BMW F10/F11 Base Audio upgrade. Adding an amplifier to the system
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2022
- Many of the Non-US owner are facing the same issue: the base audio system in BMW F10/F11 (both pre and post Lci) is awful. (in the US, the default audio system is an equivalent of European HiFi)
Since Base Audio system has no dedicated amplifier, 99% of BAV Sound, Alpha One, and other system upgrades simply won't work since you can't just plug in new system in the old wiring harness since there is none.
I couldn't find a video on how to install a dedicated amp for the system, so I made one while learning. Trial and error but finally the BMW F10 base audio system is upgraded.
...and boy oh boy does it sound good
Enjoy.
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Super helpful video! Had a really hard time finding someone who does a eu Base audio upgrade. Thanks for the help :)
My pleasure :)
Amazing video, everything well explained. Keep up the work!
Thanks a lot! Hopefully not a lot of work awaits :)
Great video. Thanks very much. Couldn't have done it without this.
always a pleasure
Hi there! Good video! Wanna do this on my f20! One question: how did you connected the amp to the multimedia system? Did you used a wiring kit? Did you removed your dashboard to do that? Cheers
In the set I bought there was a wiring harness designed to take the signal from underseat woofers. So there was no need at all to remove the head unit or mingle with center console in any way.
Basically you plug in the original under-seat woofer connector into this harness, and the harness has its own connector that you later plug into the woofers. I highly recommend checking Audiokit website (Finnish company) as they sell complete sets for different cars and existing stereo systems, just to understand what you might need for an upgrade.
Could you post any update video or show how you did the final amp install? I just received my speaker set and doing the install next week. I also bought the original amp mount but need to install something between the amp and mount because the amp needs to be installed a little deeper.
Are you finnish btw? i am 😄bought my speaker set from audiokit too.
I've been living in Finland for a while now :) Audiokit are the best for these! For the winter I simply made a "temporary mount" from a piece of plywood, covered in with STP damping material and just inserted 2 screws to hold down the amp so it doesn't slide around. It's currently located under the floor of the trunk (still) since I plan to do some soundproofing of the trunk plus I just ordered new speakers to replace my HK in the doors/rear shelf, so will need to re-adjust the settings on the amp.
I think the final install will only happen in spring when the weather is nice to be able to work on the car outside :)
I can’t seem to find the wiring harness on their website. Have you got a link for them? The google translate from finish is not that great either. Thank you 🙏🏼
Hi! Try reaching out to them directly (that's what I did), since I'm not sure whether they are selling just the harness straight from the website, but I'm sure they can sell it to you if you just reach out to their customer service :) They speak perfect English
You connect the underseat subwofer with the amp. So my question is, does this step amplify the speakers on the door automaticly or do I need to connect the speakers from the doors seperately to the amp?
They are amplified automatically in this case. So no need to wire the door speakers to the sub. The only thing you will see, would be if you change the balance between front and rear dramatically (e.g. 90% rear) you would have almost no bass. So bass kind of remains "in the front" and the more you drive it back - the less you would feel it. I always kept my balance around 40 front 60 rear so it worked perfectly fine, but just a thing to consider
Strange for me, I have pricelist from 2014 in Slovakia and there was no possible to order car with base system only HiFI, HK or BO.
I know it varies from market to market, but in a lot of EU countries you could indeed order it with Base stereo
Can you send all links for parts you used? And where and how to you wired the signal for the amp?
So I used this system (except for the door speakers): www.audiokit.fi/tuote/audiokit-bmw-perusaudion-paivityspaketti-premium
The wiring came with it, which definitely made my life a lot easier. The wiring was effectively "plug&play" where my only job was to plug in the "left/right"/"front/back" in the marked holes in the amp and that's that. Afterwards just tune the sound a bit, play with crossovers and it's a done deal
Hello from sweden, I’m in a very similar situation. Bought a bmw f10 with base stereo system and replaced the speakers and installed tweeters but would want quite a bit more power and found this video. The wiring that was included. is it just plug and play in subwoofers under seats and then connect that wiring to amplifier. how does it work with remote signal? is there a manual included that shows how everything is gonna be connected? 😁
Hi! In my case the wiring was indeed a “plug-and-play”. The hardest thing was to take apart the interior to pull the wires properly but connecting them was extremely easy even for someone who has never done this before. There was a manual included plus the guys at Audiokit were super helpful when I reached out for help (in my case one of the wires was labeled incorrectly which caused quite a bit of confusion). After installation, in terms of connectivity I had zero issues. Since this one is not wired into your head unit, you are basically not changing anything in terms of your media system, just the sound output.
@@asking_for_a_friend Okay, on the ai sonic amplifier, did you connect + and - for subwoofer on ”speaker” and mid and tweeters on ”high input” connectors or how did you connect it in to the amplifier? 😁
@@twebbie4271so in my case, on the amp, there were “front” and “back” wire holes with Left/Right channels for outputs. Subs went to “front” (upper connectors) whereas mid/high went to “rear” (lower connectors). Left and right respectively
@@asking_for_a_friend okay thank you very much 😄
@@asking_for_a_friendIn the high-input on the amplifier (the left side of the amplifier if you look how you placed the amp in the trunk) , did you connect on both ”High input Front” and ”High input Rear”? because in the video it looks like it is only connected to ”high input front”
Ostitko ton Audio systemsin HLAC bmw valmiin johtosarjan vai miten toimit?
Moi! I bought all of it from the guys at audiokit. Feel free to reach out to them, they are super helpful in recommending the right package based on your car
Where's your factory amp?
There was none. The whole video is about installing the amp to the base audio system that doesn’t have the amp by default.
Show result in video please
The car was sold, but in short - it looks completely stock but it sounds a bit better than original BMW H&K audio system. The stage is not the same, since HK has more speakers, but this system has more bass and overall more power. I have an F10 with Bang&Olufsen now and I would say that the setup I made in this video is very close in terms of power delivery but it costs a fraction :)