[Draksar]

It's story time!

I will at some point attach some pictures.. However this is a cautionary tale. Being experienced in audio installation, I thought how difficult could this be. It's difficult compared to my previous cars. So I purchased a head unit off ali express. Install was easy, the look is almost oem, save for the space at the bottom on the sides but i can live with that. The only downfall is figuring out why the antenna is spotty at best.. Tips would be appreciated. Andriod 6.0, fairly fast to boot, the sounds is clear, has 16 gb of storage, wifi, tethering etc etc etc. It uses the same process as Eonon, and has many similar specs.. I suggest researching them before you buy them, quad core, andriod, etc.

Next i sourced some door trim with tweeter boxes.. I had those shipped from Bmw of San Franciso.. Whomever the fudge was loading the box, that works at a bmw dealership should be fired. I got 2 driver sides. Other than that the installation is ok, save for getting the back portion behind the seal, and seated correctly. Tip for everyone, when you remove something watch how it comes out.. This is reoccuring throughout my trials and tribulations.

I found underseat focal's that were cost effective, and am pleased to say provide me with enough bass. I've currently got the amp set to 150 hz, and the gain turned down, i'll probably tweak this in the days to come. The installation of these was simple, however the removal of the old subs after 6 years was not. I carefully used a screwdriver to dislodge the sub's from the housing..

The main reason for all of this was the stupid deal I found on Focal k2 130 that measure five and quarter inches. Now after reading all the threads, and seeing people basically say don't do it, I did it.. Removing the door panel is easy, and i mean easy. The tough part was reassembling the door, since i didn't pay attention to how they came out, i failed to notice the 5 clips that were attached to the door, instead of the window sill. Please note life is MUCH easier when the clips are attached to the sill, only took 2 hours to figure this out. So i did the passenger side first, took the old speaker out, started to trim for the new speaker, and low and behold the ring and grill were definitely not going to fit. I did get the speaker to fit, but i had to find a covering, not that the speakers don't look great, the posts that secure to the door don't. So i found some pleather mesh and wrapped it around said speaker, and attached it. Whilst it doesn't look as good as a the grill it blends and only the most anal will actually notice it when the door is closed. On to the driver's side, attached the ring, got a dremel and started hacking.. You can shake your head and comment why i'd cut my door, well the simple truth is because i wanted to. The speaker fit top mounted obviously, however the ring for the speaker is about 1/8th of an inch over the plastic surround for the door latch. This i can live with.

You may be asking yourself why i'd hack this up and that up, well here is the answer. Compared to stock, the focal's are vastly superior, the 5.25" provide a fair amount of mid bass, and the sounds are crisp and accurate. Well in my opinion anyways. Although many of the reviews i've read said the focals were not "warm" sounding, i find that a misnomer compared to stock, they are brighter, more accurate and in my estimation much warmer than stock.

That will be it until i figure out how to post pics, and take the actual time to load videos on to you tube. Don't ask for pictures of the pleather covered speaker, it's temporary. I will be looking for a better solution. I've thought of recovering the top of the door where the speaker sits in some different material that will hide the speaker and give it a more consistent look.

PS I didn't use a harness and I cut some of the wires.. I know this will drive some people nuts, but i have no intention of getting rid of the car, and at the end of the day i'm significantly happier with the sound. Also the 8" focals underseats provide me with more than enough bass that my trunk will still be just a trunk.

[DJWabbles]

I agree with you, I too went for the Focal but this was only because I rushed into getting new speakers compared to the stock, I initially had Helix speakers and sub and JL amp, and thought im sure there are other better quality brands, researched for a month before going for the K2 power line ES100 along with the undersear subs and was it worth it, yes it was, sounds more warmer, punchier bass where you can actually the feel bass up your back side and the mids are great as well as the tweeters.

I have had number of people hear the focal and they had huge grins on their faces!

[Tim603]

Nice install story! As for pics go, you can upload them as an attachment under Go Advanced, (scroll down) manage attachments, upload file. This will put the photos at the end of the post.



From there you can insert the pics wherever in the post by clicking the plus and you can insert it wherever

[p-lethal]

did you have to wire the underseat woofers out of phase? Just curious because I read mixed results.

[macdragonfl]

I found that the antenna issue is solved in my case by putting a adapter to supply power to the attenna, got it off Amazon.

[BMW3DK]

OK, I understand you wanted better sound, but why dident you take one step at a time and did the sound part first?
The BMW headunit is most often based on Alpine and from Sound pov they perform really excellent when coded to Hifi package and pre-out.