Standard Hifi - Tweeter Upgrade

Finished yesterday and well worth the effort. Sounds ok.
You can if careful get away with just removing the screw behind the door handle and pulling the door trim back from the top.
If you remove the tweeter housing, grip at the top and pull outwards, when free, pull up as the bottom locator fits into a keyhole shape.
You will then see the wires for the mirror. Grip the door panel where the wires go behind the door panel and pull. There's just enough room to reach down to the twisted pair to the speaker. Use a scotch bloc, as there's very little free wiring to play with.
 
If you get the proper BMW tweeters the connector already exists to clip on to the main speaker, no need for scotch-blocks and is much neater. It also has a crossover built into the tweeter to match the BMW OEM mid range speaker.
 
Further to Maniacs wonderful work above, I have progressed this a little further; Although the BMW Hi-Fi tweeters add about another 50% to the upper frequency range, the existing mids were still trying their best to make a mess of it, which resulted in too much treble and very little mid range. After some investigation it transpires that some of the MINI's (Coopers and above) use a similar mount and share the same front profile but are designed purely for mid range. They are also much cheaper on Ebay than the E89 Specific unit. (The E46 and similar have a 1 cm lip protruding from the front which will not fit into the E89).

I think the BMW tweeters used in the E89 are unique as they have a very shallow profile. The Hi-Fi tweeters were £24.00 each whereas the Top version was almost £70.00 :o
TweeterMounted_zpsc8b77a14.jpg

Mini Unit on the Left showing a much bigger magnet and voice coil, but have the same depth and almost flush front mounting ring. I managed to get a pair of Mini Cooper Mids for 25.00 delivered and they are so much better when used with the BMW tweeters. There seems to be plenty of them on FleaBay so they are quite cheap.
SideBySide_zpscad03c65.jpg
Depth_zps469fa0dd.jpg

Part Numbers are shown below. The crossover for the tweeter is built into the harness.
Connections_zpscd4d63f7.jpg
 
That video is a very nice find. Though the latter part where they remove the cable in the door isn't required for the tweeter upgrade. I just placed the door card, wires in tact, on a pile of towels under the door. If anyone feels like removing the entire door card as in the video, I'd suggest taking a picture of the panel before you start unclipping the cables because there are a lot of clips and you might struggle a bit to put it all back without a guide.
 
Just fitted some in the rear speakers, the one's just behind your ears.
In my car it's blanked over so drilled it out with a hole cutter and wired through to the front bass speaker.
Sounds good.
That and the speakers I fitted behind the seats, all sound reasonable for the standard hifi.
 
Sorry to resurect but this is probable one of threads thats needs to be kept live :)

I have just fitted the BMW tweeters to my car. These have improved the stereo separartion and also helped to lift the sound stage.

Its got my car audio juces flowing and I must resist having just installed all my car audio gear into my Freelander, which is my main transport (well it will be once the honeymoon period is over)

If I was to upgrade I would go one of two routes.

1) Audison Bit ten, JL Audio 2 channel amp and three way speaker setup
2) Audison bit ten, JL Audio 4 channel amp and either a 3 ways speaker setup or 2 way and bass speaker.

It always perplexes my why people spend time upgrading their rear speakers. The soundstage should be at the front
 
E89_Gaz said:
Further to Maniacs wonderful work above, I have progressed this a little further; Although the BMW Hi-Fi tweeters add about another 50% to the upper frequency range, the existing mids were still trying their best to make a mess of it, which resulted in too much treble and very little mid range. After some investigation it transpires that some of the MINI's (Coopers and above) use a similar mount and share the same front profile but are designed purely for mid range. They are also much cheaper on Ebay than the E89 Specific unit. (The E46 and similar have a 1 cm lip protruding from the front which will not fit into the E89).

