E46 gets the Hybrid Audio treatment

[12v Electronics]

Legal disclaimer: The following car audio installation is posted here for informational purposes only. It is not to be used as an instruction guide. The modifications that we have done may void some warranties or cause other potential problems.

Vehicle:

2001 BMW 330xi sedan with factory cassette and Harman Kardon sound system

Mission:

• Replace the stock cassette unit with an in dash CD player that sounds better, uses all of the factory steering wheel controls, dash cluster display and perfectly matches the interior.
  
• Improve the factory HK sound system by improving the clarity of the midrange and tweeter, adding midbass to the front stage, upgrade the factory subwoofers and provide more volume to the entire system.
• Retain the factory look of the vehicle

Action:





Version 1.0

• Installed a factory BMW Business CD43 for perfect fit and function. http://www.12velectronics.com/servle...D-RADIO/Detail

Version 2.0

• Installed a Hybrid Audio Technologies Clarus C51-2 component set in the factory front door locations. http://www.12velectronics.com/servle...ologies/Detail
• Replaced the factory amplifier with the Blaupunkt Velocity VA4100. http://www.12velectronics.com/servle...2-CLASS/Detail

Version 3.0

Replaced the Clarus C51-2 5.25" set with the C61-2 6.5" set. http://www.12velectronics.com/servle...ologies/Detail

Version 4.0

Add a pair of Hybrid Audio Legatia L8 subwoofers on the rear deck.

Installation:

Version 1.0

The CD43 radio was the first upgrade. This was originally tested with the factory HK system. The radio is plug and play and was installed & working within 15 minutes with basic tools.

Impression:

The first improvement noticed was the ability to play the system much louder without distortion. Also the low frequencies were much more "solid" and played with more authority than with the original cassette unit. The looks are perfect as you can see and every steering wheel control and dash display works perfectly.


Version 2.0

The Blaupunkt VA4100 amplifier was installed using the CD43's balanced differential output. All of the neccessary wires are available in the trunk of the car, so running new cables to the head unit or speakers is not necessary. The passive crossovers included with the Clarus component set were also mounted in the trunk and connected to the factory speaker wiring.




Next we replaced the factory front door speakers with the Hybrid Audio Clarus C51-2 set.

Midrange installation:

The factory speakers are mounted to the backside of the door panel like this:


The factory speaker is a 6.25". The mounting of the Clarus was fairly simple. All we did was remove the factory speaker and trace it's outline onto a piece of 1/2" wood. From there all we did was cut on the line that was traced and cut a hole in the center for the midrange. Then we mounted the assembly to the door, sealed off any gaps between the new baffle and the factory base with strip caulk and that's done. (sorry, no pics)

There are also other mounting options. The easiest is to remove the factory speaker grille and mount the midrange to the front side of the door with it's included grille. This is simple and looks good, but did not conform to our "factory appearance" goal. Another way is to fabricate the baffles you will see in our Version 3.0 installation below.

The next step was to give the midrange room some breathing room. Directly behind the midrange is metal from the inner door skin. This is a pretty large unused space. We cut a 6" opening in this area to give the midrange the airspace it needs. There are a couple of things we had watch out for here. The window glass is directly behind this area, so the glass had to be up during cutting. Also the door wiring harness is behind this area, so care was taken to keep it out of harms way.


We also deadened the outer door panel and coated the bare metal at this point. The inner door panel should also be sealed with sound deadener to prevent rear speaker waves from mixing with the front waves. We did not do it at this point because we will be doing more work to the door panels in later versions.

Tweeter installation:

The tweeters we installed in the factory pillar locations by removing the HK assemblies and simply mounting the Clarus tweeters behind the factory grilles. The connection was made directly at the the factory tweeter connector. This bypassed the HK tweeter crossover that is mounted in the wiring pigtail.


Once the door midrange was connected to the the existing speaker wires and the door panel was reinstalled it was just about time for a listen.

For now the rear factory midranges were left in place and connected to the amplifier. Channels 3&4 on the amplifier are not going to be used yet, so they are temporarily connected to the amplifier as a load. (an amplifier should not be operated without a load on a channel) For now we have the fader control set all the way to the front. After re-connecting the battery and setting the amplifiers gain controls properly it was time to fire it up.

