We just did a 2005 X5 at avincar. We had to leave everything hidden - no visible mods (except for the sub grille). We had to even guarantee that the fader knob would be hidden. The OEM steering wheel controls and EQ had to still work, too.

Since the goal was for it to look factory, I've always thought that the pics were unimpressive, but what the hell.

The OEM system was a 14-channel, 12-speaker disaster with two DVC 6" subs. SOunded awful.

It had tweets in the mirror sails, 2" mids in the dash, and 6" midbass in the F doors.

It had 2" mids and 6" midbass in the rear doors - no tweeters, and their crossover was leaving a 400-800 one-octave hole in the response from the rear doors.

The subs were firing into a 3'' ABS panel with 3/4" of noiseproofing and no grilles.

We had to lose the OEM fader. We had to take the F hi, F mid, F midbass, and sub channels out of the OEM amp and sum them all together. If you want to read more about how messed up the system was, read here: http://www.x5world.com/showthread.php?t=3896

The Genesis amps were used because of how flat they are, and because they're fan cooled. The PG EQ (not pictured) was hidden in the L Rear quarter panel, and was used to subtract out the OEM response, and drive the amps enough to get much better performance out of them.

All the pics are on one web page, so don't click on this if you're 56k-bound:

http://kward1.homestead.com/X5pics.html

 

damn. Thats a very clean job!

Nice friggin work, nice work indeed.

 

TY.

I wish we'd had more time on the knobs in the dash. I wanted them to match and they don't, and I wanted the panel lebeled with OEM-style lettering or symbols, but it didn't work out that way. We ended up spending more of that time making the amp rack easily removable for a mechanic.

I forgot to say that it sounds amazing. Vocals are solid in the windshield, midbass is tight, and sub-bass is fast and detailed. In retrospect I would probably have given the system more power, but I still don't think I could have used anything else with more power and kept everything in the amp tray area.

 

Nice work

 

BTW, the Directed Expert Series RCA actually got rid of noise in this car that the IXOS was picking up.

That extra shield and tight twist really does work.

 

nicely done!

 

that is a CLEAN! system, i bet it sounds brilliant

 

It does sound pretty good.

For better SQ, I'd have used a 100 x 2 DLS Reference on the F speakers only and ditched the rears. We wouldn't liked to have gone with dome mids but they wouldn't fit either.

I also would have used a woofer like the UR10, but it was too deep and won't fit. The MW110 is tight and fast, but doesn't play quite as low as a UR10 does. (But costs less than 1/2 as much

 

Very clean. I didn't know the X5s had subs hidden deep in the back corner. May I ask, how much would something like this cost?

 

what was the total cost on the project? I don't need like exact figures but a round-about would be cool

 

It was about $4600. I underquoted it a bit from a time perpective, and the next one will be closer to $5K. There was a lot of engine noise t-shooting, with a lot of EMI in the air everywhere.

The actual OEM interface with the HU to get back to square one, including the line driver and parametric EQ, is about $750-800 (this is really a function of the EQ you use. We bought a bunch of those discontinued 1/2 DIN PG parametrics). If you take the OEM outputs and sum them back together for a full-range response, it's so not flat, it's silly. You're not getting that near flat without an EQ. Also, we needed a good line driver afterwards, and that PG served as both.

You could do this one with a Clean Sweep, but the steering wheel controls and the 7-band graphic EQ in the HU would stop working (the HU OP is fixed and the volume changes within the amp). And then you're $400 plus install, so it's not a lot of savings to keep your steering wheel buttons and the EQ (which we had to keep).


Oh, and not all the X5s have subs back there. Sometimes it's just a big hole. : )

I guess a lot of people are just getting a sub and that's it. I guess that would be like $900 all by itself...

 

holy clean install batman

 

Nice work! Looks very clean!

 

That looks friggin awsome. Great attention to detail eldude. But, then, coming from you I expected nothing less.

 

that setup is VERY clean, nice job eldude