My audio build - upgraded from Top Hifi system

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pcube

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*Warning – very long read*

Today I finally completed the upgrade of my entire audio system. It's been a long journey with many hurdles I had to overcome to get it where it is now. I didn't take any pictures of the install, but just thought I would document the whole process here in case someone else decides to go down this same route and needs information.

My E86M originally came with the Top Hifi option aka 10 speaker with Carver subs, but no nav. Final outcome after upgrade is full active front 3-way, rear stage with paired coaxials, and an active sub all controlled via a DSP amp with a 9 inch screen that is capable of music and nav through Android Auto.

Phase 1. Purchased the Alpine Halo9 headunit together with an Audiotec-Fischer Match UP 7BMW amp. The shop that did the install said that this specific amp was necessary to make everything work but at this point I doubt it. It’s probably true if I had retained the stock Business CD stereo, but since I had an aftermarket HU any amp would have worked. The only benefit of this Match unit was that the harness was made to fit the X10266 connector and therefore makes the install very simple. By default, the Match amp will drive the tweeters, kick panel woofers, rear mids and front left mid (total 7 channels). The shop set it up without driving the front left mid which of course made sense. I left the shop pretty happy since I had all the functions I wanted, except I had lost my steering wheel controls… more on this later. The sound quality was improved but nothing fantastic.

Phase 2. Felt I needed more bass, so purchased the Kenwood KSC-SW11 active subwoofer. Install was quite straightforward – power and ground leads can be tapped straight from the battery area, audio signal directly via the amp as it has an aux output. Left the unit in the boot for simplicity. Not ideal, as these small active subs are really designed to fit under the seat.

Phase 3. Aftermarket speakers and this is where things got tricky especially since I wanted my front 3-way system back.
Audio Systems X100 BMW PLUS EVO which is a passive tweeter and 8cm midrange system. The passive crossovers that came with it were not used, connected the original tweeter and midrange signal wires directly to the speakers. To make the front mids work, I relocated 4 pins on the X10266 harness to take the signals that were being sent from the amp to the rear mids. The 8cm mids also came with adapters that fit nicely in the stock locations, however for the tweeters I had to do some cutting with a Dremel.
Rainbow SL-W6 woofers replaced the kickpanel speakers. For these I needed to custom-make 15mm MDF spacers, otherwise install was quite straightforward.
Rainbow DL-X6 coaxials to create a rear soundstage. These were installed where the Carver subs used to be with self-tapping screws to drill into the metal mounting plate. The wires for the rear midrange speakers (not the Carver ones which were just there) were then hooked up. At the X10266 harness, tied the L/R rear mids wires together which were previously removed and then hooked it up directly to the last channel on the amp harness. On hindsight, I only needed one of these coaxials since the rear sound stage isn't really that important.
Relocated the active sub to directly behind the driver’s seat.
Installed Connects2 CTSBM007.2 for steering wheel controls. I bought this model because the website stated that this was for BMWs with a factory amp, but it initially wouldn’t work. I had to remove that extra module it came with and then everything was good. I suspect the CTSBM004.2 would have worked just fine and is much cheaper.
New phone mount setup – Brodit Proclip paired with Scosche MagicMount Pro.

Phase 4. With all the hardware in, I moved on to tuning the speakers. Purchased the MiniDSP UMIK-1 calibrated mic and installed Room EQ wizard and Audiotec-Fischer DSP PC tool. I have to say the AF software is incredibly powerful and loaded with functions. EQ was tuned using a JBL house curve as baseline. I’ve got a whole range of house curves in .txt format so if you need them just drop me a message and I’ll email them to you.

I’m very happy with the end result. Contrary to popular belief, a good sound system can actually overcome exhaust/engine/road noise even without any soundproofing done.