Impressions:

WOW!! Right out of the box this system sounds great! First of all, the midbass is great and is the best I have heard from 5.25" component set. If we had dampened the inner door panels I'm sure it would even sound better. The midrange is extremely clear and there was no distortion even on songs with a heavy bass presence. I did find the tweeters a bit bright on their 0db setting. A simple change to -3db on the passive crossover and they blended perfectly.

The stage is right on top of the dashboard with excellent depth. After a bit of playing with the amplifier's HP crossover (decided on about 75hz), the sound was very pleasing and played very loud without any distortion. Acoustic guitars had awesome presence and snare drums sounded so realistic that when Carter Beauford hit his my eyes actually shifted to the place on the stage where the sound came from.

Just for fun I tried fading to the back speakers to see what the difference was. It wasn't as fun at all. A quick fade back to the front and all was good.

If you like rear fill, go for it, but use a speaker that compliments the fronts. And definitely not the stock ones!

This sytem would be perfect with a subwoofer. That will come in Version 4.0. For now let's see what V3.0 brings.

Here is a picture of the final product which I'm sure you are pretty familiar with.

[12v Electronics]

Version 3.0:

The Claurus C61-2 is quite a bit larger than the C51-2 driver. In order to fit these behind the factory grilles, a door mounted baffle is needed. A template was cut to conform to the door panels shape. It was made from 3/4 Birch plywood. Then a dupicate was made to bring the thickness to 1.5". These were placed in the door panel at the proper angle and then the panel was put back on the car. Bracing was placed on the door and the assembly was tacked in place. Then the door panel was removed and the assembly was properly mounted to the door Each layer was glued and clamped in place.




Next came the sound deadening. We deadened the baffle assembly, outer door skin and the inner door panel of the car. This sealed the front speaker waves from the back.





Here is a view with the door panel installed:



From this point, we attached the speaker grille and reinstalled the door panel. It is ready to go!

Impression:

The sound is very similar to the Clarus C51-2 set previously installed in v2.0. The difference is in the midbass. With this set, we were able to lower the HP crossover point to 50 hz with no distortion or cone break-up. As they sit, they have enough bass to actually vibrate the front seat bottoms. This may not be a fair comparison to the tests performed with the 5.25" set because the door was not deadened as much as this set was. Either way, these things are amazing. With the crossover set at 50 hz, you really do not NEED a subwoofer. They sound great the way they are. The bass is not earth shattering, but a very pleasant mix for a front stage system. One place I do think this set would benefit from a subwoofer is at low volumes. We will be adding that next.

[12v Electronics]

So now it is time for the Hybrid Audio L8 subs to go in. The goal is to give the best sound quality with the least amount of trunk space used. We were able to do this by mounting the subs in the rear deck as an infinite baffle design.



Next came the sound deadener. We used 3 layers of Second Skin Damplifier Pro. 2 layers on the top and one on the bottom.





I really like the Second Skin product. It went on very easy and made the deck extremely solid. When you hit it, it sounds like you are hitting a brick wall.

With this design we were able to use the factory rear deck trim panel because there is a couple of inches between the top of the subwoofers and the panel. The sound comes through the factory speaker holes and the cabin vent built into the trim panel.

Next a trim panel was made to cover the bottom side and also give us a mounting surface for a Audio Control DQL-8 EQ/crossover.



Here is the final product:









Ok, I will try to describe the overall sound quality in very technical terms:

Me likey!! Me likey a lot!!

I will say that if you like big boomy bass or extreme SPL, these are not for you. The sound is extremely clean and they really like to play low frequencies. As long as the sub volume control is used correctly the sub sounds like it is on the dashboard of the car. They are very sweet sounding subs. Just about perfect IMO.

We decided to add an Audio Control DQL-8 which is a Digital line level converter, crossover, EQ, remote sub control and auxiliary input . This gave us a ton of control over the system and allows for the connection of an ipod or other input device. Right now we are waiting for the gain control to come in so I will post pics of that install soon.

[Benny Z]

really like this... i could see maybe improving the mounting rings with a layer of fiberglass around the outside to seal them up even better, but it looks like the matting is at least sealing the backwaves from the front. maybe also consider a thick foam ring around the perimeter of the woofer to push it up against the door card.

what did you use to cut such a perfect hole in the inner door skin?

looks good!

