper bass sensitivity. DSP is the fix. The #1 shortcoming of the OEM systems is lack of a good DSP. It's why the Match Up amps are recommended.

[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by SoundHound75

I recently installed this the SWS 8 in my G31, but I used the ESX QM500.4 amplifier. The sound appears less clear and more bass-heavy compared to before. It feels like there's an entire section of the frequency spectrum missing. I'm curious about how the frequency range of this component compares to the original BMW HK woofers. If a part of the range is indeed missing, adding a DSP may not be the solution.

If you are this amp without a LOC then running a speaker level input will overdrive the input stage on the amp and cause distortion even at a moderate volume level.

.https://www.crutchfield.com/S-duuDMW...converter.html

If you turn the system you could damage the new amplifier. Look for a Loc that can take speaker level inputs of 32 volts or more

EG.
https://jlaudio.zendesk.com/hc/en-us...5989953-LoC-22

Here’s your amp showing a maximum input of 5 volts which is far to low when connected to the Hk amp woofer outputs.

[Valentine6801]

Hello everyone…. Been posting in the wrong places I guess and still haven’t received any helpful info so here goes. I got the Match 7UP amp and replaced every speaker with the Audiotech stuff except the under seat subs and I went with the Focal shallow subs. Well, one went out and i wanted to see if anyone’s had better “luck” with other subs. Definitely not the Bavsound and the Earthquaker seems like it would be a downgrade. I have a DD 3512 12” sub in the trunk wired through the pass through on the Match amp so I’m really looking for something that has a bit of punch or mid bass maybe? I dunno. Thank yall!!

[NealfromNZ]

What are your dsp settings and filters running on the Focal woofer channels.


What frequency range do to run the
1, Sub eg 0-xx
2, Focal woofers xx - xx
3 Match mid bass / tweeters xx -20,000

Do you run them in phase or out of phase with mids and sub ? ( phase transition at either end can cause dips if phase transition is wrong )

And did you go for 2 ohm or 4 ohm versions of the Focals ? ( match amp will have more transient power available driving 2 ohm versions )

Or it could be simply gain on Subwoofer is too high not allowing the focal woofer blend and keep up volume wise in that transition between sub bass and bass.

I could recommend what I run as can get great impact from the underseats but the dsp tune is essential to get this to happen.

Graphs of RTA response will help here as a number of us can comment and suggest if your tune is optimal before doing woofer replacement.

[nitrorc21]

anyone try the axton 8inch subwoofers ? seem to be a perfect choice for eu customers if they are decent sounding
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/186000785...&segname=13110

[Billfitz]

The only way to know how any driver will work is via speaker modeling software using the driver Thiele-Small parameters. They're found on driver data sheets, for instance: https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs...spec-sheet.pdf

[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by Valentine6801

Hello everyone…. Been posting in the wrong places I guess and still haven’t received any helpful info so here goes. I got the Match 7UP amp and replaced every speaker with the Audiotech stuff except the under seat subs and I went with the Focal shallow subs. Well, one went out and i wanted to see if anyone’s had better “luck” with other subs. Definitely not the Bavsound and the Earthquaker seems like it would be a downgrade. I have a DD 3512 12” sub in the trunk wired through the pass through on the Match amp so I’m really looking for something that has a bit of punch or mid bass maybe? I dunno. Thank yall!!

I didn’t see that the focal had blown.
Running Morel BMW which come in 2 ohm. They should take the full power of the match amp and load the channels up nicely. They have almost double the power rating of the focals so harder to overpower them.

They are a nice acurate underseat woofer and do have impact when tracks demand it. They also follow acoustic bass nicely.
I have mine filling from an acoustic 60 -175hz with the crossovers running 45-175 hz. Have an old but well performing high excursion sub doing 15-60 hz and the morels blend in nicely.

[Airtraffic]

This is an awesome thread! Loved Johnung's install pictures. I have a 2018 F30 sedan with the H/K Logic 7 system. It's not bad. I started out looking at the BimmerTech and Bavsound systems, but it seems an awful lot of $ just because they've made it PnP, not because it's superior equipment.
Not wanting to throw thousands of $ at my system at once, I was going in stages.. I started with the underseat woofers. After a lot of research, I settled on a pair of Integral Audio SoundStage series 8 ohm woofers. After installing those, things sounded worse, and I went back to the stock H/K woofers. I'm assuming the stock H/K amp isn't feeding the Integral Audio woofers enough power?
So, next I found a pair of Audison BMW4KE components, and threw those in the front doors, which really woke up the system. I have some more separation and clarity, with a bit more volume. I want to keep going, and after reading Johnung's posts about adding the AudioControl ACM-2.3 amp, it seems like that would be the next logical step? That'd be about $350 vs almost $2K for an 8 ch amp with DSP. I was hoping Bill or Johnung could give me an opinion on whether I'm going in the right direction? Will the addition of the AudioControl amp running the underseat woofers give me a better soundstage? Also, I see that Johnung ran thicker wires directly to the woofers, rather than a more plug and play system using the factory connectors. That was the only part of the install that confused me.

