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Thread: Found my Bass, Then.... (My DSP back deck rebuild thread)

  1. #1
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    Found my Bass, Then.... (My DSP back deck rebuild thread)

    ... blew one of the 4 stock speakers 5 mins later.... figures.....

    tl;dr - If you have DSP and stream Bluetooth/AUX from an android device, give the app Blackplayer a try. Set your Bass on the radio to about 3/4 and turn Blackplayers bassboost to about 75%. Prepare to be impressed. At least in my total stock setup it was impressive!! Beware of 20 year old speakers however....

    Read on if your into the whole DSP/rear deck woofer thing.... long and rambling.

    **
    Realized I'd never posted a link to the speakers I ended up using, so here it is https://www.parts-express.com/peerle...ofer--264-1658
    **

    So, was on a road tip with my son, I had just installed a FM transmitter with Bluetooth and also picked up a S9+ for it's ability to hold my 40 gigs of music on an SD card. Per my other post I had already had to replace a blown door speaker. About an hour into the trip we really started playing with my setup. I have this Android app I'm using for music (Blackplayer, pretty cool, worth checking out) and it has a bass boost. I decided to turn it on....

    OH...

    MY....

    GOSH....

    I found my missing bass!!!! All of a sudden it was like I had a sub installed!!! WOW!!! Whatever frequency that boost works on was the EXACT right one to wake up our rear deck of woofers!!! Queued up some Sir-Mix-a-Lot (No apologizes) and some Beastie Boys... it sounded GREAT!!! I wasn't distorting them, or over driving them, they just sounded good and tight. Not hitting like 12's or anything, but the SOUND was there! It sounded AMAZING.... Then I went back to my mix playlist and a STP song came on. Not much bass. But about 1/2 way through one of the speakers let go. We laughed how it took the big bass tracks like a champ and give it up on an average track. And now I can't turn up my radio again...sigh...

    Anyway, I've got a plan to try out some new Peerless speakers in the back deck. By NEW I mean a new model (according to part-express at least) it seems they might be a better speaker for our back deck than what we've been using from them. I have some theories about why the current speakers haven't been working as well as expected. The model of speaker I see most mentioned by the E38 DSP crowd is a speaker that's 8 ohm and designed for a ported box. That speaker states 98 hz in a sealed box, and like 60 hz ported. This NEW one claims 40 hz in a sealed box, at 4 ohms. And it's designed for a sealed box like ours!!

    In another life (the early 90's) I installed car audio for a living. I know there is nothing special about our back decks that make them so hard to find a speaker for. It's just that either the speakers were custom build for the box size, or the box size was custom built for the speakers. Either way, the trick is to find a speaker that really likes that box size. Aside from the monsoons that seems to have been a challenge. It shouldn't be, there is no way a decent aftermarket speaker can't do better than the stock speakers. I've seen them, they are nothing special. But these new ones I'm going to try, being 4 ohm and in theory drawing twice the power of the 8 ohm, plus being made for enclosed boxes gives me hope I'm onto something. They are $20 a piece, I'll report back once I have them installed.

    On a side note, my adventure told me the amp has the ability to drive those back deck woofers well, but for some reason they either chose to under-power them and/or not feed them much in the way of a bass signal. They really woke up once I fed them enough bass signal. So they always had the ability, they just didn't have any bass being fed from the stock system. I don't notice any great difference turning DSP on/off, I'm not sure if my DSP is borked, or if that's just how it is for everyone. But the EQ is useless, at least on my FM radio Transmitter setup. Might be different with you guys that have the GROM type steup. I don't own a CD anymore to try one out through that channel.
    Last edited by 951Dreams; 06-25-2018 at 10:41 AM.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by 951Dreams View Post
    In another life (the early 90's) I installed car audio for a living. I know there is nothing special about our back decks that make them so hard to find a speaker for. It's just that either the speakers were custom build for the box size, or the box size was custom built for the speakers. Either way, the trick is to find a speaker that really likes that box size.
    What would be nice is if someone could fill one with water to find that actual volume, for the deck and the door pods. Then it would be really easy to match speakers to the boxes... I have planned to do that for the door pods but haven't done a thing about audio yet so it waits on my list of to-do's. I don't have a rear deck though...

