[cjattard]

i'm a long time lurker and first time poster! just wanted to thank this thread and give a little update on the ICE upgrade on my i8.

just to start i have had my i8 for 4 months and loving every minute of it. the car i purchased had all the options i wanted with the exception of the HK sound system. in the UK and Europe a standard hifi can be specified - and its truly dreadful - see photos of stock speakers and amp below.

What did i install?

Amplifier
i went for an Audison AP 5.9 amp, of which 4 channels are used for front R+L and Rear R+L and the 5th channel for the "Sub". i decided not to use the centre front speaker as personally i feel it ruins the sound stage in such a small space - but if you wanted to use this then buy the more expensive AP 8.9 amp as you will need a 6th channel. i also purchased an Audison APBMW REAMP 1 cable. it takes a while to wire up to the amp - but from an i8 perspective just unplug the connector from the OEM amp and plug into the new amp. really simple. the amplifier is located where the original amp was held in place by a couple of long bolts into the original frame.

Front Speakers (ignoring front centre)
I hoped the speakers in my i8 were better than they were - in which i thought i could replace both woofers and tweaters - alas after taking the door card off there was only room for a woofer and not a speaker.

if you have the HK system go for the separate Audision APBMW K4E speaker kit (R+L woofer with separate tweeter with BMW OEM connections). my car didn't have a hole for the tweeter or the ability to drill one (as the speaker grill is bonded to the door and would have been damaged) so i had to swap the K4E for the APBMW X4E which combines the woofer and tweeter into the same unit.

Rear Speakers
Similar to the front i had expected to be able to fit separate woofer and tweeter, when i removed the rear speakers there was only 1 speaker on each rear side, the place where the tweeter would go actually had the clips to hold the tweeter in place, but also had moulded plastic in-front of it, i didn't want to send back the speakers i already had so i drilled this out using a step drill bit and fitted a pair of Audison APBMW K4M woofer and tweaters, this would be the right speaker set to go for if you have the HK system. if you had the stock stereo and didn't fancy modifying the car then the combined speaker set would probably be best which is the APBMW X4M.

Finally for the sub, i ended up going for a midrange 6x9 being the Audison APX 690. it works well (its sold as a pair so i now have a spare one floating around at home). when tuning the amplifier with the laptop i was able to slightly increase the dynamic range of this speaker to make advantage of its midrange capability's as well as low end. its ok but to be honest i really wish i had replaced this unit with a sub - as the sound from the 4 upgraded speakers and amp really impressed me.

End result
Overall i was really happy with how this turned out it probably took 7 hours in total - i wired up the speaker terminals wrong at first which took quite a bit of playing around. spend sufficient time looking at the wiring diagrams for the amp connector - remember the wiring diagram is the mirror of the connector - as it matches the amp side!

All in all probably spent £900 for a sound system which really makes me smile - and to be honest outpaces the HK system by a long way, and in terms of the stock system - its a free-airline-earphones to Bose noise cancelling type comparison.

So what i learnt
- the stock BMW hifi (non HK) has the following:
* 2 front speakers (no separate tweeter - and no hole to mount new tweaters in the door card (the HK system supports separate tweeter replacement)
* 2 rear speakers (no separate tweeter - but with the use of a hole cutting bit 3rd party tweaters can be mounted, no hole cutting needed for HK system)
* the 6x9 is relatively standard with a slot dremelled out of the top and bottom as per posts of this forum to fit a standard 6x9 3rd party speaker
* there is a single centre channel speaker (which i didn't replace)
* the stock system does have an amplifier - its all analogue - no coding needed to swap out
- swapping out the rear speakers is really hard. take your time, remove the rear seats, be brave pulling back the headlining, and double check the cable is still plugged into the speakers when you put it back in (i found this out after installing)
- the front door speakers are pretty easy if you follow the guides to removing the door cards - i struggled to remove the cover around the manual door opening lever - i eventually found out that you pull the lever up to 45 degrees then slide a red lever on the underside to lift to 90*
- the amplifier in the rear of the boot does need most of the boot panels removing - take your time and do this properly as you will need the space to secure your new amp and wiring loom
- The Audison front and rear speakers are plug and play with cables that plug into the BMW connector so you don't need to splice or modify any BMW cables (apart from two spade connectors for the 6x9 to replace the proprietary BMW connector) for the 6x9 just cut this connector with enough wire to spare and keep it safe and you can alway retrofit the original speaker in the future with some male spade plugs - i personally used some audio tape and secured this spare part under the cup holder
- you need a laptop and a 3m USB cable to property configure the Audison amp - but the benefits of doing so were awesome
- if you tune the levels of the amp too high the Active Sound Design 'faux' engine noise becomes deafeningly loud in the cabin on motorways, keep the gain manageable and the master volume realistic as you can't change ASD sound in the NBT menu settings as its a separate module that sits between the BMW head unit and the amplifier that 'injects' the speaker noise.

Hopefully someone else will find this post useful. thanks for all the info above!

i'll post a couple of photos from the interior tomorrow if anyone is interested - but it looks totally OEM apart from the two small Audison badges i popped off the 6x9 grills and attached to the door card grills.

[Iain123]

Great write up! Sounds the best solution. So you didn’t have to run any additional power cables or speaker wiring throughout?

[Adofred]

Yes , great write up . I have the HK system which is not great in my opinion tbh . I wonder what improvement HK owners would get by just replacing the amp with an Audison ?

[cjattard]

Originally Posted by Iain123

Great write up! Sounds the best solution. So you didn’t have to run any additional power cables or speaker wiring throughout?

none at all, which was great. the amplifier has an additional fused protection built into It which really helped.

The photo below shows the amp with the lead connected. the white connector is the only contact point with the BMW wiring. the coloured connectors are for the inputs and they are pre-wired, the white speaker out connectors have 10 spade connectors that needed to be manually connected together. there are two additional spade connectors under the electrical tape for the front centre speaker.

The original speaker cable in the i8 is pretty basic but its also relatively short runs, and the idea of running new cables though firewalls and door connectors felt a little non-viable.