[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by Airtraffic

This is an awesome thread! Loved Johnung's install pictures. I have a 2018 F30 sedan with the H/K Logic 7 system. It's not bad. I started out looking at the BimmerTech and Bavsound systems, but it seems an awful lot of $ just because they've made it PnP, not because it's superior equipment.
Not wanting to throw thousands of $ at my system at once, I was going in stages.. I started with the underseat woofers. After a lot of research, I settled on a pair of Integral Audio SoundStage series 8 ohm woofers. After installing those, things sounded worse, and I went back to the stock H/K woofers. I'm assuming the stock H/K amp isn't feeding the Integral Audio woofers enough power?
So, next I found a pair of Audison BMW4KE components, and threw those the front doors, which really woke up the system. I have some more separation and clarity, with a bit more volume. I want to keep going, and after reading Johnung posts about adding the AudioControl ACM-2.3 amp , it seems like that would be the next logical step? That'd be about $350 vs almost $2K for an 8 ch amp with DSP. I was hoping Bill or Johnung could give me an opinion on whether I'm going in the right direction? Will the addition of the AudioControl amp running the underseat woofers give me a better soundstage? Also, I see that Johnung ran thicker wires directly to the woofers, rather than a more plug and play system using the factory connectors. That was the only part of the install that confused me.

If you put in an amp that supports two ohms I’d be incline to try the IR 8s in two ohm mode. The ACM amp will make twice the with a 2 ohm load. Also have a think about a DSP as the response on left and right under seats aren’t symmetrical. Left side favours frequency response lower bass. Right side favours higher bass.

Did you try swapping +- wires on one side ? I hear that HK runs speakers on opposite polarity on under seats. Gets a bit more output @ 80-90hz but below 50hz it drops away.

[NealfromNZ]

This is roughly what you'd end up running HKs with more power. The Amp feeding this graph gives them 120 - 140 rms. At this volume level it's getting reasonably loud.

Yellow = booth woofers playing together and running the same polarity.
Green = left woofer
purple = right woofer

The lower end needs bumping up and the higher end needs pulling down a bit. But they did sound ok, but not amazing. HKs have a drop around 55hz mark so lower bass guitar region. But come back up a bit lower.

Ironically running these High passed at 20 hz meant more buzzes and rattles where occurring.

I run different under-seat speakers 45hz up and it's less of an issue even with trunk sub. But if I run those down to 20 hz the low end performance from 20-60 hz is substantially better than HK.

[Airtraffic]

Neal, thank you for the reply.
"Did you try swapping +- wires on one side ? I hear that HK runs speakers on opposite polarity on under seats."

Since these involved factory connectors, I did not experiment with changing polarity of the wiring.

[johnung]

Originally Posted by Airtraffic

This is an awesome thread! Loved Johnung's install pictures. I have a 2018 F30 sedan with the H/K Logic 7 system. It's not bad. I started out looking at the BimmerTech and Bavsound systems, but it seems an awful lot of $ just because they've made it PnP, not because it's superior equipment.
Not wanting to throw thousands of $ at my system at once, I was going in stages.. I started with the underseat woofers. After a lot of research, I settled on a pair of Integral Audio SoundStage series 8 ohm woofers. After installing those, things sounded worse, and I went back to the stock H/K woofers. I'm assuming the stock H/K amp isn't feeding the Integral Audio woofers enough power?
So, next I found a pair of Audison BMW4KE components, and threw those in the front doors, which really woke up the system. I have some more separation and clarity, with a bit more volume. I want to keep going, and after reading Johnung's posts about adding the AudioControl ACM-2.3 amp, it seems like that would be the next logical step? That'd be about $350 vs almost $2K for an 8 ch amp with DSP. I was hoping Bill or Johnung could give me an opinion on whether I'm going in the right direction? Will the addition of the AudioControl amp running the underseat woofers give me a better soundstage? Also, I see that Johnung ran thicker wires directly to the woofers, rather than a more plug and play system using the factory connectors. That was the only part of the install that confused me.

If you read Billfitz’s other posts the Earthquake SWS-8Xi (2-ohm) is the only sub with the specs to sound good in the small BMW underseat sub cabinets.

The Earthquakes need more power than the HK amp provides. But the HK amp doesn’t have typical connections to add a secondary amplifier. So a high voltage LOC is required to interface the HK amplifier to a secondary amplifier that will drive the Earthquakes.

My goal was to improve the bass sound of my H/K system without taking up valuable trunk space. I searched for over a month before finding the perfect solution, the AudioControl ACM-2.300 combination LOC/Amplifier. High quality, perfect power to drive the Earthquakes and small size. I mounted it on top of the tool compartment in the right trunk alcove above the battery.

Also needed is the $65 custom harness from Technicpnp website. Provides easy connections with no wire splicing and it’s easily reversible. An Earthquake spacer ring kit (~$27) is also needed to mount the Earthquakes in the BMW sub cabinets.

When I installed this upgrade several years ago we weren’t sure if the stock speaker wire that BMW was using between H/K amp and the underseat subs was a heavy enough gauge. So I bought speaker wire (14g i believe) and ran it from the secondary amp to the Earthquakes.

Since then a number of people have used the stock wire and I haven’t heard of any issues. Using existing wires is easy to do.

The Technicpnp harness is just configured to use existing wire. At the Earthquake end the stock wires are terminated at a rectangular plug. Just clip off the plugs with 1-2” of wire remaining so it can be reversed later if necessary. Then just strip the wire ends and insert into the spring clips on the Earthquake spacers.

For a car with the H/K system, this configuration of Earthquake SWS-8Xi subs & spacer rings, Technicpnp harness, AudioControl ACM-2.300 is the best way to upgrade the stock bass. It makes the HK system sound like it should have from the factory without taking up valuable trunk space.

Now keep in mind this is not going to thump the cars around you at a red light like a large trunk mounted subwoofer, but they have their own issues too.

There’s no doubt that a Match 10DSP amplifier setup with the Earthquakes would sound amazing because it adds a new modern DSP system. But it costs much more.

Hope this helps!

[Airtraffic]

Thanks Johnung, that's super helpful! I'm not the type that feels the need to thump, just a full soundstage is really what I'm after. I'll likely take this route, as it's about 1/3 the cost of the 10 DSP. That'll have to wait until next year. Until then, thanks for the help!