# Bavsound Stage 1 Upgrade and JL Amp review



## julioengineer (Jan 14, 2015)

Well I am finally done with my Hi Fi upgrade in my 2014 F30 and I am very happy with my results. After reading the different posts on the site I first decided to go with Technics harness and a JL Audio XD800/8v2 amp with the stock speakers. I was able to dial in the stock speakers to sound better than the stock setup by using the cross overs on the JL amp and adding a 10" Kicker Solobaric L7 sub in the trunk. The sound at first was improved but after I listened for awhile it still sounded muddy and splashy. At that point I started doing my research into different speakers I could use to replace the stock ones. I looked at Bavsound, Focal, MB Quart, and the German Maestros. Based on price and reviews I ended up going with the Bavsounds, after all there isn't much you can do with a 4" driver no matter who you are and the pictures and videos I saw of the Bavsound showed me a well built speaker. Bavsound tells you several times that an amp upgrade is not necessary to use their speakers and they are right but since I already had the amp I made sure to let them know about it and get an OK from them about honoring their warranty. Once I got the OK I went ahead and ordered the kit. Between the sale price and a 10% coupon I found, I obtained my set for 400.00 and waited for them to come in. I then ordered the sound dampening and tool kit and got a 10% discount on that as well as a previous customer. I just want to take a brief moment and acknowledge the guys at Bavsound for their patience and openness when I asked all my questions about their speakers and warranty. Anyway, after watching the installation video I went ahead and did my install. It was quite easy and to tell you the truth it took me more time to put in the sound dampening than to change out the speakers. At this point I discovered that I had a bad rear driver with a voice coil issue which sounded horrible when played at any volume. I contacted Bavsound and in less than an hour and a half I had my confirmation of a replacement set on its way. Unfortunately it was Friday afternoon so they didn't ship until Monday morning. In the mean time I replaced the rears with the stock rears and played around with that, comparing the sound of the fronts and rears. I found that the fronts were much cleaner and not irritating to the ear whereas the rears had a splashy muddy sound, kind of like you were listening to music in a tiled bathroom. I played every source of music I could find and all kinds of styles from rock, electronic, salsa, etc. What I discovered is that the processing on Sirius XM is all over the place and these speakers still preformed well once I dialed them in. As far as CD's, MP3's, Pandora, and Youtube the reproduction was incredible and clean. I used Madonna's The Immaculate Collection and JVC 1991 Jazz festival CD's which are recorded "DDD" to fine tune everything and was finally happy with the results. I also used Queensryche's Empire CD which has different styles of sounds through out their songs. I could hear bass strums on The Thin Line and fingers rubbing over the strings on an acoustic guitar in Silent Lucidity. The segue between Della Brown and Another Rainy Night was incredible and quite clean on the front speakers. When I got my rear replacements I swapped them out and that was the final piece to clean up my sound requiring a small adjustment to compensate for not having the stock speakers in anymore. I then went back and listened to all my test tracks and WOW! The sound mixed all together to give me clear sounds and great imaging. I should note that since I am using an amp I am not using the center channel speaker and it makes no difference to my sound. I also listened to the system with out my trunk sub and it was still clean and the bass was spot on punchy, though as we all know, the trunk sub completes the low end for those of us who like a little more Oomph in their sound. As of this writing I am still breaking in the rears but everyday it's sounding a little bit better. In conclusion, The Bavsound Stage 1 upgrade is well worth the money even if you just change out the speakers alone and use the stock amp without a sub. They are also a very viable speaker replacement set which you can tweak and get the full potential out of, using a good amp. I hope this helps those of you that are on the fence about doing this upgrade and those of you that want to do a little more to improve your sound.


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## mcleod52 (Jan 29, 2015)

Nice write up Julioengineer. I've ordered by Bavsound speakers and am going to let me ears decide whether I pull the plug on an amp upgrade. I was sold on the xd600 before I read your previous posts on the xd800.

Stew


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## hyou (Sep 19, 2013)

How did you setup your XD800's HP/LP settings? I have the same setup but haven't been able to find a satisfactory sound yet.
Also what's the reason you don't connect the center channel? I thought XD800's reason is to support center? Otherwise why not XD600?


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## julioengineer (Jan 14, 2015)

hyou said:


> How did you setup your XD800's HP/LP settings? I have the same setup but haven't been able to find a satisfactory sound yet.
> Also what's the reason you don't connect the center channel? I thought XD800's reason is to support center? Otherwise why not XD600?


I don't use the center because it muddies the front imaging and I recommend disconnecting it regardless of which route you go. I am using the 800 because I have channels 7 and 8 bridged to a DVC 2 Ohm sub in the trunk wired for a 4 ohm load which is what the amp likes. If you dont have plans for a sub then the 600 is fine. Channels 1 and 2 are HP for the fronts at one click below 200hz. 3 and 4 are HP for the rears also at one click below 200hz. 5 and 6 are LP at around 100 - 110 hz for the under seat woofers. As mentioned before 7 and 8 are LP at about 170hz for the ported sub in the trunk. I have the front channels of Technics harness y'ed to 1,2,5, and 6 so that it comes out as a 3 way speaker and the rear channels feed 3,4,7 and 8. Play with the levels to get a good mix of all the speakers. If you have any questions PM me and we can make arrangements to talk, much easier than trying to write all of this down. Hope this helps.


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## hyou (Sep 19, 2013)

Thanks so much for the elaboration! I'll give it a try and PM you if have more questions


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