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by jazigk View Post
    What would be nice is if someone could fill one with water to find that actual volume, for the deck and the door pods. Then it would be really easy to match speakers to the boxes... I have planned to do that for the door pods but haven't done a thing about audio yet so it waits on my list of to-do's. I don't have a rear deck though...
    Challenge excepted. I'll report back sometime in the next two weeks with my results. I'll get results for both the back deck and front boxes. I'll assume the rear boxes are the same.

  4. #4
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    Haha, not a challenge at all but the most important bit of info if anyone wants to match a speaker to the original box! Just surprised no one has it yet. SQ build here we go!

  5. #5
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    Rear door boxes aren't the same!

    || 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||



  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jamos View Post
    Rear door boxes aren't the same!
    Noted. I'll get those done when I next have to take the door panels off. I'll be taking a front panel off this week or next to replace the useless door brake on my drivers door. I've got a beautiful care package on it's way from AutohausAZ with about 14 shiny new BMW parts. Door brake is among them.

    In other news, I also got my Peerless speakers in today from Parts-Express. I'll say they were awesome to work with, and shipping took 2 days! It's been raining here for days, and I didn't want to pull my Porsche 951 out of the garage into the rain, so I'm gonna have to wait till this wetness passes to tear into the back seat for this install. I will say I was very impressed with the quality and design of these woofers. The are MUCH MUCH better than stock. If fact, and are darn nice speakers all around!!! The only question is going to be mounting issues and box size issues. If it clears up I'll start having pics of the stock vs. new speakers to share. I'll also document my install process.

    I only got 4 for now, if I blow another door speaker I'll order up 4 more for the doors. But my stock's are doing an OK job for now. The only reason I'm replacing the read deck speakers is because I blew one. You get free shipping if you order all 8 at once, but at $6.95 I wasn't sweating it. From past experience I'm going to say these will be equal to stock at the very least. And if they don't sound better I'm turning in my car audio installer card! I know bavsound has got something new in the works as a drop in, other than the monsoons, but with the monsoons costing what... $1200 for the entire setup... I think I'll be just fine and happy with my $160 for all 8 I'd be spending. We don't know what the cost of the new bavsound option is going to be, but I'm betting it's going to be more than $20 a speaker.

    Anyway, these are getting mounted one way or another. So I'll report back my findings in the new few days.
    Last edited by 951Dreams; 03-28-2018 at 11:41 PM.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  7. #7
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    I think you meant Bavsound might cost $1200 for the entire setup... Monsoons are far far less than that even if you do the rear deck and all doors!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aitch View Post
    I think you meant Bavsound might cost $1200 for the entire setup... Monsoons are far far less than that even if you do the rear deck and all doors!
    Yes, that's what I was meaning. The Bavsound setup with monsoons in the rear.

    So, still raining, Day 4. I'm hoping one way or the other to be able to get started sometime this afternoon or evening. I do fear I may have a depth mounting issue however...

    20180329_103545.jpg

    20180329_103656.jpg

    We'll see, may have to get inventive.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  9. #9
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    It would work if you just used some insulating foam strips - weather stripping etc.. makes for a vibration-free and cheap/easy fix =)

    || 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||



  10. #10
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    Well, THAT wasn't fun! I've never had so much trouble getting to rear speakers!!! Turns out both the drivers side woofers had been removed already. The passenger side ones were rotted. Unfortunately these Peerless are not just simple drop in replacements like I'd hoped. They all take some cutting or bending of the mounting lips. I bent the first one to get it to fit, think I'll try cutting the rest. The inside two... yeah. Magnet is too large to fit in the hole! However I think I can shave off enough material to make it work. That will be the project for tomorrow. The cheapie wal-mart ones I bought fit depth wise, but are just mm's too small around the mounting area to work. I could make it work, but I don't want two different woofers sharing that same box. These peerless ones are so much beefier I think it will overpower and beat up the cheap ones anyway.

