[brettp]

Hi everyone, I am after some basic pointers. Read many pages on here and my head is spinning.

I have just left a deposit on a 2012 320d coupe. I expect that it has the basic under seat subs is that right?

A couple of years ago I had a 1 series coupe and the audio modification of choice for many was to purchase the original Logic7 mids, tweeters and tweeter covers. Then replace the under seat subs with Earthquake subs and install a small Vibe Litebox high channel amp.

as its been a couple of years and I am a little (alot) rusty on audio can anyone advise me of a decent set up that looks stock etc.

Thanks in advance

[mob17]

First thing is to find out what system you actually have. Do you have tweeters in the door sails and a centre speaker?

[brettp]

Cheers, damn it forgot to look last night,will find out tomorrow ad confirm.
Cheers

[brettp]

Hi, I have now collected the car and just have the basic system I believe. I do not have any tweeters currently and no centre speaker.

Any help would be great guys, thanks.

[mob17]

Ok assuming you have the base spec and not HiFi, you should de-eq the signal first, via recoding (can not always be done) or a DSP (either an autotune one such an ms-8 or a more manual one, like a mosconi 6to8 or helix p-dsp). If your budget allows you could even do both. If you want to amp you need to do this eq step. Have a search of different DSPs and see what suits you.

From here onwards its a matter of personal choice and budget. That Vibe amp is good (i also have one) but you could get a 6 channel amp, like the JL XD600/6, if you wanted to amp all 6 channels. Depends if you like amping rears. You also need to decide if you want to add a centre channel. If you do then you need a DSP which can produce one (most do). You can hide both of these amps. Also consider the PDX and HD range.

Speaker wise you will need to find something that fits an E92. Your door depth is smaller than of an E90. But there are options out there that can work.

Just work out a budget first and decide what you want from your system.

[brettp]

Thansk for this, sorry for the delay. forgive me as I am going to sound really thick.

Understand that the headunit its not set to know when I add in the tweeters, but if I went for a 4/6 channel vibe amp can I not just take the feed from the rear speakers and amp up the 2 under seat subs and front speakers? its what I did before and I thought it was alright.

By adding a DSP, understand that it takes the analogue signal and turns it into a digital signal, is it going to make that much difference?

[mob17]

Originally Posted by brettp

Thansk for this, sorry for the delay. forgive me as I am going to sound really thick.

Understand that the headunit its not set to know when I add in the tweeters, but if I went for a 4/6 channel vibe amp can I not just take the feed from the rear speakers and amp up the 2 under seat subs and front speakers? its what I did before and I thought it was alright.

On the E90, the rear signal is high passed (150hz), so using that feed for your woofers won't really work that well. It really depends if the rear signal is also high passed on the F30, this is something im not sure of sorry. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

If you want a plug and play 3 way component set (tweeters, mids and underseat woofers) id strongly recommend sending MrSingh a pm. He sells some which i heard today and i was very impressed. And that was without a DSP. The woofers in his package can play pretty low.

By adding a DSP, understand that it takes the analogue signal and turns it into a digital signal, is it going to make that much difference?

Again, if the F30's base spec HU has a factory EQ, like the E90's, then a DSP would de-eq (flatten) the HU output and then the signal would be good to amp. After flattening some DSPs will also enable you to EQ 1/3 octaves, so you can get it sounding like you want or you can set it up with an RTA. This is because a car's interior is very bad for acoustics. But it really depends on how serious you take your SQ.

The EQ side of things is important because if you just amped the factory EQd signal, then it wouldn't sound optimal, as that EQ is set up specifically for the poor OEM speakers.

Apart from vehicle/user specific EQing, a DSP can also help with time alignment, crossover management, phase set up. If this is something which you think would definately not appeal to you then you can get a JL cleansweep, which would just flatten the EQ ready to be amped further ahead.

A quick note: Everything i've said is applicable to E90 base stereo cars. Just confirm you have a similar spec i.e your HU has a factory EQ, rears are high passed. Im pretty sure that is the case but find out!

.

[brettp]

cheers once again.

however may have to put my audio plans on hold now.