Replace stereo head unit

[B21]

I've replaced and amped the footwell and rear 4" speakers (both are coaxial 2-way, so have tweeters). My concern is that if the footwell speakers run off the 4" door speakers, I've effectively amped the crappy BMW 4" doors speakers as well. These are now clipping badly if I crank the footwells. I'll take the door panel off when I get a chance as maybe I can just disconnect the door speakers and if the cable is linked to the footwell, these will continue to work.

Appreciate that replacing the doors is a good idea. I'll code the stereo though before anything else.

The door speakers carry the main load of information for any music playback..they should be your priority from a music rendition perspective…

As Chippie says you’ve got it wired up incorrectly for that set of speakers..

 

[Chippie]

I've replaced and amped the footwell and rear 4" speakers (both are coaxial 2-way, so have tweeters)

In that case I’d look at fitting the same 4” speakers to the doors, if they fit the rear and you are happy with the sound I see no problem with fitting them to the doors as well.

 

[Stealth00]

Thanks for everyone's help here, I appreciate it's dragging on a bit.... I suppose I could just purchase the same speakers again for the door as well, but I thought it would have just been easier to bypass the existing as for one, it would save me money and for two, surely if I were to purchase additional Focal 4" door speakers, these are always going to be the limiting factor for pushing the footwell speakers as they are much bigger and more capable.

No doubt I will just get another set, but what does the plug for the door speakers look like, could I just unplug the doors and the connection will still continue to feed the footwell anyway?

The other option is to move the 4" Focals from the over-shoulder position as they don't appear to be doing much anyway (whether this is just a stereo coding issue which I'll get sorted), and move them to the doors. Only problem is I'm amping the over shoulders but not the end of the world I guess if leave those speaker holes empty, and waste those 2 channels of amplification.

I think the main priority is coding the stereo and seeing if this livens up the over-shoulder speakers, if it does, I buy another set for the doors.

 

[B21]

In any ‘proper’ audio system any mid range speakers that fire from the rear are infill to augment the stereo image that is primarily created by the door speakers..by definition they will be at reduced volume and the high end will roll off a lot and there won’t be much bass..

Similarly have a wide range speaker in the footwell is a waste of time as it’s only the bass frequencies that should be allowed to ‘escape’ …adding higher frequencies destroys the stereo image…

Of course if you just want noise coming loudly from every speaker than fill your boots..

 

[Stealth00]

In any ‘proper’ audio system any mid range speakers that fire from the rear are infill to augment the stereo image that is primarily created by the door speakers..by definition they will be at reduced volume and the high end will roll off a lot and there won’t be much bass..

That's exactly what I'm hearing, barely anything in the rear. It certainly doesn't justify a set of Focal speakers and 2 channels of amplification. I'll move the Focal 4" to the car doors instead. I had been under the impression that re-coding the stereo might fix this, but if they are designed to be quiet anyway, I may as well put the standard ones back in.

Seems all these issues are caused by having the standard BMW stereo which is why I was so keen to remove it in the first place

I have these in the footwell https://www.focal.com/products/ec-165-ke, which are 2-way and not cheap, so I'm hoping I haven't wasted my money if your footwell and bass frequency comment is correct.

 

[Chippie]

For me it’s been a bit of a rabbit hole as I originally just upgraded the doors, tweeters and rear shoulder, the problem was I wasn’t entirely satisfied, which then led to the coding and rear subs, as B21 says most of the vocals and mid range frequencies come from the door speakers but I feel if you disconnect the door speakers the sound won’t feel balanced and swapping the shoulder ones to the doors it will still feel unbalanced.
If you don’t want to spend any more money on speakers I suppose you could swap over the door and shoulder speakers and reduce the balance/fader on the rears to help reduce the clipping.

 

[Stealth00]

For me it’s been a bit of a rabbit hole as I originally just upgraded the doors, tweeters and rear shoulder, the problem was I wasn’t entirely satisfied, which then led to the coding and rear subs, as B21 says most of the vocals and mid range frequencies come from the door speakers but I feel if you disconnect the door speakers the sound won’t feel balanced and swapping the shoulder ones to the doors it will still feel unbalanced.
If you don’t want to spend any more money on speakers I suppose you could swap over the door and shoulder speakers and reduce the balance/fader on the rears to help reduce the clipping.

I'd agree, but the shoulder ones are doing nothing even with the amplification. Even if I turn the fader right up they don't do a lot. Again, this could be a coding thing? What a pain in the ass.

