# My M3 Stereo Install



## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

DAY 1

Hi everybody! I wanted to share my experiences with installing an aftermarket stereo system into my E36 M3 to let you know what to expect if you've got an E36 and show my results. I have the factory Harmon Kardon "premium" stereo and it desperately needed upgrading. My goals are to have it sound good, get loud and look stock.


I started with the door and when I took them off some of the retaining clips broke. I guess I should have expected this and had some on hand to replace the broken ones, but I will have to replace the broken ones at another time. I have well enough good ones to hold the doors in place still.

Removing the door panels was a snap, use a flat-head and remove the screw-hole covers; two behind the door handle and the one little plastic piece that says airbag. There are torx screws in those three places, T-10 I believe. Remove the door handle trim by pulling on them, they just popped out. I took the three screws out and then started at the bottom of the door prying the panel away from the door with my fingers.

After removing the doors 3 of the four pockets, one plastic mount at the front of the door and one plastic piece at the top of the door decided to stay in the door. The factory glue stuff BMW used is weak and popped loose rather than the clips coming out. This was very simple to fix. I pulled the plastic parts that were still in the door and re-glued them to the door panel using glue residue marks on the plastic bits and door pannel to line them back up. I used liquid nails brand glue, which I've found to be invaluable since it is super strong.

Here's a picture of one of the pockets with the factory glue residue










I added some liquid nails in the same places that had the factory glue residue










and stuck it back on the door pannel. I just press fitted it with my hands You could use something to weigh it down, but not really necessary with the liquid nails.











For the door speakers, I used some drivers I ordered from madisound.com They are a great source for high-quality raw drivers and x-over parts. I decided on Seas 27TAFNC/G tweeters for great reviews and that they are metal dome which I prefer to soft dome and MB Quart 95-7045 midrange. These are an oem driver that MB Quart makes for some really high-end home theater speakers and I though they would work great in my doors. I will be using the mids at 500hz-3500hz and the tweeters 3500hz and up.

Getting the tweeters to fit required *A LOT *of dremel work on both the tweeter cups and the tweeter themselves. I started by cutting off the flanges on the tweeters and cutting everything possible out of the tweeter cup. It didn't fit so I shaved down the inside of the tweeter cup as much as possible without grinding through to the threads on the outside. I would say I removed at least 2/3rds of the material on the walls of the cup. Still no fit so I started shaving down the tweeter. I ended up shaving down the thickness of the plastic on the tweeter by half. This was all done with a stone sanding bit and a dremel.

Here's a picture of the tweeter, before and after










and here's a picture of the tweeters and tweeter cups, done and ready to install.











To install the mid-range speakers, I cut down the depth on the cups. I cut all of it but the threads with a dremel and cutting disk. The screwing part of the midrange cup is now about 1/4 inch deeper than the cup itself. The MB Quart midrange is A LOT bigger than the factory mid and there is no way it would fit in the cup so it required I get creative and fabricate something to mount the speaker to. I used some scrap MDF and a coping saw and made some rough cuts to get it to fit. (You can get scrap wood for free from hardware stores, a lot of times really big pieces of scrap too.) I used the speaker and mounted the tweeter cup to mock it up for clearance before gluing. I also had to bevel some of the underside of the mdf to get it to fit over the ridge on the inside of the door. After the test fit, I globbed on the liquid nails and used a gallon bottle of washer fluid to keep the mdf from sliding around while the liquid nails cured.




























A very small dab of liquid nails to keep the tweeters in the cups and they were installed into the door panel.











Next I started on the kick panel area. I am going to use CDT M6 woofers which are a 6.75" speaker and quite a bit larger than the factory 5.25". These will be getting 500hz and down. I might high pass them if needed but they should play real well down low.

I removed the kick pannels, which was a little difficult since I didn't know about the clip at the very top forward part of the panel--so I broke one of those clips on the driver's side.

With the kick panels removed, I started dremeling away the ribs on the insides with a cutting disk.