    If you DIY, and have a drill, I think this is doable by most people. But it's a fairly big project.

    One way or another I'm going to make these work, but this isn't going to be as simple as I'd hoped.

    As far as getting exact volume measurements, the box is connected as one large whole. I'm not comfortable filling it with water as I don't know if I can get it all back out. And on top of that there is foam throughout the box. I can't have this apart long enough to let it all dry again. Maybe someone who has a spare box could try it?
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  11. #11
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    The material inside is to make "more volume" so filling with water would lie anyway =)

    Just go on volume needs of the speaker itself!

    || 1995 740i || M60B40 || DUDMD || ̶o̶r̶i̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶u̶e̶ Mercedes Brilliant Blue Metallic || Style 168 Wheels 1" Spacers ||



  12. #12
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    Alright, those things can blow, catch on fire, become sentient and take over the world for all I care. I'm never touching that box again!!! I'm sore in places I didn't even know I had! However, 1.5 days later... it's done!!!

    The magnets are about 2mm too big, so I had to dremel the inner position cups to allow them to fit. They are not vented thought the bottom so they won't care it's a tight fit. While you can bend the mounting lip to get them to mount, I learned that wasn't the brightest idea. You need that extra lip to ensure a good seal. I got way too crazy with the cut off wheel on the first one, but I got better and better at it. By the 4th I had figured out you didn't really need to cut much at all. Here's all you have to cut:

    20180330_142943.jpg

    Just have to cut one side even with the top of the mounting hole, and put a couple small notches in the other side. One of the "long" sides of these speakers is where the connectors are, so it takes some planing. Since these are weird shaped and the non-long sides are already flat, those are the only modifications you have to make to the speakers. Took like 2 mins or less on the last one.

    99% of the work was enlarging the inner two cups. If you haven't seen one of these boxes before, the outer two holes are open to the world, the inner two have "cups" like this:

    20180330_092125.jpg

    Not really sure why they are different, would have make more sense to make two larger cups than just making cups for the inner two speakers. But whatever. Several hours with a dremel and all's good.

    So bottom line? I now have too MUCH bass! With no bass boost at all I had to turn down the 80 hz and 200 hz on the DSP! Otherwise all I had was bass!! The difference was night and day. But to be fair I only had one pair of stock speakers. The other two were missing. My only gripe is that they crossed them over too high. The stock speakers may have done ok, but certain music that has a lot going on right at the crossover point comes across kinda muddled. If these weren't so loud it wouldn't be a big deal. To be honest however, it MIGHT be my recordings of that artist. I'm going to need more time listening to different music to decide.

    All in all I'm very happy with the outcome. While I won't be rattling the windows of the car next to me, the sound inside the car is really amazing. I've got a 10" sub powered by a 1000 watt app in the hatch of my Porsche. And that does "hit" harder, and you feel it more. But sound wise, it's very close! Would be even better if I was using something more percise than an FM Transmitter to play my bluetooth. Think my next sound project may be a GROM unit.

    For $80, I'll take it. And at least I'm not rattling anymore. Hate rotten speakers.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  13. #13
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    Instead of using a Dremel on the inside of the cups, you could have used a heat gun to soften the plastic and a jar to push it out and make the pocket larger.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by 951Dreams View Post
    So bottom line? I now have too MUCH bass! With no bass boost at all I had to turn down the 80 hz and 200 hz on the DSP! Otherwise all I had was bass!! The difference was night and day. But to be fair I only had one pair of stock speakers. The other two were missing. My only gripe is that they crossed them over too high. The stock speakers may have done ok, but certain music that has a lot going on right at the crossover point comes across kinda muddled. If these weren't so loud it wouldn't be a big deal. To be honest however, it MIGHT be my recordings of that artist. I'm going to need more time listening to different music to decide.

    All in all I'm very happy with the outcome. While I won't be rattling the windows of the car next to me, the sound inside the car is really amazing. I've got a 10" sub powered by a 1000 watt app in the hatch of my Porsche. And that does "hit" harder, and you feel it more. But sound wise, it's very close! Would be even better if I was using something more percise than an FM Transmitter to play my bluetooth. Think my next sound project may be a GROM unit.