- ben

[12v Electronics]

Yes, fiberglass would be a good idea, but not necessary There are at least 3 layers of Dynamat extreme on that part. I do have a foam gasket between the woofer and door. (forgot to mention) Since it is coupled to the inside door panel the back part is not that necessary anyway.

What's the matter, can't you cut perfectly round holes by hand? Just kidding. It is a 6" hole saw.

[12v Electronics]

*L8 sub install pics added to post #3

So today I had some time to tune the car a bit. I used an Audio Control 3055 IASCA certified real time spectrum analyzer. It did not take much eq to get the frequency response to this:


For those of you that do not know what to look for, basically a flat line down the center is what to shoot for. I add a bit of high end rolloff and a bit of boost at the lower frequencies to overcome road noise.

A bit more tuning and I got it here:



Please note the 1db per step setting on this one. (more accurate)

BTW- These are just the front speakers being tested. Pretty nice response from a set of 6.5's eh? There was no boost added to the low frequencies at this point. The difference you see is from the 4 db per step setting to the 1 db setting. What this means is that every light on the machine wil only change with 4db's of difference. At 1 db per step every light represents 1 db of change. The other frequencies were mostly tuned by cutting frequencies rather than adding it which is the correct way to do it.

When I took a listen all I could say is WOW! I thought the imaging and stage was good before, but HOLY CRAP does it sound great now. I will still be adding a bit of "personal touch" EQ to it, but this is a great place to start. I am not going to get too crazy on the L/R EQ-ing until the new DQL-8 shows up. (see below)

The Audio Control DQL-8 is a very nice EQ. I could not be more happy with the quality of the unit. I had a bit of an issue with the remote volume knob as they sent me the wrong one and it caused some problems, but Audio Control was very good about sending me a new one. It is on it's way along with another DQL-8 because when I plugged it in it damaged the electronic crossover in the unit. I guess I will have to do this all over again when the new unit shows up.

So just for fun I ran a SPL test on the system. Here is the pic:

[OUSHark]

Very nice setup. I wish there were some L8 options like that in the Z3.

[12v Electronics]

Very nice setup. I wish there were some L8 options like that in the Z3.

I've got alot of saws, welders and metal.

FYI- You are going to love the L61-2 pros.

If these Clarus 6.5's sound this good, the Legatia Pro's will be incredible.

[BlackSapphire]

Very cool Tom! Great info - keep it coming!

[12v Electronics]

I had a funny experience after tuning it today. I decided to grab some lunch. I had the windows down while driving. I pulled up to a stop light while the volume was what I would call "decent" in fact really very low if you ask me. Everybody anywhere near me turned around and looked at me. I didn't think it was too loud, but something obviously grabbed their attention. I didn't think much of it so I pulled into a gas station to fill up and turned the stereo way down. People were still looking at me. I looked to see if I was dragging something from my car. When I got out I found that the sound outside with the windows rolled down was a perfect blend of sound and still very clearly audible for about 5-10 feet from the car. I guess people are used to bass heavy music coming from a car and have never heard one that almost sounds as good outside of it as it does inside.

Can you tell that I am really impressed with this sytem? I know the people around me sure were. The looks I got were not a "shut-up jerk" look but a look of "wow". I know this because I have owned a few bass heavy SPL vehicles and I always got the "shut-up jerk look"

I guess I will have to pay close attention to the volume now with the windows down.

[rogan]

I can't see but did you put a seam in the deadening round where the airbag 'blowout' panel thing is?

[12v Electronics]

I can't see but did you put a seam in the deadening round where the airbag 'blowout' panel thing is?

Yessir. Actually it was totally cut in this area.

That is one of the big reasons for the "disclaimer" at the top of the thread.

[Bildonia]

Very nice install, 12V. What types of music do you most enjoy listening to?? What types best exemplify the high quality sound??

[12v Electronics]

Very nice install, 12V. What types of music do you most enjoy listening to?? What types best exemplify the high quality sound??

Well, I am generally into Rock music. I am a big fan of the Who, Rolling Stones- etc. I also like most of everything new in the Rock, Jazz and some very well recorded classical music. When I got the "looks" from the other drivers stated above I was listening to Alice In Chains Unplugged at a pretty low volume level. I not only like their music, but the recording is phenominal.

