Hertz 165 ordered! :yeah:
Basic stereo 6 speaker upgrade..update Amp added..final update, active subwoofer installed
- Thread starter mr.tourette
- Start date
So after some thought decided to put in an amplifier, plumped for a Vibe 65.4 micro amp, very small and perfect for the tight confines of a z4 and pretty much plug and play with an iso T harness from connects2 code CT10BM05
When I first installed it all there was interference coming through the speakers in an almost heartbeat like rhythm also I had no bluetooth, I then noticed a small led flashing inside the head unit in time with the interference... Lightbulb moment
is that the headunit looking for bluetooth???
Plugged the head unit back in on its own lead and lo and behold bluetooth back and a solid red light..no interference, after a good study of the iso loom I could see there was no continuity for the bluetooth section of loom , as it seemed to be a separate unit within the loom so managed to unclip it then move it into the iso loom that went into the headunit, there is no instruction anywhere for this and at first I thought maybe I had the wrong loom but managed to figure it out, hopefully help anyone else going forward if they come across bluetooth issues
unclip the green and black wire thats your bluetooth optical lead, they are connected in one socket
add it into the new harness fitting, bottom left in this picture
Once that's done simply clip all the harness parts together, there are some helpful tips in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=9-QjLCJsptI
Then its just find a spot to fit it, I used the plastic trim under the glovebox and got a pretty neat install, just run the wires from the back of the headunit into the footwell area, I trimmed out a small square on the trim just enough to squeeze the loom through (I'm assuming on a higher spec car something goes where these cut out are but on mine they seemed to be unused) , cut away the corner then file out a little to allow the loom fitting through
Then I just used velcro to attach the amp to the trim, added a little double sided tape to keep the rca extensions from flapping about
Final fitting of the panel, well hidden away and cant be seen when sat in passenger seat, all done everything still looks factory unless you choose to stick your head under the dashboard
When I first installed it all there was interference coming through the speakers in an almost heartbeat like rhythm also I had no bluetooth, I then noticed a small led flashing inside the head unit in time with the interference... Lightbulb moment
is that the headunit looking for bluetooth??? Plugged the head unit back in on its own lead and lo and behold bluetooth back and a solid red light..no interference, after a good study of the iso loom I could see there was no continuity for the bluetooth section of loom , as it seemed to be a separate unit within the loom so managed to unclip it then move it into the iso loom that went into the headunit, there is no instruction anywhere for this and at first I thought maybe I had the wrong loom but managed to figure it out, hopefully help anyone else going forward if they come across bluetooth issues
unclip the green and black wire thats your bluetooth optical lead, they are connected in one socket
add it into the new harness fitting, bottom left in this picture
Once that's done simply clip all the harness parts together, there are some helpful tips in the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=9-QjLCJsptI
Then its just find a spot to fit it, I used the plastic trim under the glovebox and got a pretty neat install, just run the wires from the back of the headunit into the footwell area, I trimmed out a small square on the trim just enough to squeeze the loom through (I'm assuming on a higher spec car something goes where these cut out are but on mine they seemed to be unused) , cut away the corner then file out a little to allow the loom fitting through
Then I just used velcro to attach the amp to the trim, added a little double sided tape to keep the rca extensions from flapping about
Final fitting of the panel, well hidden away and cant be seen when sat in passenger seat, all done everything still looks factory unless you choose to stick your head under the dashboard
So..improvements...Fairly substantial, the rears around 2 to 3 times louder with the gain at 90% and left the hpf off, there's not a cat in hells chance its anywhere near 65 watts per channel, the heavily equalized head unit doing its thing there but a significant improvement
Front I've had to spend a lot of time tweaking and settled on around 65-70% gain with the high pass filter on as a little distortion could creep in at that level, you could keep the gain down a little more and leave the hpf off though dependant on your requirements. Head unit is set at -2 fader, bass and treble at 0. Everything much louder and clearer to the point at 75% volume I don't need any more in terms of decibels in the cabin but I have plenty to spare.