 

[Stealth00]

So, I guess my last annoying question should be, given my proposed solution, 4" 2-way Focal in the door and 6.5" 2-way Focal in the footwell, is there any chance that re coding the stereo could make it worse?

 

[B21]

In any ‘proper’ audio system any mid range speakers that fire from the rear are infill to augment the stereo image that is primarily created by the door speakers..by definition they will be at reduced volume and the high end will roll off a lot and there won’t be much bass..

That's exactly what I'm hearing, barely anything in the rear. It certainly doesn't justify a set of Focal speakers and 2 channels of amplification. I'll move the Focal 4" to the car doors instead. I had been under the impression that re-coding the stereo might fix this, but if they are designed to be quiet anyway, I may as well put the standard ones back in.

Seems all these issues are caused by having the standard BMW stereo which is why I was so keen to remove it in the first place

I have these in the footwell https://www.focal.com/products/ec-165-ke, which are 2-way and not cheap, so I'm hoping I haven't wasted my money if your footwell and bass frequency comment is correct.

Technically you should process the signal to the footwell and have a roll off after 2k..so yes a waste of time and money..but I’m sure they look nice.. :tumbleweed: :rofl:

 

[Stealth00]

In any ‘proper’ audio system any mid range speakers that fire from the rear are infill to augment the stereo image that is primarily created by the door speakers..by definition they will be at reduced volume and the high end will roll off a lot and there won’t be much bass..

That's exactly what I'm hearing, barely anything in the rear. It certainly doesn't justify a set of Focal speakers and 2 channels of amplification. I'll move the Focal 4" to the car doors instead. I had been under the impression that re-coding the stereo might fix this, but if they are designed to be quiet anyway, I may as well put the standard ones back in.

Seems all these issues are caused by having the standard BMW stereo which is why I was so keen to remove it in the first place

I have these in the footwell https://www.focal.com/products/ec-165-ke, which are 2-way and not cheap, so I'm hoping I haven't wasted my money if your footwell and bass frequency comment is correct.

Technically you should process the signal to the footwell and have a roll off after 2k..so yes a waste of time and money..but I’m sure they look nice.. :tumbleweed: :rofl:

Okay, thanks. What are your thoughts on coding the stereo. Will it make things worse?

 

[B21]

That's exactly what I'm hearing, barely anything in the rear. It certainly doesn't justify a set of Focal speakers and 2 channels of amplification. I'll move the Focal 4" to the car doors instead. I had been under the impression that re-coding the stereo might fix this, but if they are designed to be quiet anyway, I may as well put the standard ones back in.

Seems all these issues are caused by having the standard BMW stereo which is why I was so keen to remove it in the first place

I have these in the footwell https://www.focal.com/products/ec-165-ke, which are 2-way and not cheap, so I'm hoping I haven't wasted my money if your footwell and bass frequency comment is correct.

Technically you should process the signal to the footwell and have a roll off after 2k..so yes a waste of time and money..but I’m sure they look nice.. :tumbleweed: :rofl:

Okay, thanks. What are your thoughts on coding the stereo. Will it make things worse?

The coding was to make some very cheap speakers sound ok with a limited power smp..with better speakers and more power coding to ‘hifi’ should improve things quite a bit ..imho

 

[Chippie]

with better speakers and more power coding to ‘hifi’ should improve things quite a bit ..imho

 

[Stealth00]

Thanks for confirming.

 

[simnew]

As a matter of interest, I upgraded the speakers on mine to the same B&O ones that Dave bought, but if I want to experiment with the coding, and change it to ‘HiFi’, does it work in reverse if I want to change it back ?

 

[Chippie]

As a matter of interest, I upgraded the speakers on mine to the same B&O ones that Dave bought, but if I want to experiment with the coding, and change it to ‘HiFi’, does it work in reverse if I want to change it back ?

Yes easily reversed, just make a note of what’s there before you add $676 and change it back if you’re not happy.
Actually i’m not sure if you can just delete the $676.

 

[Stealth00]

I have an update on my quest to achieve a half-decent sound system in the Z.

So, prior to today, I had been running the new Focals in the footwell and the doors and the original BMW speakers in the rear shoulder location (I'd moved the Focals from the rears after finding out the rears literally did nothing).

Due to me moving the Focals from the rears to the doors, I had been amping the rears (these did nothing), footwell and doors via the vibe 4-way amp.

