[NealfromNZ]

Originally Posted by CTMike

You seem very knowledgeable, I’m trying to learn what I can… seeing references to 9 channels vs 8… and they seem to offer it as a drop in solution for individual audio, what would be the impact on making the swap now vs waiting for the one with additional channels?

Appreciate your insights.

Mike

Actually, looks like I’ve got it wrong for e90 platform for the number of channels needed ( 9 ) . Some other platforms have a higher channel count.

With lightwave there is 6 x 150 , 2 x 300 and 1 x 500-800 channels. ( conservative peak values depending on speaker
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So you could run IA speakers . The choice would be either don’t use centre channel and run a trunk sub or run the high powered sub channel into the centre speaker and protect it from getting too much power through gain control and dynamic range control. Just talk that through with bimmertech.

So you could go ahead ( sorry for the bad advice)

For context this is how I run my setup .

I run mine in a different way as I’m an old ex car stereo comp guy so mine is based around 3 way front with sub and use rear door speaker only for a bit of rear fill or turned up a bit if have rear passengers.

So my config is
No centre channel
4 channels used on front doors components , 2 channels to tweeters, two channels to front door midbass
2 high powered channels to underseat woofers
2 channels to rear doors running components with passive crossovers
1 channel to trunk sub.

All Speakers are individual time aligned with two dsp maps which are toggled via idrive ( surround setting in my case )

1 for driver seat tune
1 for passengers tune

Each speaker is individually measured for it’s frequency response and corrected in DSP to follow an apporaite house curve for the range that it plays in. Mid door speaker and underseat woofers phase aligned using time aligmnet on woofers. Woofers to sub also phase aligned.

All doors and door cards are treated with sound deadening ( great upgrade ) All door clips are treated with cloth Tessa tape to ensure no rattles.

Trunk lid and floor have sound deadening.

I this setup I’m getting a high end sound setup without going to esoteric equipment. Key is the dsp tune and sound deadening to a certain extent. IA speakers are a good starting point. But also a trunk sub will fill in the sub bass in a way the undersear woofers can’t.

With the bimmertech ask them about the DSP tune and what they have done.