Basic stereo 6 speaker upgrade..update Amp added..final update, active subwoofer installed

[mr.tourette]

So I have just put in the footwell speakers for my budget upgrade, I am following up with a bit of a write up with a few pics and tips rather than a full how to, its a fairly simple job if a little fiddly from time to time mostly due to access.

I started off with the door speakers..most people use this guide for removing the door card https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnyP_-vs3T4
The guy is a bit brutal with his removal , try to be a bit gentler, you will inevitably break one or two clips though so worth having some on hand..i got mine here https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08 ... UTF8&psc=1

There are 4 screws on the door cards, one is difficult access, in the above video the guy is saying the trim is super tight and he keeps on wrenching it away, that big pop it makes when he finally wrestles it off is the the sound of the mount snapping off The fourth screw is hidden behind a tricky to remove clip cover, after trying a selection of trim tools and screwdrivers to remove it i found the only thing that got it out was the tiniest flat head in a set of precision screwdrivers by going in at the top flat part, pic attached for reference

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I opted for German made Crunch dsx42 speakers due to a very reasonable price of £30 a pair and very favourable reviews and I have to say they lived up to those reviews, well built and great sounding, the door speaker change yielded the most dramatic improvement in the whole change and if you were to go no further you would still have a substantial improvement on the old system, Clarity is the keyword here, midranges are massively improved, suddenly you are hearing frequencies not heard before, guitars go from muddy and distorted to crystal clear and defined and vocals are much improved a real day and night improvement.

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Now the speakers are not plug and play, you will have to cut the connectors off and make new connectors on the harness (i used electric block connector as I had some lying around but you may want to solder or use bullet connectors, or good old fashioned twist em up and insulating tape ..c'mon we've all done it) the speakers came with spade connectors and some wiring to connect up to your harness.

Fitting is a bit trickier, there are no listed adaptor rings for the e89, now i think connects2 make an adaptor of 102mm which by my measurements should work but i offer no guarantee https://connects2.com/Product/ProductItem/CT25BM10 they also do a 100mm which may also work.
The speakers are crap though eh and I'm on a budget so i went down the cut and shut route of taking them apart with a dremel and using the mounting points from them, cut through the ridges on the rear and the speaker will lift out, then just cut away any excess and smooth all around with a file or sand attachments on your dremel , the following pics are from the footwell speakers but its the same process for all of them, obviously you don't get a factory look finish but once everything is in place there is nothing to see when all covers go back on

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In all honesty the hardest part of the whole process was putting the door cards back on which was just plain fiddly for some reason but straightforward enough to get there eventually without too much cursing, mainly just getting everything lined up properly and popped in.

Shoulder speakers were the easiest of the lot, cover just pops off, unscrew and cut the loom, refit with your new speakers as you did with the doors, again i cut up the crappy old speakers for the adaptors but you could try some of the connects2 adaptors should you wish.

Originally i tried some Pioneer speakers to save a few quid but if anything they sounded worse than the originals so I returned them and went with another set of Crunch. The head unit obviously heavily uses the front sound stage and the change of the rears is not as dramatic as the front but what you do notice again is the clarity and how much cleaner the soundtrack is, well worth 30 quid.

Footwells were the trickiest to work on and speakers are generally more expensive at the larger size, I settled on a pair of Hertz 165 at 81 quid seemed good blend of quality and price https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

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You start by unscrewing the 3 posi head screws under the dashboard on each side and lifting away the plastic trim, drivers side has 2 electrical connectors, passenger side just 1, then remove the panels. This just leaves the fiddly side trims, you will need to unscrew the bonnet release catch lever on the driver side which then shows a hidden screw once these are removed its just a matter of teasing them out. The Hertz speakers has no wiring or connectors so i had to make up a wee loom

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for some odd reason the passenger speaker was secured with 4 8mm bolts and the drivers 4 t20 torx screws..go figure..same process here with stripping down the speakers for mounts...again no mounts listed as fitting the e89 ..I found these online which have the same basic shape with narrower mounts at the bottom, whether it fits or not I don't know but its certainly the right shape/size but i can offer no guarantee https://www.amazon.co.uk/Front-Speaker- ... B01LVTW1N2
The driver side has an extra mount for some reason that you can reuse, just drop your new speaker straight in and place the adapter over the top

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You'll need to cut into the wiring and connect up again as with the other speakers but its all pretty straightforward.