So after running a few test tracks I did think there was a little mid range distortion creeping in here and there on odd tracks , not sure why but needed to have a think about cleaning up the sound, first thought was getting the head unit coded to hifi to reset the equalization .Then I thought I'd give the equalizer in my player another try, bearing in mind before the amp even with the speaker change I got no joy tweaking it and actually needed to turn it off completely to get the best from the new speakers.
This is where everything turned on its head again, with the amp in the car the Poweramp equalizer came back into its own and I had proper control of the audio frequencies for the first time, this is the old set up from when everything was standard..note all settings are in the minus range
As mentioned once the speakers went in I had to switch all equalization off to get the best from them, couldn't do anything at all as any changes just made things muddier somewhere and the head unit ran everything better without interference from the equalizer.
Now the updated equalizer settings allowing more control of frequencies , everything upscaled and a richer sound all around, I really recommend this Poweramp music player, its got a great interface and the graphic equalizer is excellent, I couldn't have fine tuned this last stage without it, I think basic is free and you get a 14 day free trial of pro. I think I paid £2.99 for the pro version years ago, it may be a bit more now but its totally worth it imho
So all in now at £265 and a major transformation from a weedy system totally lacking in bass and awful muddy midranges to a powerful, punchy and clear system, free from distortion that punches massively above the standard system all for a very modest outlay, feeling pretty pleased about the whole thing, hopefully I'll use it from time to time :rofl:
Front I've had to spend a lot of time tweaking and settled on around 65-70% gain with the high pass filter on as a little distortion could creep in at that level, you could keep the gain down a little more and leave the hpf off though dependant on your requirements. Head unit is set at -2 fader, bass and treble at 0. Everything much louder and clearer to the point at 75% volume I don't need any more in terms of decibels in the cabin but I have plenty to spare.
So after running a few test tracks I did think there was a little mid range distortion creeping in here and there on odd tracks , not sure why but needed to have a think about cleaning up the sound, first thought was getting the head unit coded to hifi to reset the equalization .Then I thought I'd give the equalizer in my player another try, bearing in mind before the amp even with the speaker change I got no joy tweaking it and actually needed to turn it off completely to get the best from the new speakers.
This is where everything turned on its head again, with the amp in the car the Poweramp equalizer came back into its own and I had proper control of the audio frequencies for the first time, this is the old set up from when everything was standard..note all settings are in the minus range
As mentioned once the speakers went in I had to switch all equalization off to get the best from them, couldn't do anything at all as any changes just made things muddier somewhere and the head unit ran everything better without interference from the equalizer.
Now the updated equalizer settings allowing more control of frequencies , everything upscaled and a richer sound all around, I really recommend this Poweramp music player, its got a great interface and the graphic equalizer is excellent, I couldn't have fine tuned this last stage without it, I think basic is free and you get a 14 day free trial of pro. I think I paid £2.99 for the pro version years ago, it may be a bit more now but its totally worth it imho
So all in now at £265 and a major transformation from a weedy system totally lacking in bass and awful muddy midranges to a powerful, punchy and clear system, free from distortion that punches massively above the standard system all for a very modest outlay, feeling pretty pleased about the whole thing, hopefully I'll use it from time to time :rofl:
Interesting read about the Vibe amp, Mr Tourette has your car got bluetooth audio streaming? mine doesn't. I am confused about this Poweramp music player. Is this an app on your phone through which you can play your music (streamed to the car via bluetooth) and allows you to make those adjustments in the app? Is that correct? I have bluetooth connection for audio streaming via a dongle connected to the USB and AUX port in the armrest but I am planning to add an Apple Car Play box, hopefully reasonably soon.
yes thats correct, its a music player much like many others except it has a very well developed in app equalizer system that allows fine control of the audio. My car does not have bluetooth audio I use the same sort of set up as you using a usb aux unit in the armrest 
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Anonymous
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Well done, as you say an exceptionally good exercise in cost effectiveness..definitely plays to the 80/20 design rule..
I’m sure re-coding to Hi-Fi then re-visiting your various controls would be the cherry on the cake.. at least it would satisfy my curiosity :rofl:
I’m sure re-coding to Hi-Fi then re-visiting your various controls would be the cherry on the cake.. at least it would satisfy my curiosity :rofl:
Pbondar said:Well done, as you say an exceptionally good exercise in cost effectiveness..definitely plays to the 80/20 design rule..