Hope this was helpful, if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them. Thanks for reading :)

Links to all parts:
Alpine Halo9 www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/SingleView/iLX-F903D
Match UP 7BMW www.audiotec-fischer.de/match/verstaerker/up-7bmw
Scosche fascia plate www.scosche.com/2003-up-bmw-z4-iso-kit
Kenwood KSC-SW11 www.kenwood.com/usa/car/speakers/ksc-sw11/
Audio Systems X100 BMW PLUS EVO www.audio-system.de/index.php/en/produkte/perfectfitsystem/bmw
Rainbow SL-W6 www.rainbow-audio.de/en/speaker/sound-line/
Rainbow DL-X6 www.rainbow-audio.de/en/speaker/dream-line/coaxial-speaker/
Connects2 CTSBM007.2 www.connects2.com/Product/ProductItem/CTSBM004.2
Brodit Proclip www.brodit.com/product.html?id=630530
Scosche MagicMount www.scosche.com/magicmount-pro-dash
MiniDSP UMIK-1 www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1

Useful links:
www.billswebspace.com/MZ4SubwooferInstallation.htm
www.billswebspace.com/A18 Amplifier.htm
www.newtis.info/tisv2/a/en/e91-320i...ors/connectors-from-x1/x10266-x10266/HRRTpvpC
 
I am curently encountering a problem with my 2011 E89 Z4...

I purchased the Match 7 unit as the OEM HIFI set up is horrable in these cars, only to find out that I cannot use the front kick pannel speakers because there is not enough channels on the match amp... I am having the US distributor for Match Amps look at re-wiring the hareness next Tuesday to accomidate this...

Was this the issue that you ran into and needed to re-pin?? Did you get full sound functionality back or was it tied to tuning from the rears..

You're right, that match software is amazing and daunting at the same time... I'm still learning it all... It appears that the mic is nessesary??
 
I've got a front 3-way active setup (tweeter, mids and kickpanel woofer) so that takes up 6 channels; tied my rear woofers together and that takes the last available channel.

You need to download the manual, Figure 1 is the pin diagram for the amp. Next you need to find the pin diagram for the X10266 connector for your car. Unfortunately it does seem your pin diagram will be different from my E86 since I did not have the problem of kickpanel woofers not being powered.

Next you just repin the X10266 according to how you want your audio set up to be. Instead of repinning, you can also consider simply cutting the wires on each harness and joining them directly.

You definitely need the mic to tune using house curves. Trying to tune by ear on a DSP system is incredibly difficult unless you are very familiar with which sounds correspond to which frequency band.
 
Very cool, TY so much for the feedback... The only distributor for Match in the U.S. happens to be local. I contacted them for tech support on this and they went above and beyond to schedule a session with me next tuesday. They talked about rewiring the unit as you described... I am hoping that they mic it for me too... Do you know how much these mics are for this amp?? I can't find a price anywhere online...

Also, I won't be adding a second amp for my subs... but say I were to replace my subs with the ones that you purchased, do you think that with the power of the match amp that I would get a considerably deeper bass in the cab??

Also, with the mic, did you try to tune on your own prior by ear and then bought the mic?? differnces??

Again... TY so much for the feedback.. you are the ONLY thread on this amp that I can find with any Z4... apparently nobody has attempted this in a E89...

BTW... I had an 03 before this E89 and I swore that I would never sell it... but upgraded against my better judgment.. The e86 is way more of a fun car... This is more of a touring car... not the go-kart feel that i am used too... I think I will buy an E86 M to have both
 
Glad to be of help to someone else. I learnt a lot from information that was shared by others as well.

The mic will connect to your computer via a usb port, and not directly to the amp. Then you hook up your computer to the amp and run the audiotec fischer software for tuning. One of the links in my original post leads to the MiniDSP mic, I believe it costs US$75. Perhaps when you meet the local distributor you can enquire if they provide audio tuning services? I could have gone this route as well, but the prices were pretty unreasonable and the worst part was that they would only tune based on their own curves. With my own mic I can try various house curves to see which I liked the most. After I had the output tuned very close to the house curve, I continued to make minor adjustments by ear to suit my own preference. I'm not skilled enough to tune it from start by ear.

