I wanted to upgrade the sound in my 'vert, in general I was happy with the sound quality of the stock speakers, just not with the lack of bass. I thought that if I was able to adda sub I could turn the bass down to the stock speakers and drive them harder. Yes, I know they are rubbish, but I know how much trouble people have gone to to repace them and I wanted to leave things as stock as possible (or as easily removable as possible when I sell the car... eventually).
I've been thinking about doing this for absolutely ages now, spent a while waiting for a specific free air sub which was a bit troublesome to get hold of. So in the end I went we just a normal sub. The idea was to mount a 10" speaker in the ski hatch area and use the boot space as the enclosure. I just wasn't sure how ell it would work... although it worked very well my head :idea:
I installed a 10" Kicker Solobaric L5 Dual 2 sub with a Alpine MRP-M352 amp. This combination kicks out 200W rms, although if I went with a Dual 4 sub (wired to 2ohms) the Amp could go to 350w. It was enough power for me!
In total the install cost about £210; Amp £100, Sub £60 (clearance price, normally £135), wiring £20, Soundgate LocX £30.
Enough talking, here's some pics!
So I measured up and using 18mm MDF I made up a mount for the sub. Notice the notches in the mdf, they're need cos of the shape of the metal.
Here it is installed in ski pass area. There was a black plastic box which was head in my 4 large torx screws before.
I then sprayed the side showing into the cabin black, and the back in silver, so it stand out too much. No pictures but you'll see it in the next pictures.
Here's the sub installed in the car
Here's another shot of the sub
Here's a shot with the seats back in
The amp went on the right hand side of the trunk wall. The mdf had to be shaved to fit over the lugs and lumps on the wall.
The mdf fitted to the rear wall. The sub mount was also fixed using 4 screws from the back, you can see 2 of them above and 2 below to the left of the amp. There was also a nice hole already there to fir the speaker cable through. Also a handy location for the power since the battery is less than half a metre away!
Next job was to get some rca's to the amp. I tapped into the speaker outputs and remote wire from the radio module, which also quite luckily was also in the boot!
As you can see, it was a VERY tight fit!!! Everything only just went it. I had to go out and buy the right angled phono connectors since there was not enough room for them to go in upright! The wires had to connected before the amp was fixed to the mdf since they're wasn't enough room to be able to get them on otherwise!
And here's the finished install. All the wires are routed behind the carpet and a small hole made to poke them through. The carper is the standard BMW one, with the hole cut our for the amp/ski pass using a stanley knife.
And how does it sound I hear you ask me? Frickin awesome. And I haven't even adjusted anything yet! There's enough bass to rattle a few things about and be able to feel your seat vibrate! And totally noticeable from outside the car, but not stupidly so. Everything is still controllable from the head unit (I have Nav and TV) so bass can be increased/decreased from there.
I do need to make some adjustments though, so that the bass can be turned right down on the head unit so the door speakers can be driven harder.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the sound now and it turned out a lot better than I'd hoped impin: As you can see, it takes up NO boot space and it is totally hidden away with the arm rest in place (and the arm rest can be left in place at lower volumes, just gets blown off otherwise :yikes:
Kam
I've been thinking about doing this for absolutely ages now, spent a while waiting for a specific free air sub which was a bit troublesome to get hold of. So in the end I went we just a normal sub. The idea was to mount a 10" speaker in the ski hatch area and use the boot space as the enclosure. I just wasn't sure how ell it would work... although it worked very well my head :idea:
I installed a 10" Kicker Solobaric L5 Dual 2 sub with a Alpine MRP-M352 amp. This combination kicks out 200W rms, although if I went with a Dual 4 sub (wired to 2ohms) the Amp could go to 350w. It was enough power for me!
In total the install cost about £210; Amp £100, Sub £60 (clearance price, normally £135), wiring £20, Soundgate LocX £30.
Enough talking, here's some pics!
So I measured up and using 18mm MDF I made up a mount for the sub. Notice the notches in the mdf, they're need cos of the shape of the metal.
Here it is installed in ski pass area. There was a black plastic box which was head in my 4 large torx screws before.
I then sprayed the side showing into the cabin black, and the back in silver, so it stand out too much. No pictures but you'll see it in the next pictures.
Here's the sub installed in the car
Here's another shot of the sub
Here's a shot with the seats back in
The amp went on the right hand side of the trunk wall. The mdf had to be shaved to fit over the lugs and lumps on the wall.
The mdf fitted to the rear wall. The sub mount was also fixed using 4 screws from the back, you can see 2 of them above and 2 below to the left of the amp. There was also a nice hole already there to fir the speaker cable through. Also a handy location for the power since the battery is less than half a metre away!
Next job was to get some rca's to the amp. I tapped into the speaker outputs and remote wire from the radio module, which also quite luckily was also in the boot!
As you can see, it was a VERY tight fit!!! Everything only just went it. I had to go out and buy the right angled phono connectors since there was not enough room for them to go in upright! The wires had to connected before the amp was fixed to the mdf since they're wasn't enough room to be able to get them on otherwise!
And here's the finished install. All the wires are routed behind the carpet and a small hole made to poke them through. The carper is the standard BMW one, with the hole cut our for the amp/ski pass using a stanley knife.
And how does it sound I hear you ask me? Frickin awesome. And I haven't even adjusted anything yet! There's enough bass to rattle a few things about and be able to feel your seat vibrate! And totally noticeable from outside the car, but not stupidly so. Everything is still controllable from the head unit (I have Nav and TV) so bass can be increased/decreased from there.
I do need to make some adjustments though, so that the bass can be turned right down on the head unit so the door speakers can be driven harder.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the sound now and it turned out a lot better than I'd hoped impin: As you can see, it takes up NO boot space and it is totally hidden away with the arm rest in place (and the arm rest can be left in place at lower volumes, just gets blown off otherwise :yikes:
Kam