I’m sure re-coding to Hi-Fi then re-visiting your various controls would be the cherry on the cake.. at least it would satisfy my curiosity :rofl:
Indeed Pete, at some point i will get around to doing just that but at least for now Im happy with the vast improvement for the modest outlay, I think now i will look to changing my most used albums into flac files although I could be opening another can of worms, tried playing some tracks from the cd and running the same song on my phone with mp3 file and switching back and forth it didn't seem like there was much in it at all, not to my old lug holes anyhow.. still something to experiment with
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Anonymous
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IMHO...in a car environment lossless codecs are not in the 80/20 area..they are in the 99/1 area...
I’ve encoded my whole library of 600 CDs in Apple ALAC similar to FLAC ...
In the cars and even on home hi-fi I used 256 Kbps apple lossy codec..
On my best sound system which was a £3k system in its day..I can just .. just notice the most very subtle difference between an original an a 196 Kbps lossy codec..
The primary issue on lossless codecs is the xtra space they take...if you can afford the space then fine...I can get 6000 tracks onto 64 G bit iPod player using 196kb lossy encoding..
I’ve encoded my whole library of 600 CDs in Apple ALAC similar to FLAC ...
In the cars and even on home hi-fi I used 256 Kbps apple lossy codec..
On my best sound system which was a £3k system in its day..I can just .. just notice the most very subtle difference between an original an a 196 Kbps lossy codec..
The primary issue on lossless codecs is the xtra space they take...if you can afford the space then fine...I can get 6000 tracks onto 64 G bit iPod player using 196kb lossy encoding..
Well done sir, I think this is a masterclass and fantastic guide for those wanting to upgrade the 6 speaker system.
I had some advice from Peter and seriously toyed with upgrading mine but wasn’t sure where to start. I would’ve done this straight away following your lead if I’d still had the car
I had some advice from Peter and seriously toyed with upgrading mine but wasn’t sure where to start. I would’ve done this straight away following your lead if I’d still had the car
Argyll Andy said:Well done sir, I think this is a masterclass and fantastic guide for those wanting to upgrade the 6 speaker system.
I had some advice from Peter and seriously toyed with upgrading mine but wasn’t sure where to start. I would’ve done this straight away following your lead if I’d still had the car
Why thank you Sir
I've never really been one for writing how to's but there is little info out there on doing this without spending (what i consider..might be peanuts to some ) silly money, I thought it would be worth the effort..cheers buddy Loved reading this post, and if I ever take the plunge and buy an E89, I will most certainly revisit this post!mr.tourette said:
Just wanted to add though, I hope that velcro is the super grippy automotive stuff (like 3M dual lock):
....because I foresee that Amp succumbing to gravity in no time flat. Also, polypropylene doesn't take to adhesives very well.
If it were me, I'd take advantage of those mounting points and bolt it to the trim. If you're worried about damaging the trim for resale prospects, you could always plug the hole later with a fir-tree clip.
Z4C_er said:
Its supposedly heavy duty, its still there this morning
The amp is pretty small and lightweight, cant be even 500 grams I would think..also those rca leads are attached with a slice of no more nails on a roll and that s**t is going nowhere without a hairdryer, some wd40 and patience, if gravity gets to it it won't be going far Your post has had me going out to check and in all honesty it seem rock solid, I'll keep an eye on it though and maybe add a pair of small bolts, one in each diagonal corner ..thanks for the tip mr.tourette said:Z4C_er said:
Its supposedly heavy duty, its still there this morning
No wukkers!I received the speaker cable adaptors today so decided to have test run on the rear speakers. I have to say even without mounting the Crunch DSX42 properly the sound difference is incredible, the Crunch's have so much more clarity over the stock speakers! Shame about the attenuated rear signal from the head unit!
Mr Tourette regarding using the old speakers as mounting plates I assume you cut of the tabs in the red circle of the photo below? After doing that I suppose you can just simply pry the old speaker out?
Once the old speaker have been removed how did you mount the Crunch's? From what I can see only two of the mounting points of the Crunch speakers match up to the old speaker mount points, I assume you cut off the other two mounting tabs on the Crunch? but then how did you secure that side of the speaker down?