That left about 1/4 inch of the ribs left, so with the same bit turned perpendicular this time, I went back over all of the ribs on the driver










and passenger sides.










This left little bits of plastic in the grill slats so I went back again with a razor blade and cleaned all those little bits out.

I test-fitted the midbass behind the kick panel and as you can see, they are a real tight fit but fit none the less.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

DAY 2

The liquid nails cured, so I was ready to mount the midrange. I used 1/4 inch rope-caulk I got from Oriley's. It's a 3M product, very sticky yet firm black caulk. I think it's supposed to be used for winshield gasket. I used it right around the rim of the midrange cup and two strips on the pieces of MDF. With the midrange applied, the caulk sealed off against the flange on the MB Quart midrange and the two pieces on the mdf were just for good measure. Holes were then predrilled and the mid was screwed into the mdf.

Today I hand a friend help me out. I let him tackle the sheet metal in the kick panels. Factory size is 5.25 and they needed enlarging. I had purchased a carbide dremel bit for cutting sheet metal and I have to say it sucks. We ended up connecting it to my 18v dewalt drill and it still sucked. This bit was horrible and made a giant mess. Believe it or not, this is the best tool for the job. 










Regular old cutting disk that I used on the kick panel ribs. We broke a lot of them, but they're super cheap. We then figured out how to use them better so they would last longer. When cutting keep the wheel as perpendicular to the surface as possible and also as close to perfect tangent to the direction cutting. We didn't find it necessary to remove the seat or any bits of the dash, nor to use a dremel flex adapter as some have suggested. Here's my friend attacking the passenger side kick panel. The cardboard ring came with the speaker which he taped to the wall and started cutting the center out.










After making the cuts with the cutting disk, he used the stone sanding/grinding wheel to smooth it all out. Cleanup was a snap too, a little run over the carpet with a magnet and all the little bits of metal were gone.

While working on the other side, he figured out an even better way of cutting out the kick panels that lengthened the life of the cutting disks. It was to make radial cuts every inch or so then score the metal along the circumfrence. Then he used a mini vice grip to bend and snap out each part around the circle and went back and grinded it smooth with the stone bit. All in all he probably went through about 10 cutting disks.

While he was working on the kicks, I was in the trunk. With the carpet and floor removed










the factory amp was then removed, which was mounted to the immediate left of the speaking hanging from the rear deck in the picture










I have a set of JBL GTI crossovers from the C608GTI component set that I am going to use for the mids/tweets and use a separate set of amp chanels for the CDT's. I found the crossovers new from somebody that didn't need them and found they would work great for me since the crossover point is what I need (3500hz) and it has a tweeter level attenuation so that I can match the output of the mid to the output of the tweeter plus they have high quality components, 24db slopes and tweeter protection circutry. I'm going to mount these crossovers in the place of the factory amplifier so I removed the mounting bracket from the amp and attached some HDF and the crossovers. Again, free scrap from my local hardware store.










I used heavy duty zip ties to mock it up and then found that they hold quite well so I may just use this as the finished product.










When I test fitted in the car, the HDF was way too big so I cut it down as small as possible around the crossovers and the mounting bracket so that it would fit.

Next I went to the rear deck. The speaker grills were real easy to pop out, just pull them up and they came off. Here's the factory HK speaker underneath (lol look at the color difference of the rear deck material, will redo in suede one day along with the headliner, "A" and "C" pillars)










There are three screws and a clip holding in the assembly, Torx T-8 IIRC. Required a torx bit and a wratchet with adapter since there is no way you're going to fit a screwdriver between the rear deck and rear window. After I removed both the rear speaker assemblies, I took them apart. There were four screws holding the assembly together. Small socket, like 1/4" or 5/16" then there were three screws holding a cover that separated the "tweeter" cup from the woofer which were I think the same size as the ones holding the assembly together then there were two more (again same size) holding the tweeter to the top of the speaker assemby.

