speaker upgrade for 1999 323is (E36)

[Alan Jones]

I am looking to upgrade the Harman Kardon 3-ways in the front of my
1999 323is (E36). I'm sure some of y'all have been thru this before.
What is the max mounting depth for the midrange? Where is the
crossover located? Any issues with replacing the 5.25" driver in
the kick panels with something larger?

Here are the systems I am considering. I'd like the mid and the tweet
to be more or less drop ins. I don't mind doing a little work to get the
woofer in. I also prefer a silk tweeter to a metal tweeter.

Dynaudio System 340
Focal 165 EX
Morel SR-63

Other suggestions??

[K Benoit]

look at www.crutchfield.com under "what fits my car"
they'll list different sets that will fit your car, including info
on mounting depth, etc...

[ji...@my-deja.com]

If you are even considering Dynaudio, then you must be pretty
serious about getting good sound in your car and have a pretty generous
budget for this system. Keep in mind that the BMW HK system has
crossovers for the factory speakers built in. So unless you replace the
amp, replacing the drivers won't help.

If you want a stealth look to your install, the tweeters and mids in the
door will not be drop ins. Those speakers are glued into the grills,
but a good installer can custom mount a 1 inch tweeter and a 4 inch mid
in those locations without a problem, but it requires destroying the
factory speakers. As for the 5 1/4, it is a standard 5 1/4 inch driver.
I am not sure of the maximum depth but I have a/d/s/ 5 1/4 mids in my
car and their depth is about 2 inches. I would imagine you can enlarge
the hole to fit a 6 1/2, but the driver may not perform well with the
limited amount of air space behind the speaker. That was what I was told
when I looked into this.

a/d/s/ makes really nice amps that will accept the ouputs from your
factory head unit with no interface adaptors. For an initial upgrade, I
would recommend installing an a/d/s/ P640 6 channel or P840 8 channel
amp (depending on your future plans).

To upgrade your front speakers, disconnect the front headunit outputs
from the factory amp and connect them to 4 channels on on the a/d/s/
amp using splitters. Use one pair of channels for the midbass speakers
in the kick panels and one pair for the mid/tweeter combo in the doors.
If you chose a 3-way component set make sure the passive crossovers are
bi-ampable(most high-end sets are).

For speakers, I would recommend a/d/s/. I have a 2 way set with 5 1/4
mid and tweeter in my car and they are great sounding speakers. However,
the E36 does really require a 3-way system in the front if you use the
factory locations. A attended a BMWCCA car audio tech session and a
couple people from a/d/s/ listened to my system and recommended add some
4 inch mids in my doors. a/d/s/ does not make a 3-way set so what you
will need is a 4 inch set for the doors and a pair of mids from one of
their 5 1/4 inch sets. An a/d/s/ dealer should be able to order just the
midrange drivers for you. You will use the active crossover in the amp
to set the lower cutoff for the 4 inch and upper cutoff for the midbass.
a/d/s/ uses a similar setup in their E36 BMW company car. Go to
www.adst.com for more info.

Good luck,
Jim V
95 318tiA
jimverrette (AT) earthlink (DOT) net

In article <0Kyo4.20385$Nv1.1...@news1.rdc2.tx.home.com>,

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Before you buy.

[Marshall Chiu]

The mid and tweeter both have about 2" mounting depth. The tweeter and mids
in the systems you mentioned will fit with a little bit of cutting on the
door. But you probably couldn't keep the factory grills. But the seven inch
woofer in that dynaudio system will take some serious work to get in the
car. You'll probably need to have custom made fiberglass panels or
something. The 6.5in woofer on the Morel system will not be any easier. If
you don't want to do any custom work you should probably find a 3 way system
with a 5.25" woofer or a shallow 6.5". There isn't all that much room down
there. The Dynaudio and Morel have some pretty serious woofers with a big
magnet. The mounting depth down there is only about 3".

The xover is located inside the amp. The amp is a black box about 7in x
10in.x 3in located on the left side behind the rear shock tower behind the
carpet. It's a 10 channel amp with electronic xovers and some equalization.
So you are going to need a new amp. Obviously if the HK speakers weren't
good enough, this amp is not going to be good enough either. But you can get
to all the speaker wires from the harnesses coming out of the amp. If you
remove the amp you could also mount the xovers there. Check out the Alpine
MRD752, I think it's a pretty good amp. (Just throwing in a little bit of my
biased opinion)

I've got MB quarts on my 95 M3 but I'm not too crazy about them. I got them
because they retained the factory look and were pretty much drop ins. And
they are metal dome tweeters. I also prefer soft dome tweeters. They sound
better than the factory system, but not even in the same league as the
speakers you are talking about. But good luck. I would like to see how your
system turns out. I have thoughts about changing my speakers too.