What I discovered mid-week is that the CD playback was far better and suffered much less bass and distortion than the AUX, port via Bluetooth. That also had its limitations though and I couldn't drive the speakers hard without bass rattle from the footwell, something on my list to sort out.

So today, I got the head unit coded and wow, I was gobsmacked at the difference. The rears are now loud and actually help create a sound field and sound half decent now that they are being amped, a lot of the bass rattle in the footwell has disappeared (strange), I could not believe what a difference it made. It actually sounds half decent now!

I've just bought another set of Focal 4" for the rears now as I don't mind spending money on a speaker when it's delivering sound.

I was planning on putting a small Pioneer underseat sub in, but I might just save my money now.

So, anyone on the fence regarding recoding their head unit, just do it, it has to be done if you want to utilise the rears and have a good sound. I have no idea what BMW had done to it in its non 'hifi' coding, but it just massively distorted the sound on my speakers.

 

[B21]

I have an update on my quest to achieve a half-decent sound system in the Z.

So, prior to today, I had been running the new Focals in the footwell and the doors and the original BMW speakers in the rear shoulder location (I'd moved the Focals from the rears after finding out the rears literally did nothing).

Due to me moving the Focals from the rears to the doors, I had been amping the rears (these did nothing), footwell and doors via the vibe 4-way amp.

What I discovered mid-week is that the CD playback was far better and suffered much less bass and distortion than the AUX, port via Bluetooth. That also had its limitations though and I couldn't drive the speakers hard without bass rattle from the footwell, something on my list to sort out.

So today, I got the head unit coded and wow, I was gobsmacked at the difference. The rears are now loud and actually help create a sound field and sound half decent now that they are being amped, a lot of the bass rattle in the footwell has disappeared (strange), I could not believe what a difference it made. It actually sounds half decent now!

I've just bought another set of Focal 4" for the rears now as I don't mind spending money on a speaker when it's delivering sound.

I was planning on putting a small Pioneer underseat sub in, but I might just save my money now.

So, anyone on the fence regarding recoding their head unit, just do it, it has to be done if you want to utilise the rears and have a good sound. I have no idea what BMW had done to it in its non 'hifi' coding, but it just massively distorted the sound on my speakers.

Good to hear your report..sounds like you've got an excessive amount going to the rear..whuich is not surprising as normally that 4 channel feed would go to the external amp where it would attentuate to a degree the rear channels relative to the fronts..but if you're happy with how it sounds that's great..

 

[Stealth00]

I have an update on my quest to achieve a half-decent sound system in the Z.

So, prior to today, I had been running the new Focals in the footwell and the doors and the original BMW speakers in the rear shoulder location (I'd moved the Focals from the rears after finding out the rears literally did nothing).

Due to me moving the Focals from the rears to the doors, I had been amping the rears (these did nothing), footwell and doors via the vibe 4-way amp.

What I discovered mid-week is that the CD playback was far better and suffered much less bass and distortion than the AUX, port via Bluetooth. That also had its limitations though and I couldn't drive the speakers hard without bass rattle from the footwell, something on my list to sort out.

So today, I got the head unit coded and wow, I was gobsmacked at the difference. The rears are now loud and actually help create a sound field and sound half decent now that they are being amped, a lot of the bass rattle in the footwell has disappeared (strange), I could not believe what a difference it made. It actually sounds half decent now!

I've just bought another set of Focal 4" for the rears now as I don't mind spending money on a speaker when it's delivering sound.

I was planning on putting a small Pioneer underseat sub in, but I might just save my money now.

So, anyone on the fence regarding recoding their head unit, just do it, it has to be done if you want to utilise the rears and have a good sound. I have no idea what BMW had done to it in its non 'hifi' coding, but it just massively distorted the sound on my speakers.

Good to hear your report..sounds like you've got an excessive amount going to the rear..whuich is not surprising as normally that 4 channel feed would go to the external amp where it would attentuate to a degree the rear channels relative to the fronts..but if you're happy with how it sounds that's great..

Yep, happy as can be expected with the standard head unit. It's quite nice to have sound coming from just behind your ears. Hopefully it'll only get better with the new speakers on the way.

 

[Stealth00]

Now all I need to figure out is if I need a sub

 

[B21]

Now all I need to figure out is if I need a sub

IMHO if the woofers are working well you're going to struggle to get a small sub(s) to work in the standard sub position..especially roof down at any speed...I've got two top of the range AF subs with 320 watts RMS going into them and they struggle to make a meaningful impact..