Here's a picture of the assembled assembly next to the top and bottom part of the dissasembled assembly,










My plan was to dremel out most of the top and bottom assembly and mount a pair of Tang Band W69-1436 6x9's but when I went to test fit the speaker in the mounts, there was no way there were going to fit. The four screw posts were in the surround of the tang band speaker. I guess the factory speakers are indeed not 6x9's. I will probably have to buy the autoleads 6x9 adapter or make one out of MDF.


That's all I got done today, probably won't have any updates for another week, we had a freak heat wave here 62 degrees this weekend and snow still all over the place, supposed to drop back into freezing this week. If it's anywhere 45 degrees or warmer, I'll be working on it.


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## Ace (Jan 29, 2008)

Dang man doin it real quick! lookin awesome love that ur keepin it stealth lookin


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Day 1, again

Two steps forward and one step back is how the saying goes?


Well, I went to put the finished door panels back on to the door and DISASTER! I had a clearance problem with the midrange. There's a huge honking magnet on this mid and it was hitting part of the window motor. Here's a pic of the magnet










I thought I would be fine since the mid is shallow, but the edge of the magnet was hitting the edge of the window motor when I tried to clip the door back on. I needed about 1/2 inch more of depth clearance so I needed to re-think how to mount the speaker.

I un-did the previous iteration of the mid mount and while the liquid nails solvent was working it's magic I devised two new ways to mount the mid without that thick block of mdf I used to screw the mid in to.

Presto-Changeo









Idea number 1 was to use 4 machine screws threaded up through 2 small strips of hdf and use the 4 mounting holes on the mid with locking nuts to hold the mid to the door. The use of HDF would give a nice large area for the glue to bond and hold the screw heads against the door. Idea number 2 was to use a product called Dual Lock from 3M. The idea is like velco, but holds at least 1kg per square inch. 

I decided to try number 2 since it would allow an even more shallow mount than having a strip of HDF between the door panel and the mid. Well, when I went looking for Dual lock no stores around me seemed to have it. Oriley's Auto said they could order me some, but wanted to sell me a 50yd roll for $95. So, I reasoned that since the dual lock has an adheasive backing the adheasive must also be at least 1kg per square inch strength to support the velcro stuff in the middle. I found out that adheasive is called VHB and came as a double sided tape, so that is what I used.

In either case, I would have to get rid of the screw down part of the midrange cup with the door speaker. I dremeled down the midrange cup almost completely so that the when installed the cup was flush with the inside of the door and discarded the screw-down ring. I planned on just gluing the grill/cup in place but would work out the details later.

I started by centering the mid on the hole of the door. Already I had clearance problems from the tweeter cup and from the ridge on the door. A bit of dremeling made short work of that problem.










Now I flipped it over










and while holding the midrange in place slipped the grill on to make sure it cleared the dome--looking good so far.










Now I applied the VHB tape. I purposely left the patches with the holes open so that I could apply some glue down through the holes from the back. The glue could seep out a bit and help hold the mid in place.










I then fitted the mid to the door with the tape alone and was surprisingly able to lift the entire door panel by lifting on the magnet of the mid. The tape seems quite solid. I proceeded outside into the 20 degree weather to test fit the door panel in the car.

SUCCESS!!!









The problem I was having with the back of the mid hitting the window motor was solved. I though maybe thermal shock from the frigid air would cause the tape to fail, but it held strong. Supposed to have the same holding power -40 to +200 degrees.

Next I took the door panel back off to finish it. I ran some of the black windshield caulk I used before around the edge between the dome and the door skin and forced it in with a flat head screwdriver










This served a dual purpose, to sonically seal the mid to the door and provide a way to stick the grill to the door.

I flipped the door back over and as previously planned, I poured glue down the screw holes in the flange. I kept squezing the glue in until it stopped flowing down the screw hole then ran a bead right around the flange. I used Rhino Glue, from the makers of liquid nails. Rhino glue is super glue based but expands very slightly when it dries. So I weighed the mid down with a gallon bottle of window washer fluid.

Next I'll be installing sound deadening in the kick panels but will have to wait for some warmer weather. We should be getting some this coming weekend so look for another update then. I might brave the cold and wire up the doors and reinstall tomorrow but we'll see...