The sub that I have is an active sub which means it has its own power source, and is connected to the amp via the aux output. This way you still have full control of the sub without worrying about the power output of the amp. The model that I bought serves my purpose well since I was going for a sound quality build. For those who want loud booming bass this sub is not a good choice.
 
Well, I got back from the distributers today of Match USA products "Great People BTW!!" and they ended up wiring both subs to one channel in parallel and used the second sub channel to drive the kick panel mids... This was the only way that it could be done as it's only a 7-channel amp and my 11 Z4 has 11 speakers... The results turned out well... I use "Sub 1" to control my two OEM 8 inch behind the door speakers and "Sub 2" to control the kick mids...

This Z4 was a mystery to them... apparently nobody has run into this issue as the 6676 HiFi option should have been the same for every BMW 06 and up... So, my car was the test mule for the Match 7 amp....

Two downsides to this....

1. I now have an amp power sound every time I open the door as that triggers the amp to turn on... When I turn on the radio it goes away as music begins to play... but it makes your quiet environment Z4 interior now sound like a 1995 hardwired amp that has engine feedback... and this upsets me to be honest....

2. The subs are now both powered by one channel and not individually getting the power that they could...

Granted, I am very pleased with the overall sound now and its light years ahead of the OEM set up.... but the amp noise bothers me... It's not why you buy a BMW.... I am going to see how long I can deal with this before it irritates me enough to just put the stock amp back in... but something had to be done... It's no fun driving 80 mph with the top down listening to distortion....

Any ideas on how to get rid of the idle feedback?? They said it was an unfortunate trade off with the rewiring...

I hope others get to read this before they attempt this amp on their 11 speaker z4 set up... great results!! it comes with its downfalls too...
 
To be very frank, I can't imagine why 11 speakers are needed for a 2-seater car. Hifi audio setups always emphasise the front sound stage, while speakers at the rear simply replicate the effect of echoing and are really not that important. If you can actually hear music from behind you that makes the entire listening experience very unnatural. This is very different from say a home theatre setup, where rear speakers are needed to create the surround sound effect.

The audiotec-fischer software does not limit any channel to a particular speaker type. You can name each channel anything you want, and assign whatever frequency range and high/low pass you want to it. The guys who worked on your car probably set it up this way because they assumed you wanted the maximum number of speakers to be powered.

I don't have the amp sound you are talking about, and there's no reason it should be there because of the rewiring. There is an "Auto Remote" switch on the left side of your amp where the cables are connected. It should be in the Off position. If it already is, no harm trying the On position and see if that changes anything.

A subwoofer typically transmits frequencies below 100 Hz (mine is set up for 80 Hz and below). At this range, the sound waves are omni-directional and therefore it doesn't really matter where it is coming from. If you want to restore transmission power, then just undo the wiring on the subs and just power either side. That said, I don't think the door panel is the best place for a sub. The low frequencies will probably cause rattles from the many loose parts in the door panel. Also, I think it's a terrible idea to tie the kickpanel speakers together. I assume those are 6.5 inch? To me the front woofers are the most important speakers in creating quality sound and definitely deserve their own channel.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I suggest that you install an active sub and hook it up to the amp via the line out. This way you can use the software to control 8 channels in total. You can set up the rest of the speakers however you prefer, but I can assure you that my front 3-way setup sounds awesome and highly recommend you try it on your car.
 
TY for the feedback... If the auto remote is turned off... that would mean that the amp would only activate when the accessory start is on... this is great news... Was yours turned on when you opened the box brand new?? I haven't touched it yet..

I just took the suggestions that the distributors gave and they did the rewiring also... Active sub makes sense... I just need to start searching for them...

Again... TY sir!!
 
You're most welcome!

The initial install was done by the audio shop, so I don't know what the default setting is for that switch. I just re-read your post and you mentioned the amp sound is there when music isn't playing? If so this sounds like your gain is set too high. If you can share screenshots of each tab on the audio tuning software, I can help check if there are any settings that are way off.
 
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