FIXED!! Hopefully not an idiotic premium speaker question...

[ELVA164]

Hi guys,

So I have an '87 with the basic BMW sound system, no premium. I replaced my variety of installed speakers with 4 working premium speakers and the improvement is pretty startling.

My question is this: My car only has 2 wires per speaker due to not having premium sound; Is there any way to splice the power wire going to each speaker to be able to use all 3 plugs on the premium speakers? The sound is lacking high frequency provided by the third plug obviously and if it wasn't a big deal I thought I'd try it. I'm nervous that I'll either mess up the speakers or do something funky to the wiring though so I wanted to ask first.

I read this thread trying to find an answer http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=209861 and thought maybe post 6 contained an answer but I had no idea what was going on there. Could anyone enlighten me?

Thanks in advance.

[AndrewBird]

I think you are a little confused. ALL speakers require only two wires.

If you are trying to figure out how to connect tweeters to the mids in front, this will help:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=305366

The wiring should already be ran, even if you didn't have premium originally. Look around inside the kick panel behind the mid and pull the door card off to find the other end.

[ELVA164]

I think you are a little confused. ALL speakers require only two wires.

If you are trying to figure out how to connect tweeters to the mids in front, this will help:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=305366

The wiring should already be ran, even if you didn't have premium originally. Look around inside the kick panel behind the mid and pull the door card off to find the other end.

Sorry, let me clarify. The front I understand, although I'll need to get a pair of tweeter pods and double-check if the person who ran aftermarket wire at some point made it at all possible to attach the tweeters in the stock fashion. In the rear, I didn't use the rectangular speaker holder with the 5.25" speaker in one spot and the tweeter in the other, I'm just using the 5/25" speaker in the stock square-shaped hole in the rear deck. I noticed if I plug the power lead to the 5.25" speaker into the plug the tweeter normally attaches to, the speaker only produces the treble signal. If I plug it into the other plug (the one opposite the ground plug), the bass and mid works. I wanted to know if I could splice a wire and "connect" the tweeter plug to the mid/bass plug on the 5.25" speaker itself. I can take pictures if it would clarify.

[Steve Corbett]

Any reason your not using the stock premium housings for the rear? I did the same as your doing, upgrading a standard to premium sound. I disconected my standards and pluged the premiums in and wow! Great sound, still need to remove the rear deck so I can trim the speaker cutouts. I just turned the premium housings 90 degrees, facing forward till I get more time and do it right. Post a picture of what you got so far.

[atldohc]

hopefully this picture will help you:

if looking at the picture on the left, the two black wires that are cut off are the main speaker wires. you can see where the tweeter wires simply piggyback off the mid speaker's terminals.

[AndrewBird]

Ok, now I see what you are doing. When you are getting only treble out of the speaker, you are basically hooking it up with the crossover (that is on the speaker) inline with the speaker. The crossover is filtering out all but the high end frequencies. When you hook it up the other way, the crossover is not being used and you are getting a full range of frequencies out of the speaker. You do not need to jumper to the crossover, the signal is already there, it's just playing along with the mid and low frequencies.

Basically crossovers only remove certain frequencies, never add. The signal coming from the stereo is full range, including ALL frequencies, which is what you want.

[ELVA164]

Any reason your not using the stock premium housings for the rear? I did the same as your doing, upgrading a standard to premium sound. I disconected my standards and pluged the premiums in and wow! Great sound, still need to remove the rear deck so I can trim the speaker cutouts. I just turned the premium housings 90 degrees, facing forward till I get more time and do it right. Post a picture of what you got so far.

This is why I haven't done it. I was hoping to keep the whole thing the way it came, but I guess I would only know if trimming was worth it by trimming and then listening to the difference.

Ok, now I see what you are doing. When you are getting only treble out of the speaker, you are basically hooking it up with the crossover (that is on the speaker) inline with the speaker. The crossover is filtering out all but the high end frequencies. When you hook it up the other way, the crossover is not being used and you are getting a full range of frequencies out of the speaker. You do not need to jumper to the crossover, the signal is already there, it's just playing along with the mid and low frequencies.

Basically crossovers only remove certain frequencies, never add. The signal coming from the stereo is full range, including ALL frequencies, which is what you want.

Oooooh, I totally understand. Sorry I was so cryptic, I tend to give way too much information when I ask questions Sounds like I should see if my front tweeter wiring still exists, keep an eye out for a pair of door tweeters, and maybe consider cutting the rear deck to install the pair of rectangular premium housings I have here.

[AndrewBird]

I don't think you have to do any cutting to install the rear premium housings. They just sit on top of the shelf and screw down.

And yes, tweeters would help give a more "full" sound.

[ELVA164]

I don't think you have to do any cutting to install the rear premium housings. They just sit on top of the shelf and screw down.

And yes, tweeters would help give a more "full" sound.

The speaker holes in my car look like these:


Premium holes look like these:


Sorry for the super crappy pictures, but you can see the difference.

[endeavor]

I had the same problem when I installed my rear premium speakers. I ended up taking a coping saw to enlarge the holes in the rear tray.

[StereoInstaller1]

As far as I know, all later E30s (after about '86) have rear deck with perforations to cut out for the Premiums, you just flip it over and attack it with a knife and re-olcate the tinnermann clips.

[ELVA164]

As far as I know, all later E30s (after about '86) have rear deck with perforations to cut out for the Premiums, you just flip it over and attack it with a knife and re-locate the tinnermann clips.

That would be handy! I'm heading out now to pull the second rear premium setup from the parts car and test both to see if they work.

[ELVA164]

All done! After my last post, I headed out to the parts car and pulled the second premium speaker setup. Next, I headed back to my car to take some pictures of the current speaker setup:


I had premium 5.25" installed, but with the issues I described above.
Next, I removed the rear seat and the rear deck. Look what I found underneath!

I flipped the rear deck upside down on top of the rear seat back:

This is what the old holes looked like from underneath:

I trimmed the padding away with a razor blade and discovered the fabled perforations Luke mentioned!

I grabbed a knife from my trunk "spares" box and started cutting. To start the cut, I went a bit above the end of the perforation and slowly moved wiggled the knife back and forth until it broke through. I then slowly sawed through the carpet and the cardboard along the perforation.

Here's the result!

I reinstalled the clips over the new holes and pierced the carpet with the end of a multimeter:

Next, I vacuumed the broken glass out, reinstalled the rear deck and the rear seat, and this is how the hole looked from the top:

Then I started installing! Here are a couple shots of the speakers installed:


Mission accomplished! :up:

Finally, what are these things? I couldn't figure it out:



Thanks again for all the help guys, hopefully this post could be a helpful DIY for others in the future!

[Todd Black 88]

Finally, someone has a picture of it!

That threaded hole is for the child seat tether anchor.

[StereoInstaller1]

Now, go find yourself a late model (89+) brakelight and rear deck! You have to invent your own mounts, but it is NBD to do so. Plugs are the same, but late models have a hole for bulb access, so you will have to take it apart to swap bulbs...or punch a hole...again, NBD.

Good job. Simple, ain't it?

Sounds OK? If the speakers are yellow, keep an eye out for a set of front Premiums that are nice and black. The sun kills speakers, fronts are protected better.

You can solder, right?

Luke