I have been trying to listen to the same music while testing these systems. The CD I like to use is by Seal and the song in peticular is "Prayer for the Dying" This album is recorded extremely well and has a high vocal presence as well as some very dynamic and low bass notes. I have tuned systems with this song for a long time and know how it should sound, so I continue to use it.

The system in this car plays all of these well. If you like Rap- go look elesewhere. It is not a bass crazy system. However if you like jazz, rock or classical, I can say nothing but good things about it.

[Scott Buwalda]

This is fantastic, Tom. What a great explanation and discussion. I am impressed that a pretty straight-forward system with only two 8's for subbass can produce 125 dB. That's *extremely* impressive. There are certain systems in car audio competition that have trouble hitting that type of pressure with considerably more power and cone area. I am also greatly impressed with the photo of the RTA in 1 dB step. Do you guys realize how difficult it is to get a system to tune flat within 1 dB? If there are ANY issues at all with the speakers, and their lack of playing linear, it would show up here, with LED's lit up all over the place. In my many years of competing and being in this industry, I can't recall as flat of a curve at a 1 dB step. This means that both the speakers are getting the job done and are playing in a VERY linear fashion, and the install is good enough as well to accomodate this feat.

A minor suggestion: make sure the rear wave of the L8 can "escape" the baffle you made easily...does the rear wave exit only the small holes where the magnets protude or somewhere else as well? If only at the magnets, I'd try and open that up and you'll probably realize more definition and amplitude sub-40 Hz.

Scott

[12v Electronics]

Thanks Scott. I have never really seen a flat respose like that either at 1db. And the amazing thing is that It didn't take much to get it there. I meant to take more pictures with the EQ settings flat, but when I saw how good it was I just got too excited and kept on going. Since I have to do it over again when the EQ is replaced I will take more pics then.

The opening on the L8 trim panel is bigger than it looks. It is mostly the angle of the camera. The hole size is actually the size of the speaker opening. I did try it with the cover on and off and I didn't notice any difference.

Thanks for the kind words. You have designed some terrific speakers. I have not heard any speakers I liked as much as yours in over 20 years of being in this business. The other truly amazing thing is that the Clarus is the "entry level" line. My other car will be getting all Legatia speakers and I can't wait to see the results.

Thanks again,
Tom

[12v Electronics]

A funny thing happened tonight.

A local "customer" wanted to hear this similar system for his Mercedes. I invited him to listen to it and he LOVED IT. While we were designing the system for his car, he semi-seriously said, "or I could just buy your car"

Since I was considering selling it, I said "well, it will be for sale soon"

Guess what? He left a deposit and as far as I am concerned, it is SOLD. He gave me exactly what I wanted.

I will be sorry to let the car go, but I consider this a great win for me as well as the quality of Hybrid Audio Technologies products.

I guess I will have to change my header now to just an E92 BMW. My wife is not happy, since she loved he car, but I could not pass up this deal and it felt great to change a MB driver to BMW.

[rogan]

Tom, how do those L8 vent into the cabin? Doesn't look like you've got a grille or anything above them. Any problems with parcel shelf rattle?

[12v Electronics]

Tom, how do those L8 vent into the cabin? Doesn't look like you've got a grille or anything above them. Any problems with parcel shelf rattle?

There is a few inches between the speaker and the parcel shelf. The rear speakers are removed as well as a the entire rear section has a "vent" to allow cabin air pressure to flow through the trunk. The child safety seat mounting points pretty much stop any rattles.

The original idea was to cover it in grille cloth, but after giving it a try as-is, I found that it did not effect the sound much at all.

[Benny Z]

so...

does this mean you're upgrading the wife to an mb?

:p

[12v Electronics]

No thanks..

It was a sale, not a trade

[BlackSapphire]

so...

does this mean you're upgrading the wife to an mb?

:p

How dare you use the word 'upgrade' in that sentence. Blasphemy!

[pastE36prsntE46]

How did I manage to miss this thread! Tom you think you could get an IDMAX to sit on the back deck like that?

[12v Electronics]

How did I manage to miss this thread! Tom you think you could get an IDMAX to sit on the back deck like that?

Shouldn't be a problem. It will need some bracing though.

[inf0strada]

I absolutely love, clean, minimalist designs that are incorporated with the factory look. Well done.