    For $80, I'll take it. And at least I'm not rattling anymore. Hate rotten speakers.
    Can you take some vids? The people want to know how it sounds .


  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by 740iSport303 View Post
    Instead of using a Dremel on the inside of the cups, you could have used a heat gun to soften the plastic and a jar to push it out and make the pocket larger.
    NOW you tell me!!!! LOL. Honestly I had seen that idea in passing in other threads. But I didn't know how MUCH you could stretch it that way. If I had to do it all over again I would have tried it first, but I also have visions of melting things.......

    Quote Originally Posted by MMMMM5 View Post
    Can you take some vids? The people want to know how it sounds .
    While I don't know how a video can tell someone how a car audio system sounds, cause that it going to depend more on the system your listening on then the system playing it, if you tell me something you want to hear I'm more than happy to video it!!

    With several more days of testing I'd have to say overall it's a huge improvement! The audiophile part of me is a little unhappy with the crossover point they used in these, too much 160+hz stuff is getting picked up in these woofers. With 8 ohm speakers as the factory designed I'm sure it wasn't even noticeable, but with the loudness of these 4 ohm's it is. 85% of music is fine, but some just has too much stuff going on around 200-300hz that these seem to be picking up. They are too loud and "boomy" for that range. I MAY throw my own x-overs on the leads to the box. I'll cross them over around 120-160 if I do.

    Old school rule of thumb for audio, double your wattage and add 3 db (per speaker). Dropping from 8 ohm to 4 ohm doubled my wattage (in theory) so I gained 12db (in theory). BTW, that's a LOT. Plus, these are much more serious and robust speakers than stock. So... I'm guessing with everything the back deck gained ~15 db over the stock setup. That's fine and dandy except the back deck is trying to play some of the same hz range as the doors. The doors are better tuned for that range. And to boot on hz right on the edge of crossover you get a kind of drone. A muddied sound. At those times I wish the back deck wasn't so loud now.

    But regardless, I'm just being picky. The sound is overall much better, and I have big bass on music that has it. I can "thump" now. Might just need some fine tuning to be 100%.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  16. #16
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    Just a 3 month update. I recently decided to burn 6 CD's of random music from my collection, and threw them all into the CD changer. I've stopped using the FM transmitter/bluetooth setup because of the trouble of setting it up and the sound quality just wasn't there. The sound improvement of using the CD changer is quite impressive.

    The speakers have settled down and broken in now. I'm still blow away by the amount of bass I get from these 4 little speakers. And now that they have loosened up I don't get the muddled mid's that were bothering me so much before. I swear, sound wise, it's the same as a couple of 10s back there. As expected, it doesn't "hit" and shake the car like 10's or 12's would, but it SOUNDS like 10's if it doesn't FEEL like 10's. And I'm 100% perfectly happy with that. I'm too old to care about rattling my own windows much less the car next to me's windows! I highly suggest these speakers for the back deck if you don't mind the work to get them to fit. Best $80's I've ever spend on car audio in my life, no joke.

    When songs come on with powerful thumping bass, I'm still blown away by just how much boom I get!!! These things just HIT, and sound sooooo good doing it. +1 to peerless for these! I've done car audio for 20+ years, and I'll honestly say that this DSP setup with good speakers is really something else. For a stock system I'm very impressed. I'm not saying it beats a $2-4k aftermarket system, but it's the first stock system (speakers aside) that I've been happy to keep. I may continue to play with the speakers in the door to find the "perfect" ones, and I might get a GROM system for streaming at some point, but I'm perfectly happy with the system itself.
    2001 740iL "Silver Beauty"
    1986 Porsche 951 "Silver Bullet"
    1987 Porsche 944 NA Auto (rebuilding for my son's first car)
    https://home.doonze.net/filepage.php <- BMW/Porsche doc's and files, work in progress

  17. #17
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    I just refoamed my stock "subs". It was very easy and they actually sound pretty decent but best of all, no modifications to do it.

    https://www.simplyspeakers.com/BMW-Foam-Kits_c_215.html

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