Budget Audio Upgrade Complete !!!

[Derek A.]

What a pain in the ass. But wow what a difference. The basic systems is as follows:

1. Base e34 crossover with amp gutted
2. ADS 100 Watt amp feeding front six factory speakers
2. ADS 60 Watt amp feeding read four factory speakers
3. PPI 240 Watt (bridged) amp feeding 10" dual VC Kicker Comp VR in a sealed box.
4. MTX electronic crossover
5. Blaupunkt head unit - with custom color display
6. XM Radio Roady XT

The factory speakers do a great job when given enough power and no really low end signals 70/80 hz.

Many thanks to Scott Hersted for the doner e34 amp & Anthony Doyle for the deatails on the factory amp modification

[Derek A.]

Here is a pic of amplifier portion of the factory BMW e34 amp.

[Kalevera]

Derek -- very nice! A/D/S, though? Not really a small budget, was it

best, whit

[Jon K]

The smaller a/d/s amps aren't that expensive.

[Derek A.]

The ADS amps were a donation - $29 for the crossover on ebay. $50 at sound domain for interconnects. $30 at Lowes for wire, fastnerss etc and $20 at Radio shack for some misc BS. The PPI amp and sub were already in the car.

[Anthony (M5 in Calgary)]

[QUOTE=Derek A.]What a pain in the ass. But wow what a difference. QUOTE]

Glad to see you "got 'er done" - looks good!

[Kalevera]

Ah, I always thought the classic A/D/S/ stuff was big money. Never really messed with their stuff.

best, whit

[GoldenOne]

just curious, is it possible to use the factory 6-disc changer with an aftermarket headunit??? it would be cool if I could hook it up and use it...

[Derek A.]

You might have to do some custom wiring - or try and find an adapter someplace. I never bothered with a changer. Invest in an MP3 player - its smaller, easier to hook up and will hold a lot more music than 6 discs worth!

[genphreak]

You might have to do some custom wiring - or try and find an adapter someplace. I never bothered with a changer. Invest in an MP3 player - its smaller, easier to hook up and will hold a lot more music than 6 discs worth!

What a sweet way to cut through the crap Derek. I am close myself to doing this myself. Are you running line level to the crossover and have some fader control on that? Are you running midrange drivers at the rear or simply leave mids up to the front speakers entirely? What are your thoughts on running a separate crossover for the rear and front speakers?

What is with the amp section you posted the pic of from the stock amp? Did you look into running it off low-level inputs?

I'm thinking of retaining the stock amp as is, or using it to run just the mids and tweeters, thus driving the stock woofers with an aftermarket amp (whilst adding a sub amp/woofer combo on top of course). But I will only do this if I can work out a way to run the whole thing off line-level inputs (and utilise an in-dash line-level equalizer with a fader). Nick

ps; if this seems weird, see my previous post here for more info