One of the forum member contacted me to install
-
BSW Speaker upgrade level I
-
BSW sub for boot
- Official BMW 6FL (USB in central console to use apple’s products / media on USB)
His concerns were;
1- Will upgrading the speaker be enough?
2- If yes, would boot sub overtakes the other frequencies?
3- Can you fit 6FL kit?
My suggestions;
1- Install the amplifier for the speakers and under seats. Recommendation was
600/6.
2- Depends on the taste. I have seen few members adding the sub to the current sound system and that is enough for them? But then sound is not balanced, hence suggestion 1 was recommended.
3- Send me the instructions and I will have a look.
My concerns:
1- BSW does not give rating of their speakers. Also they did not mention power rating for their boot sub. Would these be good products?
2- Boot sub sits in the boot well. Would sound be good enough to penetrate through the boot floor trim and to the cabin?
3- BSW has shown a different amplifier for boot sub on their website and sent a small amp which looked cheap Chinese cloned amp. Since it was not branded, it made me worried.
Instructions for 6FL were clear and I found no issues. Job involved taking the central arm console out and laying new cables from the combox (box in the boot) to central arm console and inserting a new box next to passenger side under seat. Looked simple but job was going to take good few hours. BMW instructions always undermine the time to do these things and it stated 2 hours. It was a nice joke though.
Owner bought JL XD 600/6. Now his concerns were, ‘Would BSW amp be enough to match 600/6?’
I recommended him to wait till we try the BSW amp, otherwise 600/1 would do the job.
I have also provided the part numbers to the owner to have OEM connectors for the under seats and everything plug and play. Owner decided to keep the OEM under seats.
Owner left the car with me and I started working on the car;
First thing ...preparing OEM clips
Stinger pro cable was used to feed the under seats (just in case owner decides to upgrade the under seats at later stage)
Few problems;
1- Owner did not buy the new tweeter inserts with the holes for tweeters. So I had to modify the OEM inserts to accommodate the tweeters.
2- 6FL kit came with the 56 pin connector for the combox (actually for MULF) whereas combox had 26 pin connector. I sat down at 10 pm and started reading the manual again. I also tried to find, why there was a difference. I started a new thread at mid night and send pm to few guys (Deepsrd, Afsar and Technic). I must appreciate the input of all these guys as all of them were online in 15 minutes and started responding to my concerns (Big thanks to all of you). With geeky discussion, I found out that if you have combox, you can hack the stuff. You lay the USB wires from the combox straight to new base plate with USB + aux in. It was 2 pm when I found out the hacking way of combox. I sent the owner a pm telling him that the kit was wrong and he needed some parts to do this hack.
So I spoke to the owner on Saturday morning and he contacted the dealer. Dealer insisted that it was the correct kit, however 26 pin connector and its housing was required. I was still not convinced that it was the correct kit. My question was, what were the pin numbers from the wiring of this kit to connect to combox with 26 pin connector as opposed to 56 pin connect (in the instructions and in the kit)?
So, after few hours, we discovered that the owner undermined the instructions file which was provided by the dealer and sent me the wrong file. So he sent me the correct file. I was busy working on the sound system. After installing the sound system, I followed the new instructions and installed the kit. Due to all this hassle, it set me back at least 3-4 hours.
After everything was in, car was coded to activate 6FL and everything worked like a charm.
Few photos of installation
Underseat OEM clips
Clips fitted
BSW speaker
BSW speaker comparison to the OEM speaker
BSW speakers fitted
Front
Rear
Combox
BMW OEM 6FL retrofit kit goes into this white box and that goes next to passenger side under seat
Old passenger side foam taken out to be replaced with 6FL one to accommodate white box
Box fitted with new foam
Final product
And finally the terminals of the amp covered (to avoid any water --> short circuit)
To conclude what has been done;
1- BSW upgrade 1 installed with XD 600/6 using Mr Singh’s harness
2- BSW sub installed in the boot
3- 6FL kit installed
4- Folding mirrors coded
Few details;
1- BSW speakers are 9/10 on my index. They took 75W from XD 600/6 happily with the correct crossovers.
2- BSW tweeters are 7/10 as they could not produce upper frequencies with the authority.
3- BSW amp produced whopping 380W without clipping and 400W with soft clipping.
4- E92 is a difficult car to work on. You have to remove the rear passenger panel cards to run the wires.
Overall the whole setup worked really well and sound was massive improvement over the OEM base sound system. The only week point was under seats as they were stretching to their limits on 90% volume.
Quick feedback;
1- XD 600/6 is awesome as usual.
2- BSW speakers are more than adequate.
3- BSW amp produced reasonable sound.
4- 6FL kit is slow to respond. It takes about 1-2 seconds before it follows the commands.
Overall, I was impressed with the sound system. Keeping everything OEM, and with the hidden sub, the sound was massive improvement.