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      12-08-2021, 11:33 AM   #1
neoprufrok
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Audio System Build Thread - Focal Subs and Helix Amp/DSP

So when I decided on the options I wanted in my M5 Comp, B&W was high on the list. I've always liked their home stuff and own some of their headphones.

As a background - I do identify as audiophile at home (McIntosh Pre/Pro, Cary Audio Amps, Paradigm Signature Speakers, MIT/Transparent cabling, Rega Turntable, Arcam CD and Wyred For Sound Sonos Connect for Tidal Masters streaming). I go as crazy as room treatments, etc for my listening. So I have "trained ears" which means nothing to most people but having spent 20 years in audiophile-dom I know what I like.. sort of like high end cigars or wine - average person won't know, but someone who consumes a lot and educates themselves will know.

I was excited about the B&W because at base, their mid bass is a Kevlar based one and their tweeters are diamond coated in the BMW. Which is way better than most systems. I read about the problems, and hoped I could tune out with the EQ some stuff. When I listened, I noticed the system does sound good - but requires such high volume to really play well, combined with the glare in the midtreble - it's grating.

Since this is my long distance/daily car - and especially with the driver assistance letting you relax a little more - I wanted to really get the sound system right. My Mclaren is loud. My GT3 Touring is loud (thank you Akrapovic). But those cars aren't for daily... well the GT3 I still drive to work 3 days of the week.

So turned to my friend Ernie at Sound Innovations. He is a great great guy and did work on my previous RS4. Great installs and clean - also can do CF enclosures for lighter weight and does prefer RTA and DSP so he can tune in the cabin for SQ. When he told me a long time ago "I really only care about the front stage with maybe some rear fill" I knew I was talking to the right person.

So we decided to go with the following:

BlackVue DR750x-2Ch LTE Plus

Helix V12 DSP
We found that unlike other BMWs, in the B&W system, each tweeter and mid is separately driven by it's own amp channel - so the V12 will drive 12 channels. These leaves the rear doors out - but I listen to Studio mostly and the rear deck does a more important job of diffuse rear fill so we will power those. This also lets me keep the OEM interface and still change the OEM Sound Mode (Studio, Stage etc) and tweak the EQ to my liking. Ernie will use RTA and use the Helix DSP to make a flat curve for all the speakers combined... and this will be the flat curve on EQ. Allowing me to do whatever I need for the rest.

Helix P2 Amp This will power the 10" Focal Sub in the trunk.

Focal 8" Underseat Subs With better power from the Helix V12 and better SQ, this well help round out the mid bass as it transitions to the Sub.

And finally... (more pics attached - as it looks amazing)...
Focal Utopia 10WM Sub Excited about this. Ernie will be making a custom enclosure that will mount on the side of the trunk - so I can still use the space. The amps will go on the other side.

I'm excited to hear the final result. Having owned the car a month now - it's already a keeper. People ask why not the CS? I have a GT3 Touring Manthey Racing and 675LT to have fun in. I need a car that still is great to drive but more comfortable for my runs to SoCal (every month). This is that car.. the CS I want. But can't justify it as an everyday car.

Will keep you all updated and hope to have more pics soon!
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      12-08-2021, 03:42 PM   #2
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Wow! Cool project, please keep us updated.

I'm by no means an audiophile, but like you said, I know what I like. I was thinking of upgrading the B&W system, but decided against it since I have 0 knowledge about the tech and I don't know anyone I trust enough to pick it out for me haha

How much would an upgrade like this cost?
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      12-08-2021, 04:07 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by zdbmw View Post
Wow! Cool project, please keep us updated.

I'm by no means an audiophile, but like you said, I know what I like. I was thinking of upgrading the B&W system, but decided against it since I have 0 knowledge about the tech and I don't know anyone I trust enough to pick it out for me haha

How much would an upgrade like this cost?
Thanks! Probably with install and equipment around 10k. And that's with a shop I work with a lot. It's largely labor - as a lot of custom stuff has to be done and time to tune the system properly.
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      12-08-2021, 05:10 PM   #4
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Hefty! Good luck and I hope to see the finished product soon
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      12-09-2021, 05:41 PM   #5
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Love that Focal! Can't wait to see how it turns out and I'm guessing you can't wait to hear it! Cheers!
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      12-09-2021, 09:56 PM   #6
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Well... thanks to the supply chain issues... this may take awhile to get the amps here.
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      12-10-2021, 01:00 PM   #7
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Update… The Helix Amps will take too long to get here. So going to go with something almost as good SQ wise…

Match Up 10DSP
Will wire all the fronts (8 channels - 2 for L/C/R and 2 underseat subs). The rear doors and deck will go off the factory - which is fine, I usually use Studio anyways.

