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Audio upgrade in E60 535d


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Did you buy from Bluespot by any chance??

I bought the kit from him, and he supplied the wrong cable, told me to buy another one and send the wrong one back for a refund, the next one arrived the following day and he then refused to refund me the correct one!!

Blaupunkt had it listed incorrectly, but he argued that as it was not faulty he didn't have to refund it. So it ended up costing me an extra £60 for cabling!

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Morels are in running off the head unit.

What a transformation!! They sound stunning already with out the amp.

Just been listening to Pink Floyd Dark side of the moon, can now hear so much more detail and the base is so much tighter.

Can not wait to get the amp and subs connected. Then the system should really sing.

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Firstly I would pull the cables out of teh amp going to the subs.

Set head unit to middle settings, so bass, treble etc. all at 0.

Then set the front levels to minimum on the amp for the front speakers, your Morels.

That is 8v I think from memory, the car outputs 12v, so not ideal but OK.

You then want to set the hi pass, this is telling the amp what frequency to send to the speakers, it is cutting out everything below the frequency you set.

The morels will go lower than most.

Put on something bass heavy and keep lowering this until it is getting no deeper.

Grab the Grey Clouds Mix off here....

Guy Hare's sounds on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

The first track is pretty bass heavy and a great tune to set up your system with.

I would guess around 100hz would be about right, but may have to go up to 120hz.

Whatever you set this at you want to then set the low pass on the sub output to the same, this will then get the subs taking over, the Morels are a much higher quality so get them doing as much as possible and leave the subs doing just bass if possible.

You now need to adjust the subs so you can here them, but be very subtle with them, you don't want to notice them until you turn them off if that makes sense. So more a case of you know they are missing rather than knowing they are there.

They are around 4db quieter then the Morels, so you will have to up the gain on the amp a little to hear them, this is fine.

I would then set the rears so they have a hi pass of around 125hz and a lo pass of around 10,000hz if possible, this will give some rear fill but wont drag the soundstage back too much.

See how you get on with that lot.

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Thanks for the guide.

All in and set up. Sounding really good.

Had a strange sound coming from the near side morel unit.

Removed and refitted Which has sorted out that problem.

So all speakers in amp in and set up. Very impresses and happy with the sound.

Thanks again for all your help gizze.if I can ever be of help to you let me know. ( am a heating engineer and design pv and solar thermal systems)

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  • 2 months later...

Thank you all for putting all these information. I spent a couple days going through most of the posts. But I am still a bit confused

My car is E60 2010 US model, I believe it has a factory amp ( please see the picture below ). The car also has the following speakers

1) 2 front tweeters ( must not be the L7 ones because I don't have the L7 optin)

2) 2 front mid-range

3) 2 under seat bass

4) 0 speakers on the rear doors

5) 2 speakers on the rear deck ( haven't opened to see if there are tweeters )

I really want to do the upgrade as many of you have done. But looks like I need a different option, probably need something like jl audio cleensweep. If I go this route, do I completely ignore the factory amp? How about the satelite radio that's in the picture? Can you share some ideas with me ?

Thanks

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45298[/ATTACH]

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What do you want to gain?

The Logic7 system is Harman Kardon, and it is very good.

If you want more bass you can drop in the Earthquake SWS8 subs, but make sure they are the 2 ohm versions.

If you want more after than then you could consider adding another amp to drive those subs, you would take the signal after the L7 amp and put the new amp inbetween giving you more power to the new SWS8 subs.

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thanks gizze, actually, I don't have L7 at all, otherwise, I would be a lot happier. I don't think the speakers ( tweeters, mid-ranges,bass) are the same as logic 7 amp either. I found it online the E90's HIFI system has a factory amp ( 2x 40W bass , 4 x 25W ) , but their L7 systems' amp spec is ( 2x70W , 6 x 40W ).

Thinking to change the tweeters and the mid-range in the front to Morel, drop in the Earthquake and keep the rear speakers. For amp, can I use a 4 channels. 2 channels go to the front speakers, and 2 channels drive the 2 earthquake, leaving the original amp for the rear speakers. would that work?

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In that case you can buy a harness from a guy called Technic on the BIMMERPOST | BMW Forum, BMW News and BMW Blog forums, this will give you the connectors you need to go into a new amp and back to the speakers all at the place where your amp is now, so it just hooks into the factory connector.

You can then add a nice 4 channel amp, your speakers and some earthquakes.

I am about to go Morel in our X1 along with Earthquakes and I have a nice JL Audio XD400/4 amp, only problem is I have decided to keep my oem head unit, it is coded for Alpine so it is flat EQ wise but it is 8v out and the JL wants 4v really.

Not sure if I want to use convertors.

What amp are you using? Not interested in it are you for a good price?

Your head unit is coded for the hifi system which is 5v balanced line level, so will plug straight into it.

It is this amp...

XD - JL Audio »

JL Audio XD 400/4 Amplifier Review

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yes, i was actually thinking about exactly the same amp. I have been reading a lot of posts lately, including the two below

Some wiring diagrams for the members - BMW 3-Series (E90 E92) Forum - E90Post.com

Adding an aftermarket amplifier and subwoofers - plug and play - 5 Series Forums

My amp's plug looks like the second one, but i have to remove the amp to be able to confirm. I am guessing Technic's harness connects to the second type. But when I searched online, I found the harness he has that connects to 1 / 3 series ( should be the same for 5 series, I feel ) , but for some reason, it doesn't seem like they can accept this type of plug. I will have to confirm with him.

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Yeah same connector.

There was someone selling their harness on the UK classified forum of e90post.com so maybe worth a look.

When you say ' it doesn't seem like they can accept this type of plug.' I am not sure what you mean?

Oh, and if you are interested in the JL amp it was £360 and I would want half that including delivery, which I think is a very good price. They don't come up often at all.

