Most liked posts in thread: Bavsound speaker upgrade kit

Put in the BavSound midranges and tweeters.
It took less than an hour taking my time.
Sound is cleaner and better balanced,
and slightly less efficient than the stock
speakers. Sounds significantly better
at higher volumes than stock. Less
upper mid-bass prominence than stock.
No instructions (despite site saying all
kits come with detailed instructions) but
very simple plug and play.
Replaced one of the lower front woofers
from stock HIFI to the newer HK one.
Also easy plug and play, slightly more
efficient than stock, more deep bass extension, and more even frequency
response. Measures 2 ohms just like the stock ones. Will do the other side next
time I have a free 1/2 hour to do it.
Today doesn’t look good.
Might get to the rear speakers this
weekend, more to follow.

 

Put in the club door 6x9 sub since it’s the
easier side. Changed the low pass
filter from a Butterworth design to a
Linkwitz-Riley design at 115 Hz crossover
by reducing the capacitor and keeping the
inductor and the Zobel resistor-capacitor
pair the same. The inductor was
expensive and I didn’t want to change it
and also decided I wanted a higher
crossover after hearing the initial results.
They’re not as sensitive as I hoped (rated
at 90 db/W but they sound lower than that).
Adds a subtle amount of low bass fill but
it’s hard to fully evaluate with the stock
rear left speakers still in place. Will do that
when I have a little more time since the
rear seats and both the rear and trunk
panels and C and B pillars have to come
out to replace the rear left speaker.
Hoping the left side is a little better since
it has a bigger volume behind it than the
one in the little club door.

 

I believe Euro Audio Design makes them
but pictures show a Bavsound logo on
the back of the magnet assembly.
They’re said to be designed specifically
to play nice with the weird MINI and BMW
oem amps that have different frequency
responses on the various channels.
ECS tuning sells some of their drivers
that look identical to the Bavsound ones
except for the labeling, but they don’t list a
set as specifically being for my application.

 

I do. I emailed them and they said the
non HK 10 speaker setup (HIFI option)
(which I have) uses the same kit as the
HK 10 speaker setup.
The standard 6-speaker setup uses
their 4” coaxial driver kit instead of
the separate 4” inch midrange and
pillar tweeter in the kit linked above.
(life is complicated)

 

Me too.
Getting close to pulling the trigger
on the BavSound front mid and tweeter
upgrade.
Also changing my mind about the front
lower door speakers. May just swap
from the oem HIFI to the oem HK
drivers there (65133422637 to 65139194841)
instead of woofers from an aftermarket
component set like the Polk Mm6502.
They’re a more direct swap physically).
They are said to have better bass response and clarity than the HIFI ones.
They’re probably a better match with the
current system in terms of impedance and
sensitivity.
They’re already listed on realoem and some
other sites as a part that supersedes and
replaces the HIFI driver, so and some have
said it does sound better when swapped into
the HIFI system.
Never felt that rear speakers add that much
to the soundstage and experience except for
the rare occasions when there are passengers
in the back, or for a little bass fill as those
frequencies are low enough that localization
and wave cancellations are not really a factor.
Will leave the rear drivers stock for now.
If someone made a decent 6x9 subwoofer might
swap a pair of them into the back but that market
is pretty empty.

 

Got components from Mouser and
Parts Express for a low pass filter
for the 6x9 subs. I designed an
80 Hz 2nd order filter with a low
DC resistance toroidal 5.6 mH inductor
and 1470 uf of capacitance, plus a
Zobel circuit with 220 uf and a 2 ohm
non-inductive power resistor in series
across the output of the filter/input to
the speaker.

 

Put in the left rear CDT 6x9 sub and low pass filter yesterday and disconnected the rear tweeter.
All the speaker mods are done now.
Pretty easy except a little work getting the left
rear seat upright out.
Didn’t need to take out the C-pillar or the rear
boot side trim.
The rear subs fills in the low bass nicely.
It’s subtle on most tracks.
Accurate rather than overbearing.
Have the settings -1 for bass and 2 clicks
to the rear on the fader.
The BAV mids and tweeter combined
with the HK lower door speaker and
the rear 6x9s handling bass mainly
below 100 Hz or so seems to be a
good combo for the HIFI system in
early 2nd gen MINIs.

 

I suspect the HIFI system is the best
candidate for this upgrade.
The base system doesn’t have enough
power to make it worthwhile to do, and
the later model HK system will likely not
show as much improvement with the
BavSound drivers.

 

Her’s a link to the kit.
https://www.bavsound.com/products/bsd-s1-r55r56r57r58r59-hk-front-sound-stage-for-r-gen-mini-cooper-harman-kardon

 

Changed my mind about the rear speakers
and ordered these CDT CL-69 SUB CF.2 6x9 subs.

https://www.cdtaudio.com/2ohm/subwoofers-2ohