I decided today that I'd try to improve my speakers since the rear ones don't work, and I had suspected the front speakers were removed and replaced with some junky 6x9s that were placed under the seats as tacky little bung hole blasters. I didn't think to start documenting until a good way through, so my apologies for not showing everything mentioned! 
I went to the audio shop and the owner told me it'd be $55 to have someone figure out why my rear speakers make no sound at all, so I decided to save that money for new speakers and have a go at it myself.
I got home, removed the back seats, removed the rear cards, and began to look. Turns out the driver side rear speaker wasn't even connected on one of the cables! I just stripped the wire ends and used a crimp connector from radioshit, and VIOLA! Music! The second picture is just to show where the wires go in case anyone needs to know. This is also when I started taking pictures.
The passenger side rear speaker was a little tricky because both cables appeared to be connected. I got sucked into the project and forgot to take pictures, but both positive and negative cables had at least 2 crimp connections before even reaching the speaker. I opted to just cut all the previous owner's crimos out, and replace it with one that connects the cables from the car to the cables from the speaker. It works, and now I have sound from my rear speakers! :D
After I reinstalled the cards, I took some Lysol wipes to clean them up a bit. I tried it on a part of the card that's below the seat cushion, that way if the wipes fucked it up, nobody would tell in normal situations. Photos are before and after. I wasn't going for "spotless", but "a hell of a lot better!"
The guy who had it 3 owners before me told me on here that the sound system was pretty shitty when he got it, and he just left it alone, and idk who rigged this all up. That leaves detective Poop to solve the mystery of the shitty Cabrio stereo 
Time for a history lesson on my shit stereo:
When I got the car, the front seats had the shitty 6x9s under them as well as some random Dual amp in the trunk attached to no speakers. They handle low ends like you would expect stock BMW speakers to (because for some reason, the radio sends sub-bass to them). I cut them out a couple weeks ago before I knew the rear speakers were inop, and hooked up my JBL sub to the shitty Dual amp that the car came with. That was when I found out the rear speakers didn't work, and I had only a subwoofer. I reattached the passenger side 6x9 because I cut the driver side cable too close to the wall to reuse without adding wire, and so I had been rolling with one speaker under the passenger seat and a subwoofer. Wonderful.
As I drove around over the past couple weeks, I began to think the bunghole blasters were replacements for the kick panel speakers. I have no idea why the hell anyone would do that, but people do weird things.
Back to today
When I got the rear speakers working, I started playing with the radio to try and fade the sound to the rear in an effort to silence the terrible bunghole blaster. When faded to the rear, all you can hear is the rear speakers...but no subwoofer. When faded all the way front, you get the subwoofer and bunghole blaster, which goes from having some mids and treble, to only attempting to push out sub-bass.
I'm so confused by this, because the bunghole blaster just gives up on mids, and that also means that the radio thinks of the sub as a front speaker, even though there used to be another bunghole blaster under my seat.
I decided to chase my hunch about the kick panel speakers being totally MIA and replaced with the 6x9s, so I took off the door sill (the black thing when you open the door), removed the kick panel, and saw a speaker hole as empty as my wallet. At least part of the mystery is solved.
So here's the question part after the wall of text:
Why does the 6x9 change to only bass when faded to the front, and why does my radio think that my sub (which is attached to the amp in the trunk) is a front speaker? Also, does anyone have an old Alpine head unit (or maybe some decent 5.25" speakers) they'd be willing to sell for cheap? I hate the Blaupunkt the car came with. I don't have a *ton* of experience in the radio connection and programming side of car stereo stuff, but I'd like to have my subwoofer classified as a sub, and not a front speaker. I'm pretty decent at hooking speakers up and working with wires in general, so I'm not worried about having to add in some wire on the driver side when it comes time to replace the front speakers.
I hope you enjoyed my novel that I wrote here! Gotta love that post-work boredom, right?
I went to the audio shop and the owner told me it'd be $55 to have someone figure out why my rear speakers make no sound at all, so I decided to save that money for new speakers and have a go at it myself.
I got home, removed the back seats, removed the rear cards, and began to look. Turns out the driver side rear speaker wasn't even connected on one of the cables! I just stripped the wire ends and used a crimp connector from radioshit, and VIOLA! Music! The second picture is just to show where the wires go in case anyone needs to know. This is also when I started taking pictures.
The passenger side rear speaker was a little tricky because both cables appeared to be connected. I got sucked into the project and forgot to take pictures, but both positive and negative cables had at least 2 crimp connections before even reaching the speaker. I opted to just cut all the previous owner's crimos out, and replace it with one that connects the cables from the car to the cables from the speaker. It works, and now I have sound from my rear speakers! :D
After I reinstalled the cards, I took some Lysol wipes to clean them up a bit. I tried it on a part of the card that's below the seat cushion, that way if the wipes fucked it up, nobody would tell in normal situations. Photos are before and after. I wasn't going for "spotless", but "a hell of a lot better!"
The guy who had it 3 owners before me told me on here that the sound system was pretty shitty when he got it, and he just left it alone, and idk who rigged this all up. That leaves detective Poop to solve the mystery of the shitty Cabrio stereo 
Time for a history lesson on my shit stereo:
When I got the car, the front seats had the shitty 6x9s under them as well as some random Dual amp in the trunk attached to no speakers. They handle low ends like you would expect stock BMW speakers to (because for some reason, the radio sends sub-bass to them). I cut them out a couple weeks ago before I knew the rear speakers were inop, and hooked up my JBL sub to the shitty Dual amp that the car came with. That was when I found out the rear speakers didn't work, and I had only a subwoofer. I reattached the passenger side 6x9 because I cut the driver side cable too close to the wall to reuse without adding wire, and so I had been rolling with one speaker under the passenger seat and a subwoofer. Wonderful.
As I drove around over the past couple weeks, I began to think the bunghole blasters were replacements for the kick panel speakers. I have no idea why the hell anyone would do that, but people do weird things.
Back to today
When I got the rear speakers working, I started playing with the radio to try and fade the sound to the rear in an effort to silence the terrible bunghole blaster. When faded to the rear, all you can hear is the rear speakers...but no subwoofer. When faded all the way front, you get the subwoofer and bunghole blaster, which goes from having some mids and treble, to only attempting to push out sub-bass.
I'm so confused by this, because the bunghole blaster just gives up on mids, and that also means that the radio thinks of the sub as a front speaker, even though there used to be another bunghole blaster under my seat.
I decided to chase my hunch about the kick panel speakers being totally MIA and replaced with the 6x9s, so I took off the door sill (the black thing when you open the door), removed the kick panel, and saw a speaker hole as empty as my wallet. At least part of the mystery is solved.
So here's the question part after the wall of text:
Why does the 6x9 change to only bass when faded to the front, and why does my radio think that my sub (which is attached to the amp in the trunk) is a front speaker? Also, does anyone have an old Alpine head unit (or maybe some decent 5.25" speakers) they'd be willing to sell for cheap? I hate the Blaupunkt the car came with. I don't have a *ton* of experience in the radio connection and programming side of car stereo stuff, but I'd like to have my subwoofer classified as a sub, and not a front speaker. I'm pretty decent at hooking speakers up and working with wires in general, so I'm not worried about having to add in some wire on the driver side when it comes time to replace the front speakers.
I hope you enjoyed my novel that I wrote here! Gotta love that post-work boredom, right?
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