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Ace said:


> Dang man doin it real quick! lookin awesome love that ur keepin it stealth lookin


thanks ace, would be quicker if it were warmer out


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## turbotuli (Jan 30, 2008)

Nice work man. I recently Installed a set of DLS UP36 3-way components in my e36. I was able to just squeeze the tweeters into the stock grill after dremeling it out, but I ran into the same problem for the mids...What I ended up doing is dremeling out the midrange grill, then I removed the DLS grill from the speaker and used some butyl tape, which happened to have an aluminum backing cuz it was the only stuff I could find, to secure the speaker to OEM piece that screws onto the grill to hold it to the door. Then I just needed to cut down the OEM grill so that it didn't hit the midrange when the two pieces were screwed together. Here are a couple pics


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## jermaine3173 (Jan 30, 2008)

damn good job son


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## sirius815 (Aug 7, 2006)

I just went ahead and got me the dynaudio 360 set for my 97 M3. The tweeter spot needed slight dremeling - the mid a little more. Custom kickpanels for the 8's. Looks absolutely stock. I'll have to get pics for you. BTW - it's all run active - the 8's are phenominal.

Ben K.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Day 3

Well, it warmed up a bit today. Mid 40's but felt so warm compared to last week it was t-shirt weather.

I started with re-installing the doors. The glue on the mids looked good and strong.



















I had some crimp terminals that fit the terminals on my mids and tweeters. They are very small, like 1/8 inch probably. 










My local radio shack really sucks, they barely stock anything. Needless to say radio-shack didn't have the size I needed, but oddly enough walmart did.

I am reusing the factory wiring. I know there is much debate over this, but I am going to try it with the stock wiring first. I will probably get around to replacing all the speaker wiring at an other time.

I cut the factory plug off the speaker wires and removed the pastic covering on the terminal. Since my crimper didn't work on these tiny terminals, I used needle nose pliers to clamp the end down over the wire. It was still sort of loose so I soldered each of the terminals and then shrink wrapped.



















I connected all the wires up and put the doors back on.

Next I started on the head unit wiring harness for my Eclipse cd7100. Although I like the copper chasis of the 2008 model, I went with the 2007 model because it has a color screen and other goodies that the 2008 model does not have. I cut back all the music signal wires on both the bmw adapter and head unit harnesses to lessen the clutter. I won't be using the head unit's amp anyway. I soldered and heat shrinked the rest of them. I used the antenna turn on lead from the head unit to the bmw harness and will be running a separate remote wire for the amplifiers.










I went to take out the factory radio but finding the right bit to fit the screws of the factory radio was next to impossible. I have a full set of metric scale allen wrenches in 0.5mm steps and full set of american scale allen wrenches in 1/64 inch steps. None of these worked. I ended up forcing a T-9 torx bit in there and that gave me enough grip to loosen the screws.










With the factory radio now removed, I took out the pocket and OBC below the HVAC control. I connected the wiring harness to the car and felt around in the radio hole. there are two nice sized holes on the right and left that connect up to the large hole below the HVAC control. I ran 3 sets of RCA's down the right side and the remote wire down the left side. I also have a USB plug for the head unit which I ran down the left side as well. The idea here was to keep music signal wires away from everything else to try and eliminate any interference. Next I installed the radio installation bezel and bent the tabs to hold it in.










Now I connected all the wire to the back of the head unit, being careful the label which RCA cables were which. I tucked the wires back out of the way and as I pushed the head unit in, I pulled the slack from the RCA's, remote and USB wires.










I think the design goes along with the interior pretty well and illumination on the buttons can be changed to a variety of colors, including amber. If anything, I may spray the bezel back to match the interior.










Now I turned the key to the acc position to make sure it came on and to play with it a bit. Here's a shot of it open, this deck does a bit of everything including navigation.










Now I turned my attention to the kick panels. I started applying the sound deadening, eDead original from elemental designs to the kick panels inside and out. I went with eDead original because I wanted something thin and cheaper than dynamat.