For the sub amp we will go with this:
Helix M 1 X
This has plenty of power to drive the Focal Utopia and pairs up well with it.

Slight speed bump, but i’m not complaining - seeing as how some people can’t even get B&W or other features due to the chip/supply chain issues.
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      12-29-2021, 11:52 AM   #8
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Update: Everything is installed... and it sounds sooooo goooooood. Breaking in the amp and speakers more and it's certainly opening up the sound. Will post more pictures soon and impressions once break in is near done.
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      12-29-2021, 12:00 PM   #9
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So will you be changing your signature to reflect all that has been added to this one vehicle ?
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      01-08-2022, 10:01 PM   #10
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So finally getting some time to post the pics.

I want to first shout out Ernie at Sound Innovations in the Bay Area, Cali. He is a master and a consummate professional. Doesn't oversell and tells you what you need but will still work with your wishes. He did Joe Rogan's GT3 system with a CF sub and he's done my cars in the past.

Sound review - the car sounds about 100x better. Still not like my home system or my Desktop McIntosh DAC to B&W P9 headphones but for a car it's as good as I've heard in a long while.

The biggest bang for the buck like any home system or any car system is to room correct, or in this case, cabin correct. The B&W stock system is decent, and with the EQ you can do some work. But I was really just guessing based on what my ears could hear. You really should do an RTA of the channels and figure out how to best correct for each channel. The biggest issue I could hear was a midrange to low treble glare that keeps you from cranking up the volume.

So I chose my system basically to work on this. We ended up using MATCH since it offers that level of DSP tuning and 10 channels - which lets us basically due the front mid and tweets separate (x 3 for L/C/R and the two 8" below seat). It also ups the steady state power and is a much higher quality amp than stock.

I don't have his RTA pics, but he provided the work he put in on each channel and what he tuned (see below). I asked him to tune to neutral before I sat down with him. Once installed and I sat in the car, we added some treble. The Helix M1X has it's own sub control knob we hid in that far left cubby hole near the steering wheel.

We also found an issue with the 8" below seat. Unlike other BMWs it seems to be be connected to weird air spaces and resonates stuff on the M5 Comp chassis like crazy - given the speaker is a major upgrade and the power as well. We had to tune those resonances out by doing a higher cutoff to the sub than we wanted at 70... probably will go lower later.

The benefit to all this is that the signal that the BMW iDrive sends to the amp is the same - so i can still use the different BMW DSP modes and EQ.

How does it sound? Glorious... but not 100% there.

It is much more neutral and lets the mids shine without that glare. Things pop out much more and sound staging is rock steady since most of the focus is on the front. Rear deck and doors we tuned way down. Clarity is impressive and the bass kicks perfectly. A very musical bass and not meant for SPL contests. In songs that actually use string bass, you can actually discern it's an wood instrument generating the bass vs. some synthesized bass. But put in some heavy hip hop bass or EDM and it does the job and then some. I'm super happy.

Where it still lacks is that final resolution that I hear in my home system and my headphones. Likely it's the speakers themselves. They're very good - but I may swap them out for Focal's later.

Here are the pics of the DSP work. Keep reading for install pics.
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      01-08-2022, 10:10 PM   #11
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So the install. I wanted the cleanest, least intrusive install possible. I wanted to be able to use my full trunk and fold down the rear. The only thing that should be visible was the actual Focal Sub cone. That was simply to radiate into the trunk.

Ernie and the Sound Innovations team basically used that cubby hole on the driver's side trunk and removed part so they could mount the amps deep and then added the fiberglass custom enclosure next.

In the pictures below you can see they fashioned an aluminum bracket to mount the amps.

What's impressive is that the Focal doesn't need a huge volume which makes it ideal and there's no vibration to the frame or trunk. Really well done.

Ernie actually made a custom rubber surround to hide the rather ostentatious aluminum ring on the Focal Utopia sub. It sits perfect and allows me to still be super practical. That said, it isn't exactly stealth - so I'm careful where I open the trunk. He's working on a grill that will help hide the speaker better and protect it.

Anyways I'm super impressed by the craftsmanship. I'm planning to bring my GT3 Touring to him to work on stuff with a CF sub enclosure. He's that good!

Enjoy the pics
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      01-08-2022, 10:13 PM   #12
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Somehow didn't upload the rest.. here it is
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      01-09-2022, 02:08 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoprufrok View Post
So the install. I wanted the cleanest, least intrusive install possible. I wanted to be able to use my full trunk and fold down the rear. The only thing that should be visible was the actual Focal Sub cone. That was simply to radiate into the trunk.

Ernie and the Sound Innovations team basically used that cubby hole on the driver's side trunk and removed part so they could mount the amps deep and then added the fiberglass custom enclosure next.

In the pictures below you can see they fashioned an aluminum bracket to mount the amps.

What's impressive is that the Focal doesn't need a huge volume which makes it ideal and there's no vibration to the frame or trunk. Really well done.

Ernie actually made a custom rubber surround to hide the rather ostentatious aluminum ring on the Focal Utopia sub. It sits perfect and allows me to still be super practical. That said, it isn't exactly stealth - so I'm careful where I open the trunk. He's working on a grill that will help hide the speaker better and protect it.

Anyways I'm super impressed by the craftsmanship. I'm planning to bring my GT3 Touring to him to work on stuff with a CF sub enclosure. He's that good!

Enjoy the pics
That's exactly what I'm thinking of doing. Like you, I still want max functionality out of my trunk. You mentioned swapping out for Focal potentially in the future — I don't know what the stock size speakers are, does Focal make the same size for an easy swap? Im really hoping you'll say yes, lol.
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      01-10-2022, 03:43 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by omgmike View Post
That's exactly what I'm thinking of doing. Like you, I still want max functionality out of my trunk. You mentioned swapping out for Focal potentially in the future — I don't know what the stock size speakers are, does Focal make the same size for an easy swap? Im really hoping you'll say yes, lol.
I actually don't know. Do you have H/K Speakers? I have to admit, one of my superficial reasons for not switching out all the speakers was how the B&W Speakers look under the LED lights. Also - supposedly the tweeters are diamond coated and woofers are Kevlar that is the basis for B&W audio.

I'll ask.
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      01-10-2022, 10:06 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoprufrok View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by omgmike View Post
That's exactly what I'm thinking of doing. Like you, I still want max functionality out of my trunk. You mentioned swapping out for Focal potentially in the future — I don't know what the stock size speakers are, does Focal make the same size for an easy swap? Im really hoping you'll say yes, lol.
I actually don't know. Do you have H/K Speakers? I have to admit, one of my superficial reasons for not switching out all the speakers was how the B&W Speakers look under the LED lights. Also - supposedly the tweeters are diamond coated and woofers are Kevlar that is the basis for B&W audio.

I'll ask.
I'll have the H/K speakers because B&W wasn't an available option when I ordered, and still isn't.
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      01-11-2022, 10:58 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by omgmike View Post
I'll have the H/K speakers because B&W wasn't an available option when I ordered, and still isn't.
I see. If I was in that situation I would for sure replace the front stage. I'm waiting on my guy to find out about Focal.
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      01-12-2022, 12:55 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoprufrok View Post
I see. If I was in that situation I would for sure replace the front stage. I'm waiting on my guy to find out about Focal.
Yeah, no way I'll be happy with stock. At the very least I'll replace the front and add a sub. Let me know what your guy finds out, really appreciate you asking for me!
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      01-25-2022, 01:50 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoprufrok View Post
I see. If I was in that situation I would for sure replace the front stage. I'm waiting on my guy to find out about Focal.
did your guy ever get back to you?
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      01-29-2022, 04:22 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neoprufrok View Post
I see. If I was in that situation I would for sure replace the front stage. I'm waiting on my guy to find out about Focal.
Do you mind if we ask for a price range for this job? It looks amazing! Do you think he could rebuild that box and ship it to the east coast lmao

Dang I wonder if we could put together a group buy so it makes sense for them to build a mold!! lol

Last edited by ResidualJinx; 01-29-2022 at 04:42 PM..
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      02-19-2022, 12:08 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ResidualJinx View Post
Do you mind if we ask for a price range for this job? It looks amazing! Do you think he could rebuild that box and ship it to the east coast lmao

Dang I wonder if we could put together a group buy so it makes sense for them to build a mold!! lol
Thanks! It was about 8k parts and labor. I'll ask him if he can build the sub box but the issue is that we remove that plastic pocket so i'm not sure how he cut it out so I'm not sure if its necessarily a plug and play.
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      02-19-2022, 12:11 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by omgmike View Post
did your guy ever get back to you?
Shoot sorry.... totally dropped off my list. I'll ask.
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