Here's a wiring diagram i used to ensure the positive/negative terminals are wired up correctly, its from a different car and set up but the 6 speaker we are replacing here match up perfectly


A little silicone lubricant on the speaker panels when back on will help a lot as they are quite tricky to put back on, also gloves when taking off as there are some sharp edges but the speakers themselves go in pretty easily

The speakers are a very good upgrade, with mid bass a big improvement I could actually physically feel the bass in the car for the first time rather than just hearing a bit now and then, there is still some distortion with deep bass if you run at full belt but I think without a dedicated amp and proper subwoofers that will always be the case

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So all in this has cost me £141 and it has transformed the sound quality which with the heavily equalized head unit was always going to be a challenge without spending a small fortune. I run the settings at +3 rear for the fader, +8 treble and +7 bass and it really does sound so much better, previously you couldn't even run the bass at 0 without distortion even on mid basses never mind anything deep.

As mentioned you could just replace the door speakers and even with a set of modest speakers you gain a substantial and the most dramatic improvement imho, followed by the footwells giving lovely mid basses and lots more clarity throughout the range, the shoulder level speakers probably gave the least improvement but I think that's mainly down to how the head unit sends the signal as they were always quite quiet to begin with, however when you install one speaker at a time and you test the difference from side to side its very clear that the new speakers offer more clarity and range, indeed on one test track there were certain keyboard elements that couldn't be heard at all in the factory speaker that were clear and bright in the new one, for 30 quid a no brainer to improve the overall function

It seems this post got a bit more involved than i thought it would but I hope it goes some way to guide anyone wanting to give it a shot as there is very little out there on the web to help

[Chippie]

Well done on the write up, I am considering doing mine, although I mainly tend to have the roof down and listen to the straight six sound track
I must admit even though my hearing isn’t great the sound system is rubbish

[mr.tourette]

Well done on the write up, I am considering doing mine, although I mainly tend to have the roof down and listen to the straight six sound track
I must admit even though my hearing isn’t great the sound system is rubbish

To be honest I do too buddy but on those odd occasions I do have something on I would like it to actually sound a little like how it should, the system is quite frankly an offence to anyone that enjoys music and shouldn't be anywhere near a car that costs what these do when new
Even if i only put music on one in ten drives this was money very well spent, probably the price of an oil change at main bmw dealers

[Pbondar]

Excellent work and write up!

Its good that several folks explore different ways of getting to the end goal...at that price I'm sure the price/performance result is very good..

In the US the basic 6 speaker system was even allowed into the country!

[Colin_E]

Great write up. Interesting to see your notes on fader & tone settings. I found that my (rather tame by comparison) door speaker upgrade needed radically different settings to those for the crappy OEM speakers. Not sure I've got them right yet because what sounds pretty good at one volume level doesn't work so well at another.
My trick for popping out those little screw covers on the door trim was a bit of strong masking tape

[Silverstar]

Excellent write out and this helps me a lot since I am soon going to be upgrading my basic 6 speaker setup too. Likewise on a small budget. Crunch do a 4" two way component which I am tempted to use in the doors and the same Crunch DSX42 as you have for the rear. In the footwells I am considering these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Earthquake-S ... SwFINdtvZQ

I am hoping not to cut the original car speakers wires and have just purchased some of these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-3-Series ... 2749.l2649

I would like to add an amp to power just the subs in the footwells or maybe all 6 speakers but as yet am unclear how to go about doing this.

