standard Audio - best settings !

C

chopper

Member
Hi All,
well, we are all on the same page in regard to how poor the Standard system is... but other than the complicated prosess of trying to fit new Amp and speakers.. and taking our New cars apart... thought i'd create this thread for people to share their current settings...

i've spent quite a while fiddling... the rear speakers as we know have a highpass filter on the ( god knows why ).. so you only get the High's from them... so i've found that shifting the balance towards the rear means you get more clarity ( because we dont have those lovely door pillar tweeters ( why ?))... but that means the fronts are running quieter and so needs more bass adding... anyhow.. enough rambling.. this is what i have set.. so give it a try and let me know what you think......


Bass - +8 ( have tried 9 and 10 )
Treble +9
fader ( rear to front )... + 5 or 6 to the rear
 
I personally don't find the audio that bad on mine, not sure if the output power or quality differs between non idrive and idrive head units but there's plenty of volume and bass for me. When I first looked to buy the car I'd read a few posts on here complaining about it, and the rep at the dealership turned the stereo on for me and happily wound it up, I was very pleasantly surprised. Its not the upgraded system (no tweeters etc).

What I do find though is that quality differs dependent on the recording (obviously) and also on the source (ipod input doesn't sound quite as frisky as the content on the hard disk in the idrive). What would have helped there (and my old £8000 fiat stilo had this) is that the tone settings are input specific. On the old fiat, I could set bass/treble on radio, cd etc and those settings would remain with the source, balancing out the weak bass on the radio, or too much treble on the CD. Would have been nice for the BMW to have that.

I'll try your settings though, see if I like them, as I've not had chance to play with the hifi that much.
 
Hi mate.... Mine is the non drive system.. It does depend a lot on the input..
I don't think it's that bad either.. Just a shame they did weird things with it.. And the no tweeters in the door pillars????? Seriously for £ 20.....
 
Well indeed, but thats BMW all over really, for a large amount of cash, you get the steering wheel and seats. For another large amount of cash you can have all the things other manufacturers give you free, cruise, bose hifi, folding mirrors etc... (Like the 370Z I test drove, same money, packed with toys). Still, gives the after-market peeps something to do lol.
 
Just asked a question on another forum, but thought will ask the same here ;

I am convinced the head unit isn't as simple as a fade to front/rear.

Either there's some odd electronics going on in the head unit, or my car is wired up wrong.

Reason I say this, there's much more bass coming from my in door speakers than should be. I have to have my head unit set to almost zero on the bass.

So here's what I've found in my car.

Fader set to middle, nice sound lots of bass.

Fader set to rear, still ok sound less bass, STILL some bass coming from in door speakers

Fader set to front, still ok sound, LESS bass than when fader set to middle.

This last setting is odd, I can feel through the vibrations of the speaker in the door that it gets fed much more bass when the fader is set to middle, than when set to front, yet still also gets fed some bass when set to rear?

I also don't think the speakers in the footwell are doing very much at all.

I wondered if perhaps my car is wired wrong and the feed that my door speakers is getting should be going to the kickplate woofers (ie being fed bass all the time) and the wires to the kickplate woofers should be going to the door?

Hard to explain but I was hoping someone else with an early 09 car with basic 6 speaker system could try this out.

Play bassy song, fade from middle to front, and back to middle and then to rear, and see if the bass is strongest when in the middle, then 'feel' the speaker in the door as you fade from middle to rear - see if it is still producing bass.

Very odd indeed...... I dont think its a simple fade to front/rear as a normal head unit is, there's some funny business going on....

Thanks

David
PS my stereo has the basic 6 speaker option but the Nav head unit with iDrive and dash top screen
 
Hi mate.... Hmm... I actually work as a sound engineer...

So.. Does sound like there might be an issue with your car... Could be you have a speaker out of phase.. Which causes bass cancellation...

The standard system has fixed crossovers...

So footwells in the front.. Mainly bass
Door speakers.. Mid and highs.. With a tiny bit of bass
And strangest of all.. The rear speakers.. Just mid highs...


So by using my settings and fading toasted the rear you hear more highs by your head.. ( compensating a little from the lack of door tweeters)
But by doing this.. Then you need to boost the bass for the footwells speakers because they are now not getting driven as loudly...
The treble boost is because the speakers are rubbish,.

Lol


That help any. ?????
 
LOL

I'm also a sound engineer. I havn't had time to really play with the iS audio yet but on my last E89 23i there is a limiter that pulls down the volume and it certainly is of the brick wall type.

Every thing thing is fine until the bass kicks in or you drop the roof (that's another issue though). Radio shows this up the worst. My own creations by far sound the best 8). The unit just won't allow the system to be cranked. Probably because the amp stage will start to clip and fry the voice coils.

To be fair the quality isn't actually that bad even without the sound stage of the tweeters, but I tried throwing more to the rear and they just buzzed on am stations so they really are not up to the job.

I'd say the fronts could handle a fair amount of power. I wonder what the Ohm rating is and what that would change to by adding the OEM tweeters. Time to get the multimeter out.
 
Just to add a question to this thread, the stereo adapts to the speed of the car, slower speed volume lessens, higher speed slightly louder. Am i crazy or do i find that the volume range i get from an audio source differs depending on the speed i am doing when i turn the source on. i.e. if i turn stereo on at 50mph there is not as much room to adjust volume as if i turn stereo on before i start driving then get to 50 and then increase volume manually.
I don't know if that makes sense but i do seem to find the volume range on offer from the stereo alters somewhat. :?

I have the professional radio, DAB and 676 speaker option - 11 speakers, no idrive.
 
chopper said:
so give it a try and let me know what you think......

Bass - +8 ( have tried 9 and 10 )
Treble +9
fader ( rear to front )... + 5 or 6 to the rear
Click to expand...

Tried it and wasn't keen so went back to

Bass +4
Treble +3
Fader +3 to rear
 
sars said:
chopper said:
so give it a try and let me know what you think......

Bass - +8 ( have tried 9 and 10 )
Treble +9
fader ( rear to front )... + 5 or 6 to the rear
Click to expand...

Tried it and wasn't keen so went back to

Bass +4
Treble +3
Fader +3 to rear
Click to expand...

Are these settings from the bass/treble slider being all the way to the left? or is your bass +4 above the centre (centre being zero or all the way to the left zero)?

I have my Bass in minus figures as it would be far too bass heavy otherwise?

David
 
Hi David, these settings are from the Centre mark.... so minus would be left of centre and + would be right of centre...
in order for these settings not to blow yr mind with bass though... the important part is to fade along way to the rear too.... the idea being these provide more ' high ' end.. as they are filtered... so improves clarity in the system as there are NO tweeters in the door pillars...

make sense ?

charlie
 
Just out of interest is anyone finding that their stereo is taking a long time to come to life? Some times mine seems to show a blank display for an unusually long time. Also yesterday my system seemed to have some xtra oomph to it. I haven't played around with the settings for ages but all of a sudden it was if there was more power there. May just be my imagination and the joys of spring messing with me :roll: :?
 
My radio seems to come on fairly immediately, but it is almost always in the radio mode and hence shut down in this position. The only 'issue' I have with the music system is that it reverts to some apparently pre set volume every time the car is shut down. Therefore, whenever I start the car I need to increase the volume a little.
 
Hmmm, interesting comments here. Pretty sure my bass and treble are about +3 and +4 but the front/rear is set at 50:50 I'll need to try splitting so that there's more to the rear as others have done.
 
MikeS said:
My radio seems to come on fairly immediately, but it is almost always in the radio mode and hence shut down in this position. The only 'issue' I have with the music system is that it reverts to some apparently pre set volume every time the car is shut down. Therefore, whenever I start the car I need to increase the volume a little.
Click to expand...
It comes on at the same low setting for me too :|
 
If my radio is left on am it reverts to 531mhz each time I return to the car.

Had a new radio fitted and it still does it. BMW havn't a notion what the problem is.

The new car doesn't have the odd ball sound limiter problem though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom