Hey guys I've done everything I think reasonably possible on this 330d to improve the sound system, but it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the same system in the Soarer. Alpine headunit, pioneer 12" sub 1000w, 1000w amp, std everything else. Ripped out the sound deadening from the boot. What else people? Also, does anyone know the color of the wires to the tweeters in the doors as I want to snip the wires as they are giving me a headache!
Remove your ski hatch so the sound can get into the cabin. TBH E46's are known for being shit as the boots are completely sealed so the bass just rattles around in there not doing much.
U took out the sound deadening to improve the sound??? Right....... Its a sealed cabin. So use a bandpass box direct thru ur ski hatch. Theres a pic of an a8 with a similar design on here.
As others have said, its because the boot is totally sealed from the cabin, you need somewhere for the air to move. This is my boot build. Bandpass box tuned to around 38hz with a 10inch jl. Sounds great even with my weak ass amp. The box is for sale FYI, PM me if you are interested.
How is fitting a cheap sub and amp from the local market classed as "everything reasonably possible" and you want to cut your tweeters out to make it even worse? So all you really want is panel rattling bass to blast out down the local drive thru?
No I don't want panel rattling bass. I want what I had before, which is that my pioneer sub sounded really good in my soarer/sx/supra but not in this. I wouldn't call a pioneer sub, alpine £600 hu, and vibe 1000w amp market cheap shit btw
I would. I presume its one of those satnav system touch screen jobs? Ever heard of CDT audio? Atomic? JL W7 sub? And thats at the lower end of the market. Vibe is a big nono unless u like halfords. Their.blackdeath sub is *ok* I used to have a pair of door speakers that cost 400quid, an amp that kicked out 2600rms into two atomic apocs and my system wasnt even that good. So please jump off the high horse and accept some of the things ppl say. A decent sound system however is 80% installation. Sound deadening and voltages are very important. Ao are settig the gains. Often best done with a scope.
U presume wrong. It's a single din with slide up dvd screen. http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-iva-d511rb Got a really good (imo) graphic equalizer. Sounded awesome with my pioneer sub in my Soarer/supra/sx/gt4 but sounds not very good in the 330. I don't want nor have ever wanted earth shattering bass with 2500w amps, that's just insane imo. I had a shitty vrx600 amp for years, which sounded as good as I want it in the old cars. Now I'm in this bmw I bought the lanzar vibe amp to give more power to hopefully fix the problem but it doesn't appear to have done that. I don't want massive bass, I want what I had before, and I don't want a massive boot filling box. Removing the sound deadening between the boot and rear seats made a huge difference btw. I've also knocked out the ski flap blanker panel
Thats nothing special BTW, not hacking Alpine as they make some good quality stuff but the price you paid was for the fact it has a screen IMO. EDIT: No disrespect BTW! I had a cheap £140 sony xplod HU which i picked up in the halfords sale of all places and that had a much higher spec get yourself on some audio forums, it will be very confusing at first, but once you get your head around it you'll start to understand whats needed to get a decent soundsystem mine in my old Citroen C1 was an actual beast, and i got it set up very cheaply especially for what it was! you dont have to spend a fortune to get a relatively decent system either, cheapest upgrade IMO is getting quality audio not some 320p stuff ripped from youtube haha
That headunit has 2 volt pre outs. Lol All the decent HUs for music and not flash screen stuff have 4v > My 9812rb was my fav headunit. No gimicks you could disable the internal amp to icrease unit performance. It was awesome.
I previously had a 60x4 alpine unit, can't find what model it was, but I know I used to have a 9857r as well, all good stereos, and that's still 2v pre out. I don't see the what the problem is. I don't want the Ferrari of stereo systems, and even tho my hu now has a screen, I made sure the specs were similar to what I had before. Hence why I didn't buy the crapper cheaper dvd alpine system. If anyone wants to help me then much appreciated, but suggesting I upgrade to a Ferrari is not helping.
Vent your sub into the cabin, get actually good component speakers and you'll be just fine! Very quick google turned up something like these - HERTZ ESK163L.5 3-Way | Car Audio Direct I thought that in both of my E46's the sound system was shit!!! FWF: I'd put that sound deadening back in
Take it that if the sound deadening was back in AND the sub was venting into the cabin it'd be best? Only thing is I sent the sound deadening off with the bins. Anyhow, I've now got my system to sound how I wanted it to. The old amp was 600w cheap amp but always sounded good fwiw. It's settings were on max gain and frequency was up at max which was 400hz I think. The new 1000w amp was at half gains but full frequency. So, I have now turned the frequency down to prob about 200~hz and I've now got it sounding like the Soarer. All treble frequencies boosted to the std speakers, and the sub to handle the bass. That's how I've always done it and it works for me. (Apart from s13 which had utter crap std speakers). I did once get some 8" round pioneer tse2096 iirc in the front doors of my gt4 and ye they were good
Oh my lord.... Gain isnt a volume just to let u know.... Yes a fully sound deadened boot and box vented to the cabin would sound better. Also sub should.be handling 150 hz lpf (approx) And speakers 150hz (hpf) upwards depending on ur speakers. With tweeters handling the highs obviously. I think i have the lpf and hpf the right way around. Ul instantly hear if im wrong i which case its the other way around. My old door speakers used to handle well down to 80hz! So the sub did 80 hz and below.
General rule of thumb you got it FireStorm999. Without getting technical, gain won't make anything louder so if you've got to max your gain AND volume to get anywhere then i'd have a serious rethink. Having the gain on MAX will seriously decrease the quality of the 'noise' you sub produces. A decent set of filters will do wonders in separating your lows and hi's and there not that expensive!!! I've just set up a Vito with over 10 speakers running off of 3 amps that was supposedly set up by 'professionals' yet all they did was up the gain, decrease response and signal sending and have the amps and head unit eq set to max volume and max bass!!! Some people have literally no idea. If the OP wants any help, post up your actual spec list and how it's wired/being ran inc your settings on amps ect and i'm sure theres something we can do.
Cheers I'll post up what I have when I look at model numbers. Please note, it was my OLD amp set to max gains, not this new one. The old one was a vrx crappy thing but still sounded good and didn't distort at max gains.
