New Stereo...

[aus]

Here's the TVonNav.

[aus]

Here's the amp and crossovers.

[aus]

Here's a night shot showing the lights.

[aus]

And a close-up. I still have to install the rear speakers because I couldn't figure out how to get the tweets out. That's for next weekend.

[Dblock2151]

Looks great!...Congrats...

[Kevlar]

Helix ... good stuff.

[remiX5]

i like.

[fast4d]

how much is that TV on NAV?

[aus]

It's $999 + about another $100 in options to be able to have the TV on while driving and to not have to cut wires. It's a bit of a pain to install because the instruction need more pic's and diagrams.

www.tvonnav.com

[SoFlX5/4.6]

AUS - I thinking of replacing the speakers/amp in my X5. I have the Nav/DSP and would like to leave the functionality there (to keep it simple - not because I am impressed with it). Did your upgrade use the stock locations in the front? I pulled the door panel and see a 6.5" housing that would take some modification to re-use.

Is ther a HU adaptor available to provide RCAs for an AMP (and AUX input)? I did a similar upgrade on my 911 and the adaptor made for a much easier install.

FYI - I have a set of Focal 7KX (7" polykevlars) and TN47 tweeters that would be great up front, MB Quart coax for rear fill and Image Dynamic 10" IDQs and Phoenis Gold amps ready and waiting to go in.

I checked the audio forum for X5 info with no luck - if you know of other threads please let me know

Would love to see more pics of your audio install!! Thanks!!

[03X530]

Welcome to bf.c. Check out www.x5world.net. It has pretty good information on a lot of things related to X5.

[SoFlX5/4.6]

great site - thanks!

[aus]

SoFIX5... unfortunately, X5World is VERY lacking for information on a true DIY... especially on cars with NAV/DSP.

I used a Precision audio VEN4 LOC. It seems to work well, but there was the dreaded BMW engine whine when we first fired it up. I was pissed. We tried grounding every thing without improvement, then just for the hell of it, we DISCONNECTED the ground to the LOC and the whine went away!!! Weird shit. You can get the LOC from www.Sounddomain.com. It's a quallity unit.

As for the speakers, we stacked 2 peices of 3/4" MDF and cut some baffles out after making an outline of the area where the stock speaker house attaches to the door with some cardboard. Someone one X5World ground down the Utopia's to make them fit in the stock speaker houseing, but I don't have tools for that... and those basket are pretty thick. The other option was to cut the front "cone" piece of the stock houseing off and install the speakers and then try using silicon to stick it back on to the edge of the basket... too much work for me. You'll also need to get longer screws which you can get at home depot. I can get you the screw number if you need it. They fit perfectly.
Not sure if those 7" speakers will fit. Just depends on how good you are with the jig-saw. As for the tweets, we just stuffed them in the foam in the A-pillar and taped them in. It's very snug and secure. I'm not sure how that guy on X5World got a TN51 to fit in the stock tweeter mount... hell, I'm not sure how he got that stock tweet out of the mount. It seems pretty glued in there.

Then figuring out the wiring diagram was a bitch too since anything we found on X5World was for older model cars. Basically the speaker wires are very thin, maybe 22G wire and the signal wires are thicker. We just used crimps to attach the stock wires to the speakers and amps.

Also, there are NO REAR channel outputs if you have DSP!!! We spent hours trying to find the rear speaker outputs without success You have to figure out which holes they belong too on the harness and tap them and run wires back up to the LOC to get fader control. I haven't figured this out yet.

Another hint, the rear tweeters UNSCREW counter clockwise. I almost ruined one housing try to rip them apart.

Good luck and feel free to E-mail or PM with anymore questions. i usually check here once or twice a day too.

After the install, the Nav wench's voice was deafning. I had the NAV volume turned all the way down and she was still screaming at me. The instructions on X5World for turning down the absolute Nav volume didn't work for 2002+ cars. I finally got in the Service menue and turned the volume down... now I can use NAV again.


How are you going to mount the sub? I would like something like this, but I don't think a 10 will fit.

Sub Pic

.

[SoFlX5/4.6]

Thanks for the feedback Aus - I am sure you saved me hours already! What you did for the 165 Utopias was exactly what I was thinking of doing (the 7" will fit - they are not that much bigger then 165s). Since you do not have the "cone" from the speaker to the door panel - is there any noise vibration? I would imagin the utopias are send some serious air pressure sitting back there?

Doesn't anyone have a wire diagram for these units?? I found this for my porsche system and it made life easy (but I ended up rewiring anyway). Did you splice in to the HU wireing for your amp inputs (and the same for the speakers)? If so - did you write down the color codes !!

As for the sub - I am thinkg of making a box to fit where the current 2x6.5" sub box is (rear right). I did see an 8" done this way on X5world and measured for a 10" - it will fit. I am going sealed (IDQs) so size should not be an issue. However I will have to figure out how to deal with the stock cover, I think it may get punded by the 10" sub and may not sound very good. Still thinking on this one...

