Adding Sub!

[Ferret]

Ferret, flip it over brother.
Feret, what did you do about the rear of the enclosure? Surely you are not letting the rear wave cancel out the front wave and reduce output???

To answer some questions!

The amp is too wide to mount any other way, it wedges and wont go in - however it's fan cooled and there's a good inch of space between the 'top' of it and the bottom of the tools bin.

Not once in 12 months did that amp overheat and shut down - in fact it worked so well in that position that when I sold the tourer, the amp went into the same place in the saloon 540i/6 I now drive.

Unfortunately, there's nowhere quite as interesting to mount the sub in the 540 so it's back in its old enclosure, velcro'd to the bottom of the boot. I couldnt abide by just bolting it to the ski-hatch - its sound quality went right out of the window and it started booming. This kinda defeats the point of the sub as it means you have to turn it right down and you lose all the range.

If you're going to install a sub, get a decent enclosure as well - if you like the E34 for its quality, you should be able to appreciate the difference between an enclosed sub and a rice-racer boom box.

Which comes onto my next answer, to Eagle!

I found that on it's own with nothing behind it, the sub sounded totally shite in the changer box - my solution was to wedge and old heavy pillow behind it:

(Before anyone else goes 'omg dats messy' - this was the trial fitting before it got a wood collar for the screws to fit into)

and wham, it sounded perfect - despite now needing a lot of extra power from the amp.

At 800w the amp had plenty of power to play with anyway - it now sounded good and made for one of the cleanest audio installs I've ever done:


Whoever said 'you should tiewrap your wiring up!' - do you really think it was left like that - that was mid install... the cheek!

bad_manners_god: I nearly punched the sub out at one point with some heavy luggage in the boot, so I bought a standard speaker grille from Maplin and never had any trouble with it again - it looked like it was factory fit after I sprayed it beige.

When I moved onto my 540, I changed to a blaupunkt headunit, one of the best I've ever seen for the £200 range - it also got chosen because you can select the color for the display (It has auto dimming and happily picks up the light feed from the car - dims the display when you switch the lights on):
(Not quite 100% color tuned here)

[Ferret]

This one was routed through the centre console, a much neater way of running the sub cables:

[attack eagle]

I have my 80x4 in the cubby, and have for over a year now. It is fan cooled though.
Ferret, flip it over brother.
And if you have the chance to pic up a PPI Art, remember they can all be water cooled, and they fit perfectly in the cubby to boot.






Feret, what did you do about the rear of the enclosure? Surely you are not letting the rear wave cancel out the front wave and reduce output???

[Derek A.]

You need to run a sealed sub to tighten it up. Ported boxes are more efficient, but are boomy.

you can't run a sub from the headdeck. you can the 4 speakers (the 4x52), but you need a separate amp to run the sub.

you need a separate 2 channel amp. I made a new shelf were the skipass hole goes and mounted a free air sub. I think mine is too boomy. I'd rather a tight sub.

http://www.bimmernut.com/forum/showt...ighlight=stero

[attack eagle]

thanks i've had a spare panel sitting here waiting for more than a year for me to decide to finally install a sub... and same for my ppi. thought maybe you built an FG or mdf back

[mamilapon]

I see you got one amp for the sub and one for the other speakers, correct? All I want is to add a little base cause as you know the acoustics of our cars are pretty pathetic.So with a 208 watt (peak) unit, Ill probably need a 150 watt sub and an amp to drive it.Is it true you shouldn't bolt the amp to anything metal?

[attack eagle]

?

I prefer NOT to provide multiple ground paths thru the shell and the negative wire by screwing it directly to metal. That has been my experience to date, and i have never had and ground loops or noise since i stopped doing it.

[BigKriss]

I can't see any problems bolting it to metal, since the power cable will (should) have a fuse anyway. Yes, I have one amp for the sub and one amp for the speakers.

I see you got one amp for the sub and one for the other speakers, correct? All I want is to add a little base cause as you know the acoustics of our cars are pretty pathetic.So with a 208 watt (peak) unit, Ill probably need a 150 watt sub and an amp to drive it.Is it true you shouldn't bolt the amp to anything metal?

[kev535i]

im running a 12" with a 200w amp - it really depends on the speaker but 200- 300 would match up nicely with your sony - your deck has a sub out to feed the amp and control to adjust the sub level

[mamilapon]

Yep Kev this is what I might be doing too.Ive seen a few enclosures at Strathfield car radio. I dont know whether I should be running 10' or 12', but because ive only got 208 watt peak off the head unit, do you think 10' should do me?