[mr.tourette]

Excellent write out and this helps me a lot since I am soon going to be upgrading my basic 6 speaker setup too. Likewise on a small budget. Crunch do a 4" two way component which I am tempted to use in the doors and the same Crunch DSX42 as you have for the rear. In the footwells I am considering these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Earthquake-S ... SwFINdtvZQ

I am hoping not to cut the original car speakers wires and have just purchased some of these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BMW-3-Series ... 2749.l2649

I would like to add an amp to power just the subs in the footwells or maybe all 6 speakers but as yet am unclear how to go about doing this.

good find on the speaker lead adapters a word of caution.. the connectors on the 4 inch speakers are extremely difficult to remove at the door, i think i only removed one fairly easily, id advise getting some silicone lubricant in there if you want to keep them intact, wasn't a problem for me as i was cutting the wires anyway but some i did try to unplug them first and bar one they were proper stuck in there and could be easily damaged, in the end i just snipped the wires but even on the bench they were difficult to remove, chucked 2 speakers in the bin with them still inside the housing once i had cut them up, probably with a bit of lube and patience you can tease them out though

Also the footwell woofers have a different connector , more like the ones in this link, they were easily removed in the car
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/382269999366, so you would 2 of that type as well as the 4 door connectors.

I did consider the component route in the doors what with the wiring being there already but my research showed nobody seemed to be particularly impressed when fitting tweeters to this system so I passed on the opportunity, I'd be interested to hear your opinions if you fit them. As the door speakers gave the most dramatic improvements it does have me wondering what the result might be if id thrown an extra 50 quid at them although Im very happy with the current improvement. I do believe the head unit is the most limiting factor here though but by all accounts not really an option to replace

Do let us know how it all pans out when you have a go For my use this is enough for me but Im not as fussy as I was 20 years ago. An amp and some underseat subs {if you can find any that fit} would go a long way to addressing the the deep bass issues but I think you're getting into 600 plus territory then which was never the point of my upgrade, if it was a daily that I played music in every drive Id have been happy to throw that kind of money at it

[mcbutler]

Audio set ups are such a personal thing, mine is a basic system but it sounds ok to me when I (rarely) turn it on. When I see people talking about several hundred pounds or more for speakers etc I always have a chuckle but each to their own I guess.
A really excellent and understandable article clearly written and illustrated...

Thanks for taking the time

[Pbondar]

For info the BMW speaker wires terminate in a ‘BMW’ handed connector which has a very small locking tang to ensure like most modern connectors that it doesn’t come adrift in service..you need a very small flat bladed jewellers type screwdriver to release the tang...

Brute force can work but may result in the cable and connector parting company...

[Silverstar]

I did consider the component route in the doors what with the wiring being there already but my research showed nobody seemed to be particularly impressed when fitting tweeters to this system so I passed on the opportunity, I'd be interested to hear your opinions if you fit them. As the door speakers gave the most dramatic improvements it does have me wondering what the result might be if id thrown an extra 50 quid at them although Im very happy with the current improvement. I do believe the head unit is the most limiting factor here though but by all accounts not really an option to replace

Yep I have seen many owners say that it doesn't make much difference and some say that it does and speaking to some car audio specialist they all say it will make some difference but that they all say it will really show the difference when you add an amplifier. So my thought process is if I am going to take the door apart I might as well put the best I can (within my low budget) ready for a future amp upgrade if I want it. But also it bugs me looking at those door mirror housing knowing there is nothing there, I just feel the need to fill them.

About connecting an amp I found this site which makes wiring harnesses for BMW and would allow any 4 channel amp (with high level inputs) to hook up to our basic systems to power the footwells and the doors, this is great if you don't won't to cut up the factory loom and it can still keep costs reasonably low, and it also means with a bit of work you could make up your own loom for a fraction of the costs:

https://technicpnp.com/product/stereo-24-harness/

They also do a version that will allow a 4 channel amp to power all 6 speakers but that becomes a bit more complicated. On the other hand I remember reading a thread whereby the member simply connected the front footwells speaker wires to the high level inputs of a mono amp and run new wiring back to the footwell speakers allowing them to be amplified and used like subs, doing it this way won't cost more than 100 to 150 quid for a basic but decent amp.