Thanks again for your info - if you have more pics I would love to see them

[aus]

I was worried about vibrations too, but surprisingly, it's tight.

We cut the harness from the brain unit in the spare tire well to the stock DSP amp and then figured out which wire was for each mid/tweet speaker. It was a pain.
I'll try to get a wiring diagram for out truck when I get a chance. It'll make your life a LOT easier. I still have to figure out which holes on the "brain" unit has the outputs for the rear speakers.

Also, just so you know, you'll lose DSP once you cut the harness to the stock amp. No big deal for me.

I'd love to see your box when you get it done. I was thinking of the same thing, but would have to have someone make it since I don't really want to mess with fiberglass/resin.

[SoFlX5/4.6]

I will aks my service guy at BMW if he can get a diagram (pdf hopefully). I will not miss the DSP AT ALL What ever you can find/send is appreciated. If I get the pdf I will send it to you as well.

Is your front stage the TN51 and 165W only? Not that those aren't enough - just curious if you used or disconnected the stock speaker in the dash (what is it anyway, a mid or another tweeter - which would be weird to have 4 tweets in the front). Any way - I want to keep it simple: Quaility comps in front, tight bass in back and well have to see about rear fill once I fully understand the system (wiring).

I am having sub enclosures made for my 996 cab now which are removable(they sit in the rear seat wells - if you know the 996 cab, you know these seats are usless an dI have yet to ever use them in 4.5 years) . I am going to have these guys do the sub box for th 4.6 too. But it may be a few weeks as they are swamped these days. I will tell them they may have another customer if they do a good job

I wish they made an adaptor for the HU like porsche (Becker) did. But life is not always simple.

[aus]

I wish they made an adaptor for the HU like porsche (Becker) did. But life is not always simple.

If they had that, it wouldn't be a challenge
I'd be totally interested in the sub box if they do a good job and can offer it at a reasonable price. They could even show it on Roadfly and I'm sure they'd sell a lot more there.

I'm only using the Utopia 165W up front (with the TN51 tweets). I didn't even know for sure there were tweets on the dash. I thought there were, but no one ever mentioned them.

Are you going to change the speaker wires out? I've been thinking about it. One shop said it would make a considerable difference, while another said it'll only make a small difference. Both are reputable shops. :

[SoFlX5/4.6]

I was thinking of doing the speaker wires too (at least to the door mid-bass) but a thread on X5world talked about what a nightmare it was - of course the sub will get new wiring. I have heard both sides of the re-wire opinion too. I did it in my porsche since it was not too difficult - need to use shielded or twisted cables to avoid noise (the 996 is very noise - electrically).

I will see what the shop says about the sub box and let you know. When you first responded, I didn't see the link to the other install. It looks like they used the orginal box with a costom top - thats probably why they had to go with an 8" sub. I was thinking of a whole new enclosure. We will see...

[aus]

SoFIX5, I hope your service guy can get you the diagram for the rear speaker outputs. We tried last night and the E39 stuff doesn't work for our trucks.

Also, the rear speakers are a BITCH to fit around the door panel. We had to really trim down the MDF baffle at one point to make it fit. I'll take some pics when we do the other door.

[janix]

Hi,

integrating an aftermarket setup with DSP can be tricky and I'd be very careful which shop you choose. Many shops will claim they've done DSP integration but in reality have never touched it and you'll end up with a nightmare later on (noise and other problems). I've had an aftermarket system installed by a very good friend of mine who's done many installations in BMWs and other German high-end cars. The overall installation came out great and you can judge yourself on how the subwoofer was intergrated and the DSP integration. I can use all of the controls on my headunit (fader, balance, tone and eq) plus the level control for the sub .
Pictures of my install are at http://www.janixworld.com/x5/Stereo/

For the intergation with the DSP system an array of soundgate hi-voltage LOC’s were used to retrieve a full range semi linear preamp signal to feed to the Phoenix Gold amplifiers. The factory equalization curve is very unlinear and requires a good amount of fine-tuning to make it acceptable



If you need more details on the installation feel free to contact me .

- Jan

[aus]

Jan, SWEET install. I've never seen the pic you posted here. What is that big black box?

My mids are a little muddy. I may be able to play with the gains a bit on the LOC to try to clean things up but was wondering how many LOC's you have?

Also, is there ANY way you could tell me what pins are used for the rear speaker output? I've been totally stumped on that. It seems the DSP units only use 2 channels to the amp, where-as the standard stereo uses the normal 2 front and 2 rear channels.

And you can still use the DSP EQ? Are you using speaker level outputs from the DSP amp? Thanks.

[aus]

Janix responded with a page on his site. He's using SEVEN LOC's to convert the signal AFTER the DSP amp. He even includes a nice wiring diagram.

http://www.janixworld.com/x5/Stereo/DSP.html

Here's my FULL WRITE-UP