|
In Reply to: stereo Choice ??? posted by jad on February 17, 2000 at 22:11:04:
: Store no 1 sony 5/3 amp and subwoofer leave all speakers the same This will improve the overall quality as claimed by store no 1
Bull! Factory speakers DO NOT have any external crossovers. If they replace the amp and not the speakers, they most likely will not get them crossed over correctly and your sound will not be improved very much. My recommendation is to avoid this approach.
: STORE NO 2 cHANGE ALL SPEAKERS adts WEB SITE AND INSTALL A 8 CHANNEL AMP COST ALONE IS APPROX 1500 AND LABOR ESTIMATE IS 16 HOURS X SHOP RATE WHAT IS REASONABLE PER HOUR RATE IS 16 HOURS REALISTIC IS IT REALLY NECESSARY TO CHANGE SPEAKER WIRES IE HEAVIER GAUGE
BULL! No need to change wiring throughout the car. BMW uses twisted pair at about a 20ga rating for the speakers/pre-amp signal. PLENTY FINE for 40 watts and will be completely noise free. I'm using it this way for a long time and it's perfectly fine. Waste of time and money redoing the wires. They can knock 8 hours or more off that install estimate and just replace all speakers, amp, and add the sub.
Word of warning. If you lease or ever intend on putting the factory stuff back in, DO NOT let them cut the connectors off the harness in the trunk. You'll definitely have a very hard time if they don't leave you enough wire to put it back. If leasing, I'm sure you'll be fined for altering the car in that way.
: iS THERE SOME MIDDLE GROUND STORE 1 IS AT 900 DOLLARS AND STORE 2 IS MORE THAN DOUBLE I EXPECT THAT DOUBLE DOLLARS WILL NOT DOUBLE THE QUALITY
: PLEASE ADVISE: LONG ANSWERS ARE WELCOME
Actually, store 2 is the right way to go, except for rewiring the speakers. I ran my system with a/d/s/ speakers, factory amp, for a couple of weeks during my install. Little or no improvement. Doing the opposite will give you more volume, but I'm doubtful you'll experience better sound quality. They'll need to use an external crossover set to the appropriate points for the factory speakers, and I doubt they'll get that right without some serious tweaking time. Better to spend the bucks on new speakers instead. I can't recommend the a/d/s/ 335is enough. Excellent!
Maybe you can forget replacing the rear speakers to save some time and money. After doing mine, I don't really see much benefit to it. They're just for rear-fill anyway and are set a about 50% of the front volume, can barely hear them. It's a huge job getting them in there. Maybe the shop can just connect the rear midbass speakers only, cross them over at a reasonable point to allow midrange frequencies through and forget about replacing them with A5im's. Just an idea.
Jeff
'99 528i Sport