Audio help

Stan

Stan

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I have a period correct radio in the dash and will be keeping it. Also, when the car was in for the bare metal repaint (10 years ago yikes) the decision was taken to remove the antenna and seal up the hole. So, no antenna, @OCCoupe has a Bluetooth amplifier in his spectacular nachtblau E9 and I want to go down that road. Does anyone have recommendations? The plan is to hide the amp under the rear seat. NOTE the first choice, below is on backorder.

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-5a1nr...owrS4I-EvzBqfqrRDE2JE5oWqjsxMHbRoCUmEQAvD_BwE

These are 2 units VSR has seen, but have not tried either yet:

https://www.rockvilleaudio.com/mxam...ba5vcXkNzSIe5vCRKYMlTA7008I87m44aAlCCEALw_wcB

and

http://www.outofsightaudio.com/
 
With that Kenwood unit you will need 10g wire which is big with a large fuse near the battery. I did this with my amp under rear parcel shelf but it was before bluetooth. I am considering the outofsightaudio solution for my e12 but the four original Blaupunkt speakers are tiny and I don’t want to tap into the fader to wire those up. I will probably get speakers that sit under the front seats but that isn’t optimal either. The NK has an amp under the rear seat, much better location.
 
I have only 2 speakers and think 4 would improve the sound. In the kick panels.
I am inclined to the Mark 4 since I could use it for hands free telephone
 
Stan said:
I have only 2 speakers and think 4 would improve the sound. In the kick panels.
I am inclined to the Mark 4 since I could use it for hands free telephone
Click to expand...
Hey Stan,

I Yanked my whole stereo out of the coupe years ago. There was a reason but can’t remember it.

Anyway...

Another option is to keep your two speakers and add a amplified sub that will fit under a front seat. I took this approach in my 02 and it works great. It also has a variable cross over and volume control on a wired remote. The sub is wired through the sub out on the kenwood head. You won’t be thumpin’ with the homies in stereo competitions but you will fill the lower end in nicely, I’ll bet better than adding two more speaks. Of course, this depends upon the two speaks that you have, where/how installed, head, power amp, etc. or you could do both!

My 02 is at Mario’s and you are welcome to fiddle with/try the sub once the car is back together.

Search kenwood ksc-sw11 on Amazon.
 
I did just this today! I have 4 Retrosound speakers in the original Becker speaker enclosures driven off the Becker radio amp with a bluetooth 7 pin DIN input adapter, and a power amp under the rear seat. But this sounded crappy because the speakers started to distort when cranked up (I believe it's the separate Becker amp that is getting over driven) so I put a powered subwoofer under the front seat to handle the low frequencies. Then I run all 4 speakers from the amp channel that has the High Pass filter which is enabled, this allows the 4 speakers to just handle mids and highs. Much improved sound, and I can now feel the bass in my butt! This is what I installed:

www.crutchfield.com

Sound Ordnance™ B-8PTD

Compact powered subwoofer with 8" sub and 125-watt amp
www.crutchfield.com www.crutchfield.com


TodB said:
Hey Stan,

I Yanked my whole stereo out of the coupe years ago. There was a reason but can’t remember it.

Anyway...

Another option is to keep your two speakers and add a amplified sub that will fit under a front seat. I took this approach in my 02 and it works great. It also has a variable cross over and volume control on a wired remote. The sub is wired through the sub out on the kenwood head. You won’t be thumpin’ with the homies in stereo competitions but you will fill the lower end in nicely, I’ll bet better than adding two more speaks. Of course, this depends upon the two speaks that you have, where/how installed, head, power amp, etc. or you could do both!

My 02 is at Mario’s and you are welcome to fiddle with/try the sub once the car is back together.

Search kenwood ksc-sw11 on Amazon.
Click to expand...
 
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While on the subject of speakers, I spotted this on the e24 facebook page. Keep in mind that e12-based e24’s have the same door pockets as e9’s (and armrests).

A decent option for door speakers without giant holes.

E4F92B8B-C010-4488-8D41-DD905C81E469.jpeg


No amps for me. I intend to run the center speaker only with no antenna.
 
"No amps for me. I intend to run the center speaker only with no antenna."
Without an antenna I get zero reception.
With a hidden antenna, still nothing
I have the adapter from the back of my Blaupunkt Frankfurt into which I can plug an iPhone or iPod but the sound quality is mediocre at best even through an S/O amplifier.
For the past few years I have resorted to using the Jambox and sometimes it sounds pretty good. But most of the time I forget to put it in the car.
 
I don't have a stereo in my car at all, but I have a pretty nice setup at the house. In general, Steve's comment about separating the low frequencies through a good crossover and using a separate amplifier and subwoofer is a tried and true method to make any stereo sound better.

Another comment - one of the difficulties in getting good sound in our car is that it is hard to find a place to install tweaters. The optimum is to install them as close to the ears as possible. (Mid range is less sensitive to placement; low range is not very sensitive at all.) I recall seeing a pair of tweaters mounted together on a plate that would fit behind the original front speaker location. I don't recall if this was a mass marketed product or a custom install, but this location would provide the best reproduction of the high freqency sound, at the expense of stereo imaging. I would try this if I wanted a stereo in my car. My second choice would be to create a small set of tweater boxes and install them on the corners of the dash. Obviously, making this look good, changing the car as little as possible, and making sure they didn't turn into missles in a crash would make this idea complicated.
 
Here is my tweeter install, in the ashtrays. I used old speaker grids instead of the original leather/steel plate cover. The size of the ashtray limits the the tweeter size of course but it works. When that said, it is (as mentioned above) very difficult to get a good sound inn our e9´s, even with an advanced and pricey setup.
I have experimented with small Bose portable speaker, and the sound is very good, size taken into account. There are a lot of good bluetooth speaker options on the market that could fit in the dashboard and save you for a lot of money and work.
I have installed small magnets in the plywood for easy removal of the speaker front and the Bose unit.

P1000366.JPG

IMG-0880.JPG
 
I really do like music. I am a rookie drummer. I can watch/listen to live concerts on YouTube for hours. But in my daily drivers I generally find I don't have the radio on and only listen to NPR when it is. Maybe it's my old ears plus background road noise?

In any case, I have no need for a booming stereo in my Bavaria. The beautiful music that the M30 makes is good enough for me. :)



50842230098_636dd76aed_c.jpg
 
Yes I can agree with @Dick Steinkamp most of the time. But if I am driving for several hours from the Seacoast of NH to Saratoga NY for example, i like to have music or some news. That said, I have satisfied myself with a Jambox that my phone will drive. However, I often forget it, forget to charge the Jambox or place in in a position where I do not hear it very well.
 
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