BMW X5 G05 Sound Enhancement – Replacement of the Factory Hi-Fi Audio System
Looking ahead, at the end of this article you’ll find our video with a brief overview of this project…
Imagine how much you have to love music to buy a new, respectable car with a factory hi-fi system, only to realize after 1,500+ km that something’s wrong with the sound. “I was a DJ at school parties, and I can’t live without music ever since,” said the owner of a BMW X5 G05, who entrusted us with his car with just 1,562 km on the odometer, and even drove it from another city to Kyiv so we could install a new sound system in just a couple of days:
This project turned out to be one of the most challenging of 2020. We didn’t do anything complicated on the car—we have extensive experience working with BMWs, including the G05 (read about our previous work improving the sound of the BMW X5 G05). But the most challenging aspect of car audio is the owners’ expectations of the new audio system.
Customer expectations are the most challenging part of our work, as it’s difficult to accurately convey how a new audio system will sound in a specific car. The only way to be sure is to listen to the exact same car with absolutely identical audio components installed in the exact same locations as those expected in your car. Admittedly, these conditions are too sterile to be realistic, so we can only outline the general nature of the future system; we don’t know what you’ll imagine.
So the owner’s conditions were as follows:
- Don’t change anything in the salon!
- Emphasis on high frequencies
What we proposed was to use speakers designed for installation in standard locations without any modifications, an audio processor with an amplifier to create a custom sound for a specific car and its owner’s tastes.
Here is the composition of the future audio system for the BMW X5 G05:
Just four boxes, but they’ll help you hear music in a new way! The new audio system for the BMW X5 G05 includes:
- The sound source is the factory radio (or, to be more precise, the factory amplifier – this is where we will get the audio signal)
- On the front doors and corners of the side mirrors are Blam S100N24+ speakers (pre-top Signature series from the French brand)
- In the front, under the seats, there are two 20 cm Ground Zero GZCS 200BMW-SW4 subwoofers (an excellent option if you don’t plan on a subwoofer – 100 watts RMS power is sufficient, this speaker plays very low from 35 Hz)
- We’ll connect the Blam 100C set to the rear sound system.
- And most importantly, the heart of the new audio system will be an audio processor with a built-in eight-channel amplifier Audison AP F8.9
So, installing speakers in a BMW X5 G05 doesn’t take much time—the main thing is to carefully disassemble everything and then reassemble it. Externally, everything will remain unchanged:
Начну описание процесса замены штатного звука (заводской аудиосистемы Hi-Fi) BMW X5 G05 с замены динамиков, расположенных под водительским и пассажирским сиденьями. Завод-производитель BMW решил, что двух динамиков размером 16 см достаточно для басовой подзвучки, но, если у вас аналогичный автомобиль, то не мне вам рассказывать, что завод решил неправильно).
The speakers are hidden under grilles to prevent dirt from getting onto the diffuser:
We remove the mesh and find the factory speaker:
The factory speakers look quite primitive:
We’ll remove the factory speakers from the plastic basket and install the new speakers, made specifically for BMW by Ground Zero:
We easily return the standard basket to its place, but with a new speaker:
Please note that the non-factory speaker is connected to the standard wires; we did not make any modifications on that side:
We cover everything with a grid and get the same appearance as at the very beginning)
Now a little about the front speakers. We installed the Blam S100N24+ speaker system in two cars, both Mercedes. This speaker system is designed to fit seamlessly into the stock mounting points of both Mercedes and BMWs—the latter uses special spacers to secure the midrange speaker to the factory mounting points.
When it comes to the sound of this system, it’s undoubtedly characterized by airy, crystal-clear highs and very natural vocals delivered by the midrange. Ideally, this system is best used channel by channel—by precisely tuning each speaker, you can achieve an incredibly beautiful soundstage even from less-than-ideal speaker placement.
In this project, the midrange and tweeter were connected via a crossover, but the final sound still pleased us very much, very much so!
There’s an interesting story about the tweeters. The owner of the BMW X5 G05 in question was given side mirror corners with Harman Kardon badging. I agree, they look more presentable than the ones that come with the Hi-Fi audio system:
But when we mounted the Blam tweeters into these donated corners, a brand conflict emerged: the chrome rim and Blam nameplate were clearly visible through the Harman Kardon grille:
What should we do? We considered leaving the original corners, but the car owner flatly refused. So we suggested covering the Blam tweeters with acoustically transparent black fabric (we used Connects2 CT64-01). The result was excellent!
The Blam Signature tweeters were installed in their original locations without any problems:
The rear speakers were also installed in their standard locations, and the installation was simpler – coaxial speakers are always easier to install.
By the way, we prepared all four doors for the new acoustics and applied light vibration and noise insulation using Acoustics materials:
Well, the most important thing is, of course, installation, connection, and configuration of the processor. In this project, we had just one device, which was responsible for signal quality, configuration, and amplification. We installed the Audison AP F8.9 audio processor in the rear left fender in the trunk, where the factory amplifier, from which we obtained the audio signal, was located. The photo below shows the factory amplifier to the left of the spare tire:
We’ll place our processor at the very bottom of this niche to leave some room for maneuver if the car owner wants to add a full-fledged subwoofer and a monoblock for it in the future:
Preparing the platform for placing the processor:
We prepare the wires and try them on:
Result:
Final tuning of the audio system, adjustments to the processor, and delivery of the car to the owner.
So, what can I say about this work? I think the best words come from the owner himself, who called us back a couple of hours after picking up his car and shared his impressions:
