BMW e90 Base Stereo

Upgrade Gide

By Rocky
Special Thanks to e90post.com,
MusicarNW and Technic
 Introduction
BMW is offering different audio level for their 3 series, one of these is the base stereo setup
(Which is being upgraded in this guide). And unfortunately is the worst.

Why it is so bad?
- Lakes of tweeter.
- Has poor quality speakers for fronts, backs and underseat mid-base speakers.
- Has no dedicated high class audio amplifier, only the one built into the head unit.
- The amplified audio signals from the head unit are highly equalized in order to
compensate the bad quality speakers installed.

What do we need to fix the audio quality?

Staring from the head unit, a
digital audio processor is needed
to flatten the highly equalized
audio outputs from the OEM head
unit as shown in the right audio
spectrums Thanks to Ken from FRONT REAR
MusicNW-. The JL CleanSweep -
used in this project is accepting a full range amplified signals and produces a flattened
and line level outputs for the next stage which is the amplifier.

As you can see from the spectrums above, the front outputs are having the low and high
frequencies boosted, and the rears having low frequencies completely filtered. Applying
the rear signals to the CleanSweep will cause unsuccessful calibration because the
processors supposed to receive full band audio signal, and to overcome this the
processor will try to boost the low frequencies as much as possible to receive a flattened
signal thus unwanted noises is expected, I will discuss how to overcome this in the last
stage of installation.

In this project I used the JL XD600/6, it is a class D aftermarket amplifier, and it can
accept 2, 4 or 6 channels and outputs 6 channels. The other good thing about this unit is
the ability to HP or LP filter any pair of the 6 channels.

Now, you have a good amplified signal that need to be fed to a good aftermarket
speakers, you will need to upgrade the front door speakers, install tweeters, upgrade
underseat mid-bass speakers and optionally upgrade back speakers.

In this project, I upgraded fronts, underseats and installed tweeters.

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 Equipment List
1. Focal IFBMW-S 10cm 2-Way Component Car Speakers and tweeter trims:

As you can see, the set contains all necessary items to upgrade BMW e90 front door
speakers, even a set of 4 door panel retainers are included. These will replace your broken
ones if any.

You will need to replace your existing tweeter door trims in order to accommodate the
tweeter properly, otherwise the set supplied with special mount that allows you to mount
the tweeters on you existing trim, however you will need to drill a hole to pass the cable
and it will look ugly in my opinion.

The part number of the OEM tweeter trims are:

With HARMAN KARDON Logo:

Door front left 51337270891
Door front right 51337270892

No Logo, Black cloth behind

grille to hide tweeter:
Door front left 51337258575
Door front right 51337258576

No Logo, No cloth behind grille:

(I ordered these)
Door front left 51337171201
Door front right 51337171202

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 2

 2. Earthquake
Sound SWS-8XI Shallow Woofer System Series - Pair of 2 Ohm 600 Watt 8" Car
Subwoofer and pair of Speaker Adapter:

Found this set at Amazon and includes the installation spacers which are really a good
quality built with connection wires.

3. JL Audio CL441DSP CleanSweep OEM Audio Interface:

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 4. XD600/6 - JL Audio 600W 6-Channel Class D Amplifier:

5. Technic Harness:

These set of cables are intended to make your installation 100% PnP and reversible,
Technic a member of e90Post forum is providing a complete set of cables which are really
of a good quality.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 4

 6. Amplifier installation kit:

Scosche Revopak4 4-Gauge Revo Series Single Amp Power and Audio Kit-Silver/Black.

The kit includes:

- 17' reVo RCA Audio Cable.
- 17' 4 AWG Power Cable with Protective Mesh Cover.
- 4' 4 AWG Ground Cable.
- Mini Wafer Fuse Holder with 120A fuse.
- 17' Remote Turn On Lead.
- Water Proof Grommet.

The power cables are very flexible, and are real 4 AWG that is the size recommended by
XD600/6, and this set is really one of the best quality products available around.

The supplied audio cables are too long for my installation, and the package includes only
one stereo pair, so I decided to buy two short RCA pairs, also supplied fuse is very high
rated for this amplifier, ordered set of 60A fuses.

Rockford Fosgate twisted pair 6-Feet Signal Cable db Link MANL60 60 Amp Mini ANL Fuses

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 7. Other installation materials:

- GTMAT 10 sqft Automotive Audio Dampening 50mil PRO - Noise Reduction Installation Kit.

3M Fastener TB3571/TB3572 Hook/Loop Black Frost King R338H Sponge Rubber Foam Tape 3/16-
Inch, Black

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 6

 8. Amplifier Mount:
Best place to mount the XD600/6 is OEM amplifier location, and since I have no OEM
amplifier fitted, I had to build my custom mount made of wood.

This is the dimensions of the mount in details:

To secure the mount in place, I put 3M fastener tape at the leg built under the mount. This
will avoid the mount and amplifier rattling during car move.

Photos of the one I made:

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 Installation

My complete installation equipment:

Installation steps:
1. Upgrading front doors speakers, and installing tweeters and tweeter trims.
2. Upgrading the underseat speakers.
3. Running the cables from front console and underseat speakers to trunk.
4. Installing JL CleanSweep and JL XD600/6 in the trunk.
5. Removing head unit, and connecting Technic Harness.
6. Calibration and adjustment.
7. Enjoying, and some photos.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 8

 1.Upgrading front doors speakers, and installing tweeters and tweeter trims:
Placing tweeters into the door trims, you will need to remove the tweeter housing and front
grille in order to be able to insert the tweeter itself into place:

While trying to place the tweeter in place, you will notice three clips that holds the tweeter in
place, make sure the three clips are holding the body of the tweeter to avoid any rattles or
noises.

Next, we will remove the door panel and original door trims:

Start by removing door trim using a plastic trim removal from inside to outside as shown below
in red, circles in blue shows you the locations of trim retainers. Try to keep the removal tool as
close as possible to the retainer location to avoid breaking the trim. At the end the trim is
hocked into door panel so be careful when you reach to the end.
Then you will need to remove 4 Torx T20 screws marked with green circles below.

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 Now you are ready to remove door panel by inserting the removal tool just below the tweeter
box, and start unclip the panel all around as shown:

After removal of the panel, disconnect speaker connector, window control key connector and
door handle connection.

Next, remove the tweeter trim from inside to back. It is very straight forward.

One of the best videos to illustrate this whole process is Here.

The panel removed:

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 Remove the OEM speaker by removing three bolts.

OEM vs Focal speaker:

You will notice that I have applied a rubber foam strip around the new speaker to seal the
mount to door panel. OEM speaker has the same foam strip.

Applying the audio deadening materials to door panel, to increase isolation and improve audio
quality:

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 Door panel finished upgrading, showing the upgraded speaker mounted and crossover wires set
installed:

Before proceeding with panel mounting in place, have a look at the 9 door panel retainers as
some of them might get damaged during removal. I already have 4 spares supplied with Focal
speakers set.

After changing the tweeter trims, it is time to place the panel back in place. Best practice is to
have the door window completely down, and start mounting the panel from the above side
parallel to the window, then you can move around the panel.

It is better to test speaker and tweeter before moving to the other door which is very similar to
passenger door illustrated above except that the diver door has no handle.

Passenger door panel after updating:

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 2.Upgrading the underseat speakers:
Starting at the passenger side, we first need to remove four Torx T50 bolts that mounts the
seat in place, two in front and two at the back.
1) Move seat forward enough to expose rear bolts holding seat tracks to chassis.
2) Move seat backwards enough to expose front bolts holding seat tracks to chassis.
Be careful not to disconnect the cables connected to the underneath of the seat itself as it
contains cables to the head airbags and will raise an alarm if disconnected. If you are afraid,
you can disconnect the battery before proceeding. You dont need to completely remove the
seat just incline it back as possible so you have enough room to work at the speaker area.

REAR FRONT

Speaker grille is mounted with 6 Phillips PH2 screws as shown in the right photo below, just
remove these and you will expose the speaker enclosure underneath.

To get better access, remove the plastic door trim that hold the side of the carpet in place, you
will need to remove it anyway to run the new cables.

Speaker enclosure is mounted to the vehicle with two 10mm nuts marked with red in the below
photo. Remove them and the enclosure is ready for removal, and dont forget to remove the
audio connector.

(Photo from another project)

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 Enclosure removed:

The stock speakers are actually glued into the enclosure! So they need to be pried from their
location. This is a silly job!

Stock speaker removed:

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 Stock speaker vs EarthQuake SWS: (You can hear the difference )

I cleaned the enclosure from the glue residuals, then added rubber foam all around the
enclosure mount position:

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 And here is the final, after inserting the speaker spacers supplied with the EQ set, and the
speaker itself:

We can now put the speaker back in place. You will need to jumper the existing connector
coming from the vehicle harness and you will need to run new cable to trunk for each
underseat speaker.

This photo shows the jumper supplied by Technic, without these jumpers you will lose audio
going to door speakers.

(Photo from another project)

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 16

 3. Running the cables from front console and underseat speakers to trunk:
At this step we will only route the cables, I left removing the head unit and actually connecting
the harness after completing the installation.

Three sets of cables need to run to the trunk:

1. From Head unit to CleanSweep processor.
2. From Amplifier back to head unit.
3. From drivers side underseat speaker.
4. From passengers side underseat speaker.

In my installation, I ran head unit extension cables through the passenger side, and seems I
was wrong as the cables were short of about 70cm to reach the location of the amplifier. You
should run the cables through the drivers side.

The diagram below shows the routs you need to use (Not the same as my installation),
colored as the above list:

To run the head unit cables, you need to remove a plastic panel under the glove box it is
mounted by two torx screws. Then remove the right plastic panel by simply unclipping it from
place, then remove the door/floor plastic
trim the same way by unclipping it from its
place. Through the B-Pillar trim pass the
cables including underseat speaker cables
to the rear door trim, and here you need to
remove the rear seat cushion by pulling up
on front corners of it to disengage cushion
retainers.

Do the same thing at the drivers side.

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 4. Installing JL CleanSweep and JL XD600/6 in the trunk:

As described earlier, best place to fix the amplifier is the OEM amplifier location, using the
mount built above. For easier wiring of the amplifier, dont screw it in place till you finish.

You need to remove the trunk left side panel to gain access to the amplifier area:
- Remove the CD tray by sliding your fingers under it and pulling up.

- Using the trim removal tool, remove the clips holding the panel off. They are
consisting of 2 pieces, you will want to pry these apart. Do not try to pry the whole thing
off the panel at once, you will break it. Once you have separated and removed the first
piece then pry the second piece off.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 18

 Since I have a factory fitted TV module, I couldnt find enough space to mount the
CleanSweep in the equipment are under trunk removable panel:

So I decided to mount it in the left area of storage space under the trunk panel:

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 - Amplifier connections:

A. Power: (+12V), (GND) and (Remote).

(+12V) terminal need to be fed from battery directly, and since the battery is located to
the right part the trunk we will need to rout the cable carefully to the amplifier. After
looking carefully in the trunk I found the best route is the support arm located at the top
of the trunk:

Important Notes:
- Dont connect (+12) terminal to vehicle battery till you completely finish all wiring.
- Make sure the fuse holder is just near the battery, I came across some installations
where the fuse was placed at the amplifier side! This is very DANGEROUS as it could
cause a fire or vehicle electronics damage if the cable get spliced in any place in the
route to the amplifier.

(GND) terminal is much easier, as a ground point is just near the amplifier location,
remove the GND nut and put the ground terminal:

(REMOTE) terminal is fed from the extension cable coming from the head unit.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 20

 B. RCA audio cables from CleanSweep.
We need to run two pairs of RCA audio cables from CleanSweep to the amplifier.

C. Speaker outputs to head unit.

Eight terminals need to be mounted to the extension cable going to the head unit.