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  • 1 month later...

I have had a Blaupunkt THA555 AMP for a couple of years and was now thinking of replacing the AMP with a Vibe Litebox S4 AMP.

1. Firstly will I notice a big difference by replacing the AMP?

2. I have 2 x SWS 8xi 2-OHM under the seats, will this be a problem?

3. Can I just replace the Blaupunkt with the Vibe Litebox, without running any additional cables and use the same Blaupunkt Harness?

Thanks in advance.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Gentlemen,

Having spent the last week or more reading through various sites/forums, Gizze, you seem to be the authority on this subject (no disrespect to all other valuable input)

Is it just me? Or do BMW (535d in my case) upgrades seen to be an absolute nightmare to get your head round. (I haven’t done this sort of thing for years!)

With the help from you guys, I now understand that I have a basic original set up i.e. no tweeters in its simplest terms. Therefore I have no choice but to use a line level convertor?? if I wish to add another amp, which I do…

I have already fitted SWS 8’ Subs (2ohm) and DLS 4’ mids and tweeters, which sound quiet pleasant to a certain level. After reading through the forums I’m guessing the clipping I hear is due to the 2ohm impedance of the subs which I think I can get round later by wiring in series as opposed to parallel if required. My dilemma is this… I have several ‘old school’ items (Showing my age now but they sounded very good in their day) i.e. 2 x Nakamichi PA506 5 channel amplifiers 4 x Kef Kar200SW and a few other bits I had planned to use in my E60.

Can anyone objectively advise if these old amps are still quality kit or would one modern amp surpass it in terms of quality?

Regards

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Whack the Nak in there!!!

I thought the PA506 was a 6 channel not 5 channel??

Plus you can bridge the channels, I would use channels 1 and 2 to drive your DLS speakers and the other 4 channels bridged to give you 150w to each Earcthquake, this would be a seriously sweet sounding system.

This amp will still beat just about everything out there that has been discussed in this thread.

You will need a hi-lo convertor, but that actually makes the install easier.

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  • 2 months later...

Gizze,

First of all, hi and thanks for all the helpful input in this thread :)

I have one question you might be able to answer better than other places.

My E60 is pre-facelift and standard EU audio, 6 speakers no amp.

Recently I have replaced all 4 midranges with Logic 7 midranges and also aded Logic 7 tweeters to the front doors/rear shelf.

The sound is soo much clearer and the treble is actually present now.

One small issue is that now, the bass is pretty much gone.

I know the underseat subs are wired in parallel to the front door midranges and the standard door speakers are more "bassy".

I'm not looking for something to blow your brains but more on the lines of 2 x Earthquakes, under the seats (instead of my 6.5" factory) and a 2 channel amp.

Do you recomment anything? Or the gain would be too insignificant to justify the price? Could I just tap into current sub cables for the amp or would I need to get it from the back of the head unit?

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  • 11 months later...
The amp drives the 4 main speakers with 55w of clean power, (that is rms and all channels driven compared with 40w shared between all speakers as standard) and you get another mono channel that drives a sub (in the case fo the BMW the ones under the seat) with 250w into one or 125w into 2. The earthquake subs being only 8" run more than happily with 125W each, in fact they recommend no more than 150w.

The cabinet that the oem subs sit in is the same for all systems, the only difference is the driver that is attached, the basic system and the hi-fi system use a 6.5" Philips driver and the Logic 7 uses an 8" driver.

The subs are made for BMW by Earthquake in the USA, the SWS-8 uses the BMW surround, so it is a perfect fit (these are not compltely round).

However, it is not airtight, they are bringing out a 2ohm version that can be driven off the Logic 7 system without an amp upgrade and I would suspect when this arrives they will also release a mounting ring to make it sit air tight.

But for now you need to put sealant round the drivers basket before putting it into the cabinet, this will give you an airtight seal that then uses the door sills as cabinet volume.

BMW have created simething very special here by using the sills as sub enclosure space, the best thing to happen to car audio since cars were invented.

I don't know of anyone who sells these subs in the UK, I bought mine from New Jersey, around $280 shipped and £45 tax and duty.

Having the sub up front allows you to cross over the front speakers at 150hz as you don't have to worry about that 'sound from the rear' effect you get with subs crossed over too high, and for the first time I have not felt I needed any time alignment to bring the bass/beats up front again, they are there, sat right up on the dash.

You will probably find that simply adding the Logic 7 tweeters will be enough and the DLS R4 speakers are not needed, they are actually very good speakers, someone one a sound off using Genesis amps, alpine head unit and time alignment and the stock speakers.

These are £30 a pair from your dealer and plug straight in.

I love this system, my last system was...

Alpine 9887 head unit with time alignment.

Genesis amplification

Rainbow Profi speakers up front.

Aliante 10Si sub in a .6 cu ft sealed enclosure.

This was a nice sounding sytem, however, I will say that withought having to speand hours setting up I have got a nicer overall sound from the BMW head unit driving the Blaupunkt amp, the DLS R4 speakers (1/3rd price of the Rainbows) and a pair of earthquake subs.

Fitting the amp, and that includes running the harness to the boot down the passenger side under the carpet, took me 20 minutes.

Running power cables to the battery takes 10 minutes, being a BMW with it in the boot is a godsend.

While there I put in the 2 runs of speaker cable for the subs, and ran the bass volume cable (this is then routed into the pocket under the light switch for easy access to controlling the subs volume).

Putting the subs in took an hour, I could probably do it again in 30 minutes.

Total install time of no more than 3 hours and the car looks completely OEM. Job done!! +++

Gizze

I think I have read the full thread now and seen many options discussed to improve the E60 audio.

Does your original advice to add Earthquakes and the Blaupunkt amp still stand as the best option?

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