I used self taping screws to secure the woofer to the kick panel. These worked like a charm, I couldn't have asked for anything better.










Before fastening, I used some more of that great caulk to seal the woofer to the kick panel.










I used my cordless drill and with a little force the screws cut though the sheet metal. As soon as they bit, they tightened very qickly. I had to back out the first screw a little to allow the opposite one in. Then I went around and slowly tightened each one a little untill the woofer was tight against the kick panel.



















When trying to fit the kick panel cover back on, I found the top lip of the cover was hitting the speaker basket. A little trimming on the cover and I should be good. It would have been extremely difficult to get the woofers positioned perfectly within the kick panel cover. There was about 2mm of clearance as you can see when I was test fitting the woofer earlier. I think I will also add some sound deadening to inside of the kick panel covers before installing them.

That's all for today, it was just about dark so I stopped here but weather permitting I'll drive on tomorrow.


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## GlasSman (Nov 14, 2006)

Does the Rhino Glue dry rock hard or slightly pliable?


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Sweet choice. I'd love to see pics. What amps are you running? 

I was contemplating going full active. I still can if I reconfigure my amps and install the three amps I have rather than just the two I was planning on. My CDT's will be getting 110w rms each instead of 155w rms each though. Buy my subs will be getting over 1000w rms rather than 480w rms. I'll definately have to try it out both ways and find what I like best.



sirius815 said:


> I just went ahead and got me the dynaudio 360 set for my 97 M3. The tweeter spot needed slight dremeling - the mid a little more. Custom kickpanels for the 8's. Looks absolutely stock. I'll have to get pics for you. BTW - it's all run active - the 8's are phenominal.
> 
> Ben K.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

GlasSman said:


> Does the Rhino Glue dry rock hard or slightly pliable?


Hard


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

DAY 3.5

Not much to update, it must have been in the mid thirties today. I did get some things done.

I finished running the RCA's and remote turn on wire to the trunk. I had to remove the back seat bench for this. It couldn't be any simpler, just pull up and out and the seat was disbatched










I ran the wires up the center of the car by removing the screws to the center console and loosening it from it's perch on the driveshaft hump. RCA's went down the passenger side and remote turn-on wire down the driver side.










When trying to fish the wires down the hole behind the arm rest and under the carpet I had no room to work, so the arm rest and center console came out. It was difficult to get these wire run, the carpet is pretty stout in this area with a large piece of foam on the back. I used a coat hanger to pull the first RCA cable through then taped each of the next wires one at a time to the first RCA to pull them under the carpet. Then I ran them under the rear seat backs into the trunk.










Now, I started placing the dash back together. Here's where the USB cable will end up. I will need to source an extra blank panel since the Hi-Fi switch is now worthness. I'll dremel out one of these blank panels and mount the USB plug underneath to access external storage media from the head unit.










I turned my attention to the trunk and got some sound deadening laid down. I'm about half way done with the trunk, stil have the underside of the rear shelf and the right fender part and wheel well of the trunk.



















One last pic, here's a night time shot of the deck, colors match pretty well with stock. I was playing with the exposure setting on my camera since in the dark the camera wanted to keep the shutter open for like 1/2 a second and I couldn't keep still enough to keep the picture from getting slighly blurred. It looks better in person.


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## kiko (Feb 1, 2008)

well nice job. clean and good comps tough


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## ///MJay (Aug 22, 2006)

Have you had any time to audition those mids? I have the round version of the same quart mids. I have been too lazy to come up with any real solution to installing them. I ran into the same depth problem with the mdf solution. I am just curious how they sound in that location. Please let me know when you get some time in tuning them. If you are using any thing else that needs a switch just use the hi fi and it would be like an under cover switch.


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## daesonn (Jan 15, 2008)

Your insane! Hows that head unit workin out though? I own a CD3000 and I'm very happy with it, yours looks pretty awesome, any chance you could post pics of the different colors?