Mr Tourette regarding using the old speakers as mounting plates I assume you cut of the tabs in the red circle of the photo below? After doing that I suppose you can just simply pry the old speaker out?
Once the old speaker have been removed how did you mount the Crunch's? From what I can see only two of the mounting points of the Crunch speakers match up to the old speaker mount points, I assume you cut off the other two mounting tabs on the Crunch? but then how did you secure that side of the speaker down?
Yes cut off 2 tabs buddy, you don't need anything else to secure them that's the job of the adapter you're making , the shoulder speakers just have a recess they sit in. They'll go nowhere once in situ, just pop them into place, put your adapter over the top and use the original screws to put back in it'll make sense once you do a dry run
The clarity improvement is fantastic, just been out in mine and “A thousand trees “ by Stereophonics came on and every high hat and snare from the drums as well as the tambourine that runs all the way through the song that you couldn't even previously make out where coming through beautifully from the rears (probably thanks to the amp too) the difference in definition is quite astonishing and it's the first time I've properly actually heard music coming from behind me
The clarity improvement is fantastic, just been out in mine and “A thousand trees “ by Stereophonics came on and every high hat and snare from the drums as well as the tambourine that runs all the way through the song that you couldn't even previously make out where coming through beautifully from the rears (probably thanks to the amp too) the difference in definition is quite astonishing and it's the first time I've properly actually heard music coming from behind me
Many thanks! I'll have a go at them over the next few days. Those Hertz C165 got cancelled apparently the store I bought them from didn't have stocks and couldn't tell me when they would arrive so I found some Hertz MP 165.3 (same thing but a little better) for 23 euros more, they arrived this morning and my they are heavy little things over 1kg each! Looks like real good quality speakers! I am still pondering what to do about the amp, I want to fit an Apple Car Play box first and see how that wires in before deciding on the amp.
Silverstar said:
Yeah definitely worth seeing how you feel first, just doing the speakers is a huge improvement and you may not feel like you need the amp, that extra push to the rears was worth the money on its own for me though..the upgraded Hertz will be be no bad thing the 165c came in at 989g.. keep us posted
I found this interesting article online about stereo imaging and soundstage. It kind of explains BMW's reasoning for our attenuated signal on the rear channel:
https://www.crutchfield.com/S-MWAnDvoTBil/learn/car-speakers-soundstage-imaging.html
https://www.crutchfield.com/S-MWAnDvoTBil/learn/car-speakers-soundstage-imaging.html
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Anonymous
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Silverstar said:
It’s a nice if simplified article with some practical suggestions..
So I am kind of half way towards installing all my upgraded speakers and I can immediately see what we all know, the heavily equalised signal of the head unit and not getting the best out of the new speakers. So browsing the web as I do, I have come across this thing:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AXTON-DSP-Amplifier-150-Watt-Android/dp/B07NCXPB77/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Axton+A580DSP&qid=1604742561&sr=8-1
or here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AXTON-DSP-Amplifier-150-Watt-Android/dp/B07NCXNDWS/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Axton+A580DSP&qid=1604742561&sr=8-2
Both of the above are the same thing just listed by different sellers I think. Anyway if you look at the feedback on both it seems to be pretty decent. I am thinking to use this amp to drive the rear and door speakers and run a mono block amp from the preout of this unit with new cables going direct to the Hertz footwell speakers.
So would this unit clean up the signal for the rear and doors and send a clean signal to the mono block amp to drive the footwell woofers?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AXTON-DSP-Amplifier-150-Watt-Android/dp/B07NCXPB77/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Axton+A580DSP&qid=1604742561&sr=8-1
or here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/AXTON-DSP-Amplifier-150-Watt-Android/dp/B07NCXNDWS/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Axton+A580DSP&qid=1604742561&sr=8-2
Both of the above are the same thing just listed by different sellers I think. Anyway if you look at the feedback on both it seems to be pretty decent. I am thinking to use this amp to drive the rear and door speakers and run a mono block amp from the preout of this unit with new cables going direct to the Hertz footwell speakers.
So would this unit clean up the signal for the rear and doors and send a clean signal to the mono block amp to drive the footwell woofers?