I think the BMW tweeters used in the E89 are unique as they have a very shallow profile. The Hi-Fi tweeters were £24.00 each whereas the Top version was almost £70.00 :o
TweeterMounted_zpsc8b77a14.jpg

Mini Unit on the Left showing a much bigger magnet and voice coil, but have the same depth and almost flush front mounting ring. I managed to get a pair of Mini Cooper Mids for 25.00 delivered and they are so much better when used with the BMW tweeters. There seems to be plenty of them on FleaBay so they are quite cheap.
SideBySide_zpscad03c65.jpg
Depth_zps469fa0dd.jpg

Part Numbers are shown below. The crossover for the tweeter is built into the harness.
Connections_zpscd4d63f7.jpg
Click to expand...
Re the mids, how are the high end frequencies prevented form getting to the mids? I would have thought a xover would be needed
 
E89_Gaz said:
That little bit of heatshrink at the bottom of the last photo contains a capacitor. :)
Click to expand...
I relise that, thats for the tweeter and is a high pass filter, however the mid will still be getting all the frequencies, inc high. Thats possibly why the sound stage is poor
 
petrolhead said:
E89_Gaz said:
That little bit of heatshrink at the bottom of the last photo contains a capacitor. :)
Click to expand...
I relise that, thats for the tweeter and is a high pass filter, however the mid will still be getting all the frequencies, inc high. Thats possibly why the sound stage is poor
Click to expand...

Sorry, I need to read before commenting :oops:

An Eq would probably make a difference but I suspect that as the whole system is heavily equalised within the Head unit, it is probably a lost cause. The original speakers were pathetic, whereas these units give a much fuller sound along with more top end detail. (Its not quite as embarrassing as it was previously!)

The two rears seem to run at about 20% of the power of the fronts and only receive upper mid and high frequencies making any form of upgrade almost pointless. I did try adding a high level amplifier but it sounded awful.
 
petrolhead said:
Thanks

I have had a look on ebay for the mini speakers but there seem to be many variations. In the photo there is a number, does it have to be exact to get the better sound? The only ones I can find are in the US. I wonder if the BMW hifi speaker may be better.

Edit: These look very similar to the mini ones http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-1-3-5...377?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f4b4d8da1
Click to expand...

Yep they look perfect, a good price too. (There were none around for sensible money when I was looking, hence I ended up with the Mini equivalent).
 
Update:

Never go round to getting the better mids however I did buy 2 xovers for the door speakers. The beauty of this is it stops the high frequencies going to the mids which improved the soundstage but bring up to head level as opposed to chest level
 
Have just performed the upgrade on my standard speaker setup. Oh boy, what a difference. Why on earth BMW thought they should skimp £60 on a £30k car I don't know! I purchased the tweeters from the dealer and had them installed in 30 mins. Would never have persevered without the instructions!The tricky part was having the faith to simply pull the door fascia off the main frame... Follow the instructions and you'll be fine... Can't wait to go for another blast tomorrow! :D :driving:
 
petrolhead said:
Update:

Never go round to getting the better mids however I did buy 2 xovers for the door speakers. The beauty of this is it stops the high frequencies going to the mids which improved the soundstage but bring up to head level as opposed to chest level
Click to expand...
Update again. I ended up changing the mids, not sure I could hear much difference
 
I have just ordered the mini speakers + BMW tweeters. Seems a good idea.
Can some one point me in the right direction for getting the correct capacitor or cross over.
Connections_zpscd4d63f7.jpg


Is the capacitor to cut out mid range and bass to the tweeter?Or is it to cut out treble to the in midrange ?Is it connected inline to one of the speaker cables?
edit. .. after re reading post am I correct that the capacitor is already fitted to the bmw tweeter wiring loom?
 
Mini cooper speakers and bmw tweeters fitted.a bit fiddly but not too hard. Very good result. Saved £500+ doing this mod and not having to get amp and processor.
 
has anyone changed the mids behind the seats for the mini ones, looking on real- oem the part no for the door mids is the same for the ones behind the seats at ear level, so could only be an improvement not too sure how easy it is to get to them though
 
If you are running the standard package, the rear mids are heavily equalised so it is unlikely that you would hear any difference by changing them for something else.
I keep meaning to tap into the front bass driver (as it seems to be paired with the rears when faded backwards) to see if it is also heavily equalised, if not, a high level amp could be inserted to drive 4 channels. (The two existing front woofers and two additional rears in the rear bulkhead to boost the bass a little.
 
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