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## Mless5 (Aug 21, 2006)

I happened to have a good one I think. Not mine, I will not lie:


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Mless5 said:


> I happened to have a good one I think. Not mine, I will not lie:


That's WK446 from Bimmerforums.com. That's what I meant by the exposure settings though. I had a few pictures come out like that, and you see how the clock display doesn't even match the HVAC controls in the picture, well they do in person and deck colors match well too.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

///MJay said:


> Have you had any time to audition those mids? I have the round version of the same quart mids. I have been too lazy to come up with any real solution to installing them. I ran into the same depth problem with the mdf solution. I am just curious how they sound in that location. Please let me know when you get some time in tuning them. If you are using any thing else that needs a switch just use the hi fi and it would be like an under cover switch.


Not yet, no amps installed. I'll let you know though after I finish the install. It's 0 degrees out today with the wind chill. So I won't be working on it again till it warms up a little.

Hope you got some ideas on mounting possibilities from this thread.

Good idea with the high-fi switch, but I don't have anything I really need a switch for.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

It was a nice 40 degrees out today, so I got a little done before the sun went down.

I went with the CDT CL69x for rear fill rather than the Tang Band subs. I did this for a a couple reasons, I do want rear fill and do not need sub frequencies from the rear deck (more on that later). Somebody pointed out that they were a bad match for my front stage. I tried to ask why, but no answer, we shall see... Only thing negative I read about them is that the tweeter can be harsh, but a little eq'ing with my head unit and they should be just fine. They got here earlier in the week and have been sitting along side my trim panels waiting for a day above freezing to put them in.

They fit like a glove in the autoleads 6x9" adapter, like they were made for one another.










To secure the speaker to the adapter, I looked through some of the screws I had from removing the factory ones. The ones that were a perfect fit were the same ones that held the tweeter cup to the upper portion of the factory hk speaker adapter. Also the same size screw which held the hk assembly to the rear deck.

I installed the speaker then went around and sealed it up with caulk, making sure the cover any holes on the mounting flange and adapter to isolate front waves from back waves.



















Next I made my own factory harness adapters for these 6x9's reusing the one that came out of the rear hk assembly. I cut off the tweeter leads, and put new connectors on the ends that would fit the new CDT speaker. I crimped, soldered and heat shrinked these.



















Next I looked through my collection of factory screws to see if I could find something to work with the autoleads 6x9 adapter. Nothing was fat enough for the large diameter mounting holes in the new adapters. So, I brought the adpater that didnt' have a speaker in it yet to the local hardware store to look through their bins for something that would work. I found these:










You can't really tell the proportions from the picture, they look like normal screws but they're actually pretty chunky. Larger diameter than any screw I've had to use before in any project.

Installing them was real easy too. The adpaters have a clip on them so that they hold to the rear deck by themselves.










That allows you to then go inside the car to screw them in without needing to prop it with something or have another person to hold it for you. There are three screw holes in the rear deck, and they lined up just great. Make sure to route your wires out to connect up in the trunk. There is a small gap where the wires can fit though.










Next I removed a strip of the sound deadening on the rear deck. I used a razor blade to cut it out. Sound deadening is great, but not in the path of the speaker.










Now, some more sealing of the edge with caulking. In addition to my other reasons for using caulk, using it here will also eliminate any vibrations from this area.










Done with the 6x9's, I'll probably go back and find a neater way to route these wires like zip tie em to the back side of the basket.










I found a great mounting place for one of my amps, the rear of the back seats have a hard piece of board that will hold screws well. This is the smaller of the two amps I am planning on using. It was shocking how well this amp fit. It had maybe a couple mm on either side and even followed the contour of the rear shock tower. The seats still fold down, uninhibited.










Since my other amp is about 1.5x as long as this one, I am probably going to mount it to the floor of the trunk. Centered left to right and back against the rear seats. I do have another amp identical to the one already installed. If I decide to go full active and not use passive crossovers, I know I'll have the room for the amps.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Oh yeah, this came today too:


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

i know its probably a little late now.. i have those same mids, you CAN take off the flange/grill. it separates from the dome and motor assembly.. however, if you pull it off the wrong way, the grill stays attached to the dome and motor assembly. easy way to take the grill/flange off is to take a pocket screw driver, wedge it between the speaker lead and top flange (with the torx screws removed already of course) then it will pop right off. just be sure to attach everything back when youre done making modifications.


