# 2002 E39 530i audio upgrade issues



## underaudio (Mar 24, 2006)

el duderino

all i can say is THANKS!! adding the SVEN4 (or equivalent) is the best move you can make. you are absolutely correct. no matter what you do, if you keep the factory head and or amp, you absolutely need an LOC of some type.

for example - create a mini harness from the following parts:

1 to-car connector/harness
1 to-HU connector/harness
1 4-channel LOC

connect the harnesses together back-to-back except for the speaker leads from the HU. send them to the LOC and you have pristine RCA outs for all 4 channels.

http://www.underaudio.com/products.htm


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## mkosma (Feb 7, 2006)

el_duderino said:


> What's the scoop? Any developments?


Here's the latest:

Did some tests as we discussed. Swapped left and right channels, but the kazoo-like sounds stayed where they were, predominantly on the passenger side of the car. Finally got my schedule freed up, took off a couple hours one afternoon, and went back to the install shop. We disassembled the door and tried everything again. Here's what we discovered.

With the door panel off, the speakers sounded far better - not perfect, there was still a small amount of vibration, but in a much narrower range and much more quiet. What buzzing there was seemed to come from up around the airbag.

I had misunderstood where the crossovers were set, thinking they were around 100Hz. Turns out the fronts were high-passed at 50Hz. So we raised that up to around 100Hz and a lot of the vibration and buzzing went away.

Now, the problem is that with the crossovers set so high, the midbass is pretty thin-sounding, but it's an improvement over where it was. They had already dynamatted a lot of the door, and didn't think more work on that would help.

My inclination is to think that something is still not properly damped:

1. There's this plastic box in which the speaker mounts. Looks kind of like a waveguide or something. They did have it filled with polyfill, but that thing seems to be still buzzing a bit. Not sure whether it can or should be removed, because if that comes out there seems to be nowhere to mount the speaker.

2. The door panel itself is pretty stiff. Not sure if it would help to dynamat the whole back side of the panel. Alternatively, it could be one of the clips that is buzzing. I'm not sure what to do and the installer is pretty frustrated. I think he thinks that he's done everything he can to isolate and eliminate this vibration.

Anyone have any ideas whether anything else can/should be done with the BMW door to fix this sort of problem?

I'm thinking I may give the dealer one more shot, or may take a crack at it myself if I can figure out how to remove the panel without damaging it. Alterantively, I might see if another shop would be willing to fix the vibration for a flat charge of some sort.

monty


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## el_duderino (Aug 1, 2005)

In some cars I have damped the back of the door panel a good bit. 

The xover point needs to be lower than that. Eliminating a buzz by making the expensive system sound bad is not an option. 

There is indeed nowhere to mount the speaker if you pull the box. The box is really just a funky-shaped enclosure. 

We recently had a very similar problem in a 2006 Audi A3. Turned out the speaker grilles vibrated in the door. Easy to fix. 

How hard is it to pull the speaker box off of the door and make sure that removing it from the door eliminates any rattling?

If you decided to take a crack at it yourself, feel free to email pics to me and we can talk on the phone in real time. I can also send you some damping material if needed.


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