# E39 Bass Improvement?



## PhilK (May 7, 2004)

I've got a 1997 528i with factory sound. I used to have a 96 328i w/ the HK upgraded sound package and even though the bass wasn't anywhere close to shaking things up, I sure do miss it compared to my 528i. Now I was thinking of maybe putting in a 10" Sony Xplod in a custom made compression box and pointing it towards the cabin, but this may be a bit overboard? How well do the MB Quarts sound bass wise in the 5 series? Any suggestions / recomendations are appreciated, thanks!


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## tsbrown (Apr 25, 2003)

PhilK said:


> I've got a 1997 528i with factory sound. I used to have a 96 328i w/ the HK upgraded sound package and even though the bass wasn't anywhere close to shaking things up, I sure do miss it compared to my 528i. Now I was thinking of maybe putting in a 10" Sony Xplod in a custom made compression box and pointing it towards the cabin, but this may be a bit overboard? How well do the MB Quarts sound bass wise in the 5 series? Any suggestions / recomendations are appreciated, thanks!


I have a '00 528i Sport that I installed an Alpine V12 amp and JL Audio 10" sub in the trunk about 3 years ago. I don't have model numbers anymore, but both amp and sub were upper-mid-line units costing about $550 including installation and the bass is most impressive. Most of the time the gain is only about 30-40% of max on the amp. The shop did a very clean install as all the necessary connections are right there in the trunk. The amp is on the underside of the rear shelf and the sub is in a matching-gray carpeted box sitting in the back corner over the battery. Sorry, no pics. If I were to do over again, I might go with the 8" sub. Then again, it might not same much $$ and I've become addicted to the clean bass.

Good luck.

Tom


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## PhilK (May 7, 2004)

thanks Tom, I dropped the car to the shop today hopefully I'll get her back soon but I might not be able to make it before the shop closes so i might not be able to test her out tonight!


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## PhilK (May 7, 2004)

All I can say is wow! It sounds so much better, I'm glad I went through with it. In a nut shell i'm am very very pleased with the results, if anyone wants to see some pictures, let me know and I'll find a way to post em up. I still have a good amount of trunk space and they tried to match up the fabric with the trunk but you can tell that there's a box, but that's fine w/ me.


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## SilverE39 (May 13, 2003)

PICS! PICS! PICS, Please! 

thanks


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## PhilK (May 7, 2004)

ok hope you can see them. I tried taking the third pic so you can get some idea how much space the box uses. And the fourth pic is of the armrest down. I can still put it up or down as the box doesn't interfere with it, but for better bass I put it down to really make the cabin shake :rofl:


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## USMC-Air (Aug 9, 2004)

PhilK said:


> ok hope you can see them. I tried taking the third pic so you can get some idea how much space the box uses. And the fourth pic is of the armrest down. I can still put it up or down as the box doesn't interfere with it, but for better bass I put it down to really make the cabin shake :rofl:


Your ride looks great! The trunk work looks very clean and professional. I like how the port hole is dead center of the armrest opening. Was that box custom made? If so how much was the box? How much did the total installation run you? What kind of head unit do you have, stock or after-market? Did you upgrade the other speakers within the cabin?

I dont mean to shell you with questions, but I have the same model car and I am very interested in an audio upgrade focusing on both clarity and solid bass performance.


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## PhilK (May 7, 2004)

the whole install ran me about 615ish? 108 for speaker, 200 for amp, 250 for box, then taxes. And so far everything is stock, just added a sub. And yes the box was a custom install. I think what I'm going to do next is either add speakers or aftermarket head unit. The benefit of stock unit is that your car looks stock and no one would be able to tell you had a sub in there unless you came rolling up blasting it. The downside to that is that if I turn up the bass, it turns the bass for everything up i.e sub and speakers. The sub can handle the extra bass but the speakers get a lil distorted. So I can either upgrade the speakers or the headunit, or both! Oh and if I were to do it again I might just go w/ two 10s just cause a friend of mine got two 12s in his truck and its pretty earth shakin :rofl:


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## tsbrown (Apr 25, 2003)

tsbrown said:


> I have a '00 528i Sport that I installed an Alpine V12 amp and JL Audio 10" sub in the trunk about 3 years ago. I don't have model numbers anymore, but both amp and sub were upper-mid-line units costing about $550 including installation and the bass is most impressive. Most of the time the gain is only about 30-40% of max on the amp. The shop did a very clean install as all the necessary connections are right there in the trunk. The amp is on the underside of the rear shelf and the sub is in a matching-gray carpeted box sitting in the back corner over the battery. Sorry, no pics. If I were to do over again, I might go with the 8" sub. Then again, it might not same much $$ and I've become addicted to the clean bass.
> 
> Good luck.
> 
> Tom


Just took pics of my install (hopefully they show up). Turns out the Alpine amp is the MRV-100M. You can also see how the speaker box is attached, how the wires are routed, and how they tapped into the std speaker wires.

Tom


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