Thanks for the tip regarding the speaker connectors!

[Pbondar]

Silver star..

For info..

The technic pnp basic harness for a 4 channel amp https://technicpnp.com/product/stereo-24-harness/

will not work on an E89 as the woofer wiring doesn’t conform to the logic used in other BMWs

The two higher end units will..

There are n (where n is a large positive integer) variants on how you can play this game..

The key issue to bear in mind is that the E89 is unique amongst BMWs in that it has a WOOFER in the basic system whereas all others use a SUB-WOOFER...

However whatever floats your boat / meets your budget is a ok...

The positive aspect of the psychological aspects of this is that most people are happy with their results as they are not comparing contrasting systems side by side and the environment of a Z4 is less than perfect anyway ...

Looking at Mr Tourette’s audio settings he’s set the boost on the bass and treble fairly high..logically given better quality speakers this is counter intuitive where you would expect much better bass n treble response compared to el-cheapo BMW OE..but if he’s happy he’s happy..

When you run an audio analyser in the car you see a massive set of non linear phase and frequency issues caused in part by where the speakers are relative to the listener’s ears and how the sound travels from the speaker location to the ears..maybe bouncing of glass etc..

The BMW head units (like most modern cars) builds all this into the original frequency and phase response..when you change the speakers and /or change the frequency controls you end up with a real mix, probably far away from a ‘perfect’ setup..but as I said, if you’re happy then that’s all that matters..

[mr.tourette]

That's great info Peter I should say really that my current settings are just from a first 15 min trial of a few tracks and may well end up far from where they are now, I haven't even got into using the equaliser on my power amp app that I usually use to set up the sound in my car, I generally have everything set at centre on the head unit and equalise on the app but for testing the speakers it seemed like a good sound to me.. I guess the speakers will need some running in too

As someone else mentioned its such a personal thing for everyone and as you lose frequencies as you age it's no wonder set up is different for everyone

[john-e89]

Nice upgrade Steve...

[Silverstar]

Silver star..

For info..

The technic pnp basic harness for a 4 channel amp https://technicpnp.com/product/stereo-24-harness/

will not work on an E89 as the woofer wiring doesn’t conform to the logic used in other BMWs

The two higher end units will..

There are n (where n is a large positive integer) variants on how you can play this game..

The key issue to bear in mind is that the E89 is unique amongst BMWs in that it has a WOOFER in the basic system whereas all others use a SUB-WOOFER...

However whatever floats your boat / meets your budget is a ok...

The positive aspect of the psychological aspects of this is that most people are happy with their results as they are not comparing contrasting systems side by side and the environment of a Z4 is less than perfect anyway ...

Looking at Mr Tourette’s audio settings he’s set the boost on the bass and treble fairly high..logically given better quality speakers this is counter intuitive where you would expect much better bass n treble response compared to el-cheapo BMW OE..but if he’s happy he’s happy..

When you run an audio analyser in the car you see a massive set of non linear phase and frequency issues caused in part by where the speakers are relative to the listener’s ears and how the sound travels from the speaker location to the ears..maybe bouncing of glass etc..

The BMW head units (like most modern cars) builds all this into the original frequency and phase response..when you change the speakers and /or change the frequency controls you end up with a real mix, probably far away from a ‘perfect’ setup..but as I said, if you’re happy then that’s all that matters..

Thanks for the info Peter, I think I will start with replacing the door and rear speakers then the footwells and see how the sound changes with each set and later think about adding an amp if I feel it necessary.

[Nick9one1]

Have you coded the car to HiFi?

The standard setup has boosted treble to overcome the lack of tweeters, it will probably sound a bit harsh until you do (Mine did).