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## haibane (Sep 29, 2005)

Hey man curious to know what you think of those speakers in that car. I've never been a fan of em and thought maybe they sounded better out of the box in that car or that model was better.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

miztahsparklez said:


> i know its probably a little late now.. i have those same mids, you CAN take off the flange/grill. it separates from the dome and motor assembly.. however, if you pull it off the wrong way, the grill stays attached to the dome and motor assembly. easy way to take the grill/flange off is to take a pocket screw driver, wedge it between the speaker lead and top flange (with the torx screws removed already of course) then it will pop right off. just be sure to attach everything back when youre done making modifications.


Good to know, I feared the screws held the whole assembly together and removing them could cause the dome and VC to fall out.

It all worked out with the flanges, don't really know how I would have attached it to the door without the flange.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

haibane said:


> Hey man curious to know what you think of those speakers in that car. I've never been a fan of em and thought maybe they sounded better out of the box in that car or that model was better.


Which speakers are you asking about? Or all of them together?


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## renfri (Feb 17, 2008)

Very nice...


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## haibane (Sep 29, 2005)

ogwap said:


> Which speakers are you asking about? Or all of them together?


cdts


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## miztahsparklez (Jan 11, 2006)

ogwap said:


> Good to know, I feared the screws held the whole assembly together and removing them could cause the dome and VC to fall out.
> 
> It all worked out with the flanges, don't really know how I would have attached it to the door without the flange.


you might have been able to find some machine screws that fit the holes in the magnet. but i suppose that would have made it look less than factory.

have you had a chance to listen to your setup yet?


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

still waiting on a few odds and ends to come in to finish up. I've got an audiocontrol 2xs on the way for splitting the signal from the tweet/mid and the M6's

If I used the head unit in active mode I'd loose my preout for the rear.

As of now, I could hook up the rears and the tweets and mids in the door.
One more amp, the crossover, and subwoofer to install.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

haibane said:


> cdts


M6's or CL69?

I've not heard either in the car yet, but will post when I do. One thing's for certain, they're better than what came with the car.


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## haibane (Sep 29, 2005)

ogwap said:


> M6's or CL69?
> 
> I've not heard either in the car yet, but will post when I do. One thing's for certain, they're better than what came with the car.


I hear that. my bmw stock speakers suck. I just have never been a fan of the CDTs so I really want to know your thoughts. I actually at times at least the CL/HD series thought the stock speakers sounded better.


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## ogwap (Dec 10, 2007)

Wow, I just did a quick and dirty hook up to see what the stuff sounded like. I'm still waiting on a couple things in the mail for fit and finnish before I complete everything.

I hooked up the front door mid and tweet to the front channels of my TE604, crossed at 500hz and up. And the CDT 6x9's on the rear channels crossed at 63hz and up. Amp's birthsheet rated 112x4 at 4 ohms.

The 6x9's are actually very neutral sounding. Not bass heavy like a lot of 6x9's try to be. The tweeter blends very well, I didn't notice any hashness, I didn't notice the tweeter at all, it just blended in well. (I used 20ms delay and lowered the gain until it didn't sound like a speaker behind my head)

The MBQ midranges, what can I say, I am just blown away by them. I do not have the M6's powered yet, but the midrange tweeter combination in the doors sounds so sweet. The midrange gets loud effortlessly. Power handling is better than the tweeter I picked out because the tweeter starts spitting before it sounds like the mid has reached it's limit. This is probably above any reasonable listening level anyway.

My initial impression was to analog them to a set of ID horns because of their impact.

I have the gains set to 1/4 and don't think I'll ever be raising them up much more, the M3's cabin is pretty small and these speakers fill it up very well. I can't wait for the rest of what I have on order to come in so I can put in my other amp and power up the M6's.


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