E30 Audio Overhaul - My Project Details

[StereoInstaller1]

500 watts on bass and 60X4?

Hell yes, this is gonna be great.

You ever look at http://www.made-in-china.com ? In the product directory, find amps or speakers or whatever. If you can buy 500 of them, you can get them cheap.

I so wish Titanium Power had a 5 channel. Exile will not likely ever do a 5 channel. I wish they would!

[bmwman91]

Today's update:

- I decided to switch to 5 channel MB Quart amplifier. I want to save some space, and have less power wiring to deal with. I was looking at the PPI 5 channel one as well, I was sort of suspicious of it since I am having a really hard time finding documentation / information on their products. I suspect that they may be one of the many companies that is riding its name form back when it was reputable. MB Quart is probably just as guilty, and maybe I threw away an extra $170 on their amp, but there is a lot more technical info available that suggests that they are still at least somewhat reputable. Can anyone dish out some information on the reliability of their current electronics?

See the OP for updated plans / schematics.

- I have ordered all of the stuff that I cannot pick up locally. In a week or two I should have it all in my living room. As with many car projects, I will probably have a couple buddies over to slave away on the E30 in exchange for some beer & BBQ. One of them probably still hasn't forgiven me for when I had him help me install Damplifier lol.

Here's the 99% complete list of stuff I had to buy for this.
EDIT:
This list is sort of outdated. I added an LC6i level converter & improvised some mounting stuff. I also don't feel like updating it lol.

The various connectors I bought from Sherco are the crimp & solder type that also have adhesive-impregnated heat-shrink sheaths. I might not survive a nuclear war, but the wire connections will.

[bmwman91]

What I like about that box is how it takes just nothing to make excellent sounding bass. Good lord, I did a small alpine 4 channel and a tiny little 35 WPC Pioneer amp with a $50 Infinity Reference and the bass is just excellent. Terrific extension, awesome detail, crisp, areticulate and deep. Nowhere near as deep as the 12" box, but such great sounding bass it just does not matter. Makes about 122ish db, does 25Hz gracefully. Bigger better stuff works well, too..but it sounds like the 10" depth at the bottom of the box would not fit your needs.

It is hard for me to talk about those boxes without sounding like I am trying to sell you on one, but if you have any questions, there has been TONS of discussion about them. I gotta tell ya, though...I have never seen anything quite so efficient in space sound so damn good.

I gotta admit though, I have been thinking about doing like some ScanSpeak or SEAS or whatever higher end 8" home audio driver in the 2 rear sides. Fiberglass is a pain in the butt to do, but it just might be worth it.

That's pretty cool. It is always fun to get the most out of limited space & relatively inexpensive drivers. 25Hz from that driver is impressive.

If you want to play around with nice speakers for the rear sides, ake sure to check out SB Acoustics. I have recently been turned on to them and I am pretty impressed. The prices are right, and the performance / quality is easily on-par with Scanspeak. I have found that a lot of the SEAS drivers have crazy-shaped response curves...many look like a giant parabola with no really flat spot. I guess it is easy enough to check the datasheets though.

You are probably familiar with most of the good online audio resources. Just in case you haven't been here yet, www.zaphaudio.com is a great resource. The guy has tested tons of speakers and he has the response/CSD/distortion curves freely viewable. Between that and Madisound it is pretty easy to narrow down the selections.

[StereoInstaller1]

What I like about that box is how it takes just nothing to make excellent sounding bass. Good lord, I did a small alpine 4 channel and a tiny little 35 WPC Pioneer amp with a $50 Infinity Reference and the bass is just excellent. Terrific extension, awesome detail, crisp, areticulate and deep. Nowhere near as deep as the 12" box, but such great sounding bass it just does not matter. Makes about 122ish db, does 25Hz gracefully. Bigger better stuff works well, too..but it sounds like the 10" depth at the bottom of the box would not fit your needs.

It is hard for me to talk about those boxes without sounding like I am trying to sell you on one, but if you have any questions, there has been TONS of discussion about them. I gotta tell ya, though...I have never seen anything quite so efficient in space sound so damn good.

I gotta admit though, I have been thinking about doing like some ScanSpeak or SEAS or whatever higher end 8" home audio driver in the 2 rear sides. Fiberglass is a pain in the butt to do, but it just might be worth it.

[bmwman91]

I just installed one of Luke's boxes and there is still a lot of room left in the trunk. For example, my carry on sized roller bag still fits long ways. I would guess there would be no problem getting 4 of them plus some smaller bags to fill the spaces in the trunk.

John

That is a lot of room to have left with a sub enclosure.

Alas, when I say I need room for climbing gear...it's a full trunk plus some of the interior on longer trips. I also like to get my bouldering pad in the trunk, and that is the real limiting factor. I can just get it in between the front bulkhead & the rear of the car now. Turning it 90 degrees works, but then I have no room for my 20-year-old-car-emergency-kit (oil, antifreeze, zip ties, duct tape, lots of electrical tools).

