Please help picking my new system

[mcclaskz]

I bought a cherry 91 318is that I am putting the S50 from my dead race car in. When I got it, there is no head unit or any speakers. I would like a decent head unit that gives me satelite and ipod. I also need all new speakers. One of the problems I have is that the stock tweeters are gone. There are just holes with nothing in them where the interior surface of the side mirrors is. I was looking at an Alpine cda-9885, but got lost on speakers as I don't know what fits. Contacting Crutchfield didn't help me out in regards to what tweeters would fit back in the stock location. I have searched I promise. I don't want a sub and I would prefer not to run an amp. This will be a dual purpose track car that I plan to use as a daily driver. While I'm at it, XM or Sirius? Thanks for your help.

[StereoInstaller1]

Let me point something out to you: BMW felt the need to use an amp, even with the incredibly shitty sound they got...you should too, but primarily so you can have independent adjustments for front and rear. power is not what is needed, adjustablilty is.

If absolutely no amp, get upper end Kenwood so you can have seperate front and rear crossovers.

Screw iPod connections, get USB so you can use your iPod or virtually any other device...plus then, you can use a direct connect Sattelite box.

As far as speakers go, do some metal cutting and do 6X9's in the rear, 5.25" seperates in the front. Set the front high pass to 120Hz if 12db/oct, or 100Hz if 18 or 24db/oct.

If you have no tweeter bezels, buy some "Premium Sound" bezels off of someone here, they come up often enough.

[mcclaskz]

Thanks. So the premium bezels will fit back into the holes behind my mirrors? What tweeter can I replace it with? Or are you saying buy old tweeters for aesthetics and only use a 5.25 up front? I was wondering if I could use components up front and fit the new tweeters in the stock location?
For head unit, I assume you can still control the Ipod w/ a USB connection?

[DrMcDave]

you can fit most tweeters in the stock locations. I put mine behind the stock grill. many have removed the stock tweeter grill and insterted their tweeter.

[netcsk]

Yes, you can buy the premium bezels for up front and most (if not all) 1" tweeters will fit.

For ease, you'll want to get 5.25" components for up front. If you want to go to 6.5", you'll have to modify anywhere from a lot to slightly.

You will need to run new wiring for the speakers, since the stock system runs through the amplifier. There are ways around it that I wouldn't recommend them for quality. You just need to run a pair of wires to each corner from the head unit, unless you go with an external amplifier (best option as Luke said); then you need to run at least two pairs (I'd go ahead and run three in case you ever want to expand) of RCA cables from the head unit to the trunk and then run a pair of speaker wires from the trunk to each corner.

[StereoInstaller1]

I have a set of stock "Premium Sound" components (actually I modified the stock crossover pieces to make them 12db/oct) in my GFs car...they sound terrific running off of a small Alpine 4 channel amp, in high pass. Bigger fatter midbass than most any aftermarket components, plus, if you use a set of aftermarket crossovers, excellent clarity and detail, even fairly decent power handling.

She has decided to use a subwoofer in her car...which means more work for me, of course. I want to make her car sound great, of course...but I have plenty of work to do already.

The USB connection will run your iPod with the appropriate cable, of course.

Luke

[Arkangel]

Question....does it affect sound quality by using the ipod instead of a cd? And if so, then does using the USB over the ipod hookup affect the sound quality? Sorry if these are dumb questions...I'm not too experienced with sound.

[mcclaskz]

Where can I find some premium bezels? Can't find them here, bfc, or ebay?

[StereoInstaller1]

Hit up "Funkmasta", I would think he has a ba-zillion of them.

CD or iPod or Flash Drive or hard drive will all sound the same on MP3/WMA/whatever.

Real CDs still sound a tiny bit better, but the gap is narrowing. Sure is nice to have 25 CD's on a tiny little flash drive that cannot skip or scratch!

Luke

[mcclaskz]

Thanks for the discussion. I have an old Sony Xplod 4x60 that I could use to power components in the front and either 5.25 or 6.5 in the rear. E30boy, empty out your PMs.

[dlmrun2002]

Cmon Luke you need 18db slope on the x over... harr harr

[StereoInstaller1]

Harr harr?

[mcclaskz]

For speakers, any recommendations on 5.25 components for up front and what size rears? Cut out and do 6x9s? or 6.5?

[StereoInstaller1]

If you are adamant about no subwoofer (you FOOL you!) I would do 6X9's.

As far as 5.25's, whatever you find should do just fine. I really like the Memphis MSyncs, but there are tons of decent ones. Infinity Reference sound good too.

[mcclaskz]

Yeah, I hear you on the sub, but you have to know that this car has my E36m3 race motor in it, so it ain't too quiet, plus I don't want to add a bunch of weight to it. I will look at the Infiniy references and some 6x9 kappas in the rear. Thanks a lot. Is it easy to put the tweeters in the premium bezels?