I thought you all might like to see what I've been doing with an Audio upgrade for the E89 Z4.
I got the z4 without any audio upgrade so just had the standard audio setup. This soon proved to be pretty inadequate and so I decided to fit the Blaupunkt amp and harness with the speakers upgraded to the BMW Hifi parts. I added the Tweeters to the door mirror covers and upgraded the footwell speaker and door speakers with the Top Hifi versions. The rear channel was left as delivered but I found that by upping the gain on the rears and then fading forward I got a pretty good compromise sound with just the back channel filling in some of the high detail.
This worked well for while and then the amp blew a channel! I hadn't realised that adding the tweeters drops the resistance to the amp below the 2 ohm limit it will work with. Oops!
Blaupunkt were good enough to replace the amp and I removed the tweeters from the fronts and all was well again.
Unfortunately after the amp was out of warranty, it started making a hissing and squealing noise intermittently on the rear channel and sometimes one side would not work .
So I looked for a different amp which might suit the compromised system already installed.
I discovered the JBL MS-A1004 amp which looked very nice and had a better amp rating than the previous one. It also had high level inputs and is very tunable due to a built in DSP processor.
I used the existing Blaupunkt extension harness as this sent all 4 channels to the same place in the boot and then back to the speakers again. I wired amp up and tried it out.
It sounded great but still lacked a little on the bass due to the lack of any subwoofers in the car. I then hunted around and found that someone had fitted a self powered sub into the space normally occupied by the ski hatch and storage box (which my car doesn't have).
So I found the In-Phase USW-10 subwoofer which will fit into this space without robbing any more space from the boot.
With this installed and the amp set up the sound is much better again. I've added the tweeters to the back channel now but I'm not totally convinced they are required anyway. However as I had them spare I might as well use them.
I've taken a couple of pics so you can see what I've ended up with. It looks totally stock apart from the amp in the boot. I did think of hiding it under the boot liner on the back wall but thought it might overheat there. Plus it looks cool seeing the digital display!
This is the Subwoofer in the rear bulkhead as seen from the boot.
This is the amplifier mounted on the back wall of the boot.
Hope you like it.
I got the z4 without any audio upgrade so just had the standard audio setup. This soon proved to be pretty inadequate and so I decided to fit the Blaupunkt amp and harness with the speakers upgraded to the BMW Hifi parts. I added the Tweeters to the door mirror covers and upgraded the footwell speaker and door speakers with the Top Hifi versions. The rear channel was left as delivered but I found that by upping the gain on the rears and then fading forward I got a pretty good compromise sound with just the back channel filling in some of the high detail.
This worked well for while and then the amp blew a channel! I hadn't realised that adding the tweeters drops the resistance to the amp below the 2 ohm limit it will work with. Oops!
Blaupunkt were good enough to replace the amp and I removed the tweeters from the fronts and all was well again.
Unfortunately after the amp was out of warranty, it started making a hissing and squealing noise intermittently on the rear channel and sometimes one side would not work .
So I looked for a different amp which might suit the compromised system already installed.
I discovered the JBL MS-A1004 amp which looked very nice and had a better amp rating than the previous one. It also had high level inputs and is very tunable due to a built in DSP processor.
I used the existing Blaupunkt extension harness as this sent all 4 channels to the same place in the boot and then back to the speakers again. I wired amp up and tried it out.
It sounded great but still lacked a little on the bass due to the lack of any subwoofers in the car. I then hunted around and found that someone had fitted a self powered sub into the space normally occupied by the ski hatch and storage box (which my car doesn't have).
So I found the In-Phase USW-10 subwoofer which will fit into this space without robbing any more space from the boot.
With this installed and the amp set up the sound is much better again. I've added the tweeters to the back channel now but I'm not totally convinced they are required anyway. However as I had them spare I might as well use them.
I've taken a couple of pics so you can see what I've ended up with. It looks totally stock apart from the amp in the boot. I did think of hiding it under the boot liner on the back wall but thought it might overheat there. Plus it looks cool seeing the digital display!
This is the Subwoofer in the rear bulkhead as seen from the boot.
This is the amplifier mounted on the back wall of the boot.
Hope you like it.