[harv]

I just installed one of Luke's boxes and there is still a lot of room left in the trunk. For example, my carry on sized roller bag still fits long ways. I would guess there would be no problem getting 4 of them plus some smaller bags to fill the spaces in the trunk.

John

[bmwman91]

Thanks for the writeup. Could have used it when I tackled my tweeter replacement.

I don't know if it changed over the years, or if it was the luck of the draw, but only one of my tweeter pods had that lip. The other had that lip attached to the tweeter, and had no retaining lip on the pod shell (top):

That is odd. I am glad I didn't get one of those!

[bmwman91]

Nah. Not enough room. :p

The trunk is pretty big, but I don't think that it is large enough that reflections can be neglected. That, and the surface the sub is mounted in is really pretty small, and it fires into a small enclosed space.

I will be using the trunk as the enclosure, though. I want room for my climbing gear & other stuff still, so I am not building a box for it. It was just a matter of finding a sub that has large excursion (large box = small mechanical damping) and has a reasonably low Fs.

[StereoInstaller1]

According to WinISD, the SBA sub I chose will have an f3 at ~33Hz with the E30 trunk as the enclosure (all theoretical of course, reality will probably be a lot different). That should be more than enough bump capacity.

Wait...are you doing infinite baffle?

[bmwman91]

Wow... this is serious.

srsbsns, definitely

[BeirBrennerE30]

Wow... this is serious.

[cobraken]

Neat!

[Schnitzer318is]

Subbed.... carry on. :thumbsup:

[bmwman91]

What tweeter you planning? Most I have done have used that ring you cut off to prevent airflow from being disturbed (and all kinds of resonances and reflections) by a gap right at the throat of the tweeter diaphragm.

Kinda nice calling Audiocontrol, huh? I swear, every time I call I get the same thing. Helpful, courteous, professional but fun. I wish to hell they had a place to put me in that company, I would love to work there. They certainly could use an installers touch in some of their products, but everyone there always seems so cool.

I am glad they validated just exactly what I said, too. Chassis ground the shield, only use the center pin, 13V input max...easy, quiet, noise free setup. I have done quite a few installs using this same technology in many cars...some you can't, but generally, pre-1999 BMW works flawlessly. I bet I have done over 50 BMW cars alone set up just exactly like that...works great.

I will be using a Seas tweeter, listed in the first post. I am definitely concerned about reflections & resonance, so I will be "making" it fit. It looks to have a pretty thick plastic cover on it, and I will be sticking that into a lathe & modding it. The mounting flange will go away, and I will make a step in it so that it will fit into the pod like the stock one did. I will either glue it in, or maybe go nuts & thread it & the pod and then use a little LocTite. The M.O. here is "overdone" so I will probably try to thread the first 4mm or so. I would like to make this serviceable if the tweeter blows.

AudioControl scored points. They had an engineer write a very intelligent response.

Yup, I will be making signal connections like you suggested. I won't argue with your experience since I don't have any of my own here.


Today's updates:

- Fixed the drawings in post 1. Somehow I deleted the block with the CD43 in the signal drawing. So I fixed that, and updated the signal/ground wiring to the current plan.

- I ordered the drivers from Madisound. I updated the OP to list the ones I purchased. Now I am committed to fitting 75mm deep woofers up front, whether I like it or not lol.

The sub ended up being a low-profile unit from SB Acoustics for a couple of reasons. For one, I want to be able to fit all of my climbing gear & pads in the trunk still. Second, the SBA sub has ~90dB sensitivity and a nice flat response. The SP10 & WQ-1858 had bumpy response curves & only had ~82dB sensitivity & the woofers/tweeters have ~90. That would have meant running 8x the power to the sub to keep the system response flat (or 1/8 to everything else).

According to WinISD, the SBA sub I chose will have an f3 at ~33Hz with the E30 trunk as the enclosure (all theoretical of course, reality will probably be a lot different). That should be more than enough bump capacity.

[StereoInstaller1]

What tweeter you planning? Most I have done have used that ring you cut off to prevent airflow from being disturbed (and all kinds of resonances and reflections) by a gap right at the throat of the tweeter diaphragm.

Kinda nice calling Audiocontrol, huh? I swear, every time I call I get the same thing. Helpful, courteous, professional but fun. I wish to hell they had a place to put me in that company, I would love to work there. They certainly could use an installers touch in some of their products, but everyone there always seems so cool.

I am glad they validated just exactly what I said, too. Chassis ground the shield, only use the center pin, 13V input max...easy, quiet, noise free setup. I have done quite a few installs using this same technology in many cars...some you can't, but generally, pre-1999 BMW works flawlessly. I bet I have done over 50 BMW cars alone set up just exactly like that...works great.