- CleanSweep connections:
A. Power: (+12V), (GND) and (Remote In).
I connected the three terminals to the corresponding points in the amplifier.

B. RCA audio cables to the amplifier.

C. Speaker inputs from head unit.

Eight terminals need to be jumpered to the extension cable coming from the head unit.

You can connect battery cable now:

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 5. Removing head unit, and connecting Technic Harness:
- Remove the dash big trim that holds the center AC vents, by carefully prying the edge
where it meets the passenger side door. It will come out easily. There are 4 retainers
holds the trim ash shown:

- You then need to remove two cable connectors at the back of trim just behind the
center vents. These attaches the hazard light switch and AC blend switch.

- A third connector is just behind the Start/Stop switch.

Actually, you can just partially lift the passenger side of the trim, just to get some room
above A/C control panel so you can remove it easily, as sown:

- Remove the AC control panel, using your hand just pull it out with little force.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 22

 - Once removed you will find three plugs which simply unclip. The center and right hand
clips in the picture have a bracket which you unclip and hinge downward.

- Once the AC controller is out, you will need to remove the outer plastic trim surrounding
the head unit by carefully pulling it out by your hands. Note that the trim has a flat type
cable running to the AC controller which plugs into the left hand side connector shown
earlier.

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 - Time to remove the head unit itself. It is held in by 4 Philips screws.
- Slide the unit out. You will need to place the gear into the (D) position in order to clear
some space in front of the head unit.
- You will need to unclip antenna, CID display, and main connectors from the head unit to
clear it.
- Carefully unclip fiber connector from factory main connector before proceeding.
- Connect the main Technic harness in between the factory connector and the head unit.

- Insert the fiber connector to the new connector that is goes to the head unit.
- Connect the two Technic extension cables going to the trunk.
- As you can notice, the extension cable connector with the factory is a bit bulky, and will
block the head unit from sliding back in place. You can hide it at the back area of the
head unit place, and to the left side there is a grove you can use to fit it there.
- Put back the head unit back connectors, and insert the head unit back in place, then
screw the 4 Philips screws.
- Put back the plastic trim that surround the head unit front, and dont forget to rout the
cable back to the A/C control panel area.
- Put the A/C control panel back in place, after connecting the 3 connectors.
- Put back the dash trim back in place, by simply pushing it at the retainers areas.

BMW e90 Base Stereo Upgrade Guide By Rocky Page | 24

 6. Calibration and adjustment.
Here, we need to adjust the amplifier settings, and calibrate the CleanSweep.

- Calibrating the CleanSweep:

1. Turn the CleanSweep master volume control all the way down (Counterclockwise).
2. Adjust the head unit Fader, Balance, Bass, Treble controls all to center position.
3. Put the calibration CD in the head unit and play Track-1.
4. You can raise the CleanSweep volume a little bit, just to make sure the CD is playing.
5. Using a small pointed tool press the CALIBRATE button on the top of the
CleanSweep.
6. Process will take approximately 20 secs.
7. You should have front channel indicators in GREEN, and back channels flashing RED.
This is normal because as described earlier, back channels are high pass filtered and
the processor is trying to get a full range flat response. This is not a real problem,
however after contacting JL Audio they advised me to jumper front channel to both
front and back device input for calibration, then you can connect back the front and
back channels

- Adjusting the amplifier:

After doing some searches over the forum, I came across a post by Technic who has
adjusted a similar system as follows:

- Channel 1/2 (Front):

Filter Mode: HP
Filter Frequency: 135Hz (27 clicks)
Input Sens: Minimum (7 Oclock)

- Channel 3/4 (Back):

Filter Mode: HP
Filter Frequency: 135Hz (27 clicks)
Input Sens: Minimum (7 Oclock)

- Channel 5/6 (Underseats):

Filter Mode: LP
Filter Frequency: 174Hz (30 clicks)
Input Sens: (9 Oclock)

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 7. Enjoying, and some after finish photos:

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