F30 Audio systems

[saat]

There is a way to improve the sound without voiding your warranty. But it will cost you. I spend a lot of time on the road and listen to all sorts of genre and in a very short while, the stock system made me wanting so I was willing to spend some money.

I tried with plug-and-play set of speakers and I was not satisfied. I added an amp and the system sounded even worse because of the way the original system is wired up. I learnt the hard way that swapping the speakers alone will not do the job. Beware.

So I swapped the fronts to a set of very high quality mid and tweets. I put in a multi-channel amp and ran new high end wires from the amp to the new speakers. The amp came with a set of harness to plug right into the system. No original wires at the back of the stereo and at the original speaker locations, were cut. The amp runs the fronts whilst the original system runs the rear fills. I have a sub in the boot but this is not necessary cos the sub under the seats are good enough. The whole system is rounded off with a good tuning job made easy by a good installer and the ability of the amp tuning be done using a PC.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the setup. The clarity and front staging are very evident. I am a happy camper.

But I must state that sound is very personal.

 

[Prot]

There is a way to improve the sound without voiding your warranty. But it will cost you. I spend a lot of time on the road and listen to all sorts of genre and in a very short while, the stock system made me wanting so I was willing to spend some money.

I tried with plug-and-play set of speakers and I was not satisfied. I added an amp and the system sounded even worse because of the way the original system is wired up. I learnt the hard way that swapping the speakers alone will do the job. Beware.

So I swapped the fronts to a set of very high quality mid and tweets. I put in a multi-channel amp and ran new high end wires from the amp to the new speakers. The amp came with a set of harness to plug right into the system. No original wires at the back of the stereo and at the original speaker locations, were cut. The amp runs the fronts whilst the original system runs the rear fills. I have a sub in the boot but this is not necessary cos the sub under the seats are good enough. The whole system is rounded off with a good tuning job made easy by a good installer and the ability of the amp tuning be done using a PC.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the setup. The clarity and front staging are very evident. I am a happy camper.

But I must state that sound is very personal.

did you get any static after your new setup?

If you didnt change your headunit and tap the wiring from your existing head unit, you may be getting slight static noises (soft buzzing sound)

adding a sub woofer and an amp would help the weak system. but then you will face other harmonics issue if not done right.

 

[saat]

did you get any static after your new setup?

If you didnt change your headunit and tap the wiring from your existing head unit, you may be getting slight static noises (soft buzzing sound)

adding a sub woofer and an amp would help the weak system. but then you will face other harmonics issue if not done right.

I kept the stock head unit. The amp came with a plug and play harness to tap the signals. Yes it is a high level output signal but the amp is a DSP amp with a built-in sound processor to accept high voltage input. No static noise at all.


As mentioned, I had a good installer. No issues with bare minimum of sound deadening material.

 

[Prot]

I kept the stock head unit. The amp came with a plug and play harness to tap the signals. Yes it is a high level output signal but the amp is a DSP amp with a built-in sound processor to accept high voltage input. No static noise at all.


As mentioned, I had a good installer. No issues with bare minimum of sound deadening material.

where did you get yours done? what was the damage like?

 

[saat]

Bimmercoder has an Alpine Retrofit kit for F30. Haven't tried it so don't know how it sounds like.

 

[Alwin]

I am very interested in the Alpine Retrofit.. anyone who have installed it give some feedback? I am also looking for people to group buy which we can all save couple hundreds..

 

[seancorr]

Hehe so far I've seen no feedback from the Alpine system. Seriously no one tried it yet? Will need at least 5 people to save RM300 each person so it seems.

But I do notice that when you turn your music volume loud, its very audible when you stand outside of the car with all windows and doors shut closed. There is a lot of sound leakage from the interior to the outside so I reckon its the same vice versa hence the poor NVH complaints that the F30 has.

 

[DRT]

I had the Alpine system retrofit by Bimmercoder on my 320d.

Coming from a base audio system with 6 speakers without tweeters, it is a good improvement especially on the clarity of the sound produced since it includes a 6 channel 420W amplifier compared to the original setup where the head-unit drives all the 6 speakers without much amplification.

 

[seancorr]

Thanks for the feedback, saw the amp looks like its mounted in the boot to me.

 

[DRT]

The amp is mounted (concealed) under the driver's dash.