[skinrock]

I'm having the itch again to fix the poor audio in this car. I've been wanting to do Bavsound's speaker upgrade, but I still think it will be underpowered from the factory amp. I'm curious if anyone knows the true specs.

The website lists it as 360 watts and "11 speakers". I'm assuming this is peak power, so probably 180 watts continuous. The 11 speakers are 5+1 actual channels (2 each in the center, front l/r, rear l/r and the single "sub").

If it's divided evenly, that's 30 rms per channel. To be honest, that's not too shabby...the MS-8 only does 30 rms per channel at 2 ohms (the stock sub is 2 ohms, I imagine all the others are, too). Even if it's the same power, I have a feeling the MS-8 would still be an improvement. My only concern is whether or not they are pumping more to the "sub"...i.e. if it's a 5+1 channel amp.

Long shot, but does anyone happen to know the full specs of the stock amp (65126836346).

[skinrock]

I went ahead and ordered the BavSound speaker package. Still tempted to get the MS-8 installed and maybe a 5 channel amp. I need to find something that won't blow the 6x9, though.

[SteveB_UK]

I was happy enough with the HK amp/speakers until I had an M4 loaner last week. It had the same speakers but sound settings in the head unit included adjustable equalisation and a Logic 7.

It sounded terrible until I adjusted the equalisation. Once sorted was way better than my car.

I suspect the M4 has a different amp as I think it runs two subs. But I doubt it's much different in quality to our HK amp, just an extra sub channel.

So I'm thinking just an equaliser is needed. The place in the UK that's quoted me £500 for front Focals installed was trying to up sell me to an equaliser so I may well consider that unless one is already built into the head unit and coding will expose it?

[Aye-eight]

I'm not a massive audiophile, and - as mentioned elsewhere - if I want concert hall sound, I go to a concert hall, not a moving object made of carbon fibre and plastic.

That said, I found that the i8 sound improved quite a bit by just tweaking the sound settings. I'm running maximum base and near-maximum treble, and it's actually not bad.

What I do find odd is that I seem to require unusually high volume settings when listing to music from my iPhone: full blast on the phone and about 75% on the in-car system. Don't recall needed to crank things up that much in any other car.

[skinrock]

Originally Posted by Aye-eight

I'm not a massive audiophile, and - as mentioned elsewhere - if I want concert hall sound, I go to a concert hall, not a moving object made of carbon fibre and plastic.

That said, I found that the i8 sound improved quite a bit by just tweaking the sound settings. I'm running maximum base and near-maximum treble, and it's actually not bad.

What I do find odd is that I seem to require unusually high volume settings when listing to music from my iPhone: full blast on the phone and about 75% on the in-car system. Don't recall needed to crank things up that much in any other car.

I've noticed the same issue with iPhone. My problem with boosting those settings and running it at 75% is that you're almost certainly sending a clipped signal at that point. I may look into the volume issue some more.

[Aye-eight]

Originally Posted by skinrock

My problem with boosting those settings and running it at 75% is that you're almost certainly sending a clipped signal at that point.

Didn't think about that. Don't know enough about it.

[SteveB_UK]

You need to be careful to check you have the iPhone output at max, or near, so the source isn't clipping. I've not a problem with iPhone volume.

I've found this week that fading half way to the rear increases the bass from sub quite a bit meaning I could drop back the bass setting to just over half. This improved vocal sound on podcasts as the voices were no longer boomy.

Still missing a bit of treble clarity so might go for Focals in the doors as a local shop claimed that using a third party equaliser wasn't possible without also changing the amp. But perhaps they were just trying to upsell...

[D2nice]

Originally Posted by Aye-eight

I'm not a massive audiophile, and - as mentioned elsewhere - if I want concert hall sound, I go to a concert hall, not a moving object made of carbon fibre and plastic.

That said, I found that the i8 sound improved quite a bit by just tweaking the sound settings. I'm running maximum base and near-maximum treble, and it's actually not bad.

What I do find odd is that I seem to require unusually high volume settings when listing to music from my iPhone: full blast on the phone and about 75% on the in-car system. Don't recall needed to crank things up that much in any other car.

This issue is because the iPhone playlist by default is set to 50% volume. To fix this issue you have to go to your playlist on iTunes, right click, go to "get info", options tab and look at the volume adjust bar. By default it is set to "None" which is square in the middle. word of caution, Adjust accordingly setting it to 100% will distort non iTunes purchased music. hint: instead of adjusting 1 by 1 on each song, Highlight all songs, right click and make adjustments for all songs in your playlist in one shot. Songs that were not purchased through iTunes but downloaded from cd's or other collections may need some tweaking but it will take time depending on how big your playlist is and how much time you want to dedicate. I personally recommend, If you do love your playlist, take your time to really refine the right sound, volume, clarity for every song. It will take a while, but maximize the best options for each song depending on genre (best way to do this would be to work on the whole album rather than song by song) with the equalizer options. Once all this is done connect your iPhone to iTunes and sync your phone and all the changes will be passed to your playlist on your phone. Again songs that you might of heard will be louder and sound different, so keep the volume low as to not blast the hell out of the speakers!!

[Aye-eight]

Thanks for the info. A whole new lot of activities to lose hours on that I don't have. ;-)

[YaX!]

Hi.
Can someone help me on how to remove the amplifier?. Trying to replace std with HK, by going through the rhs pull out and don't want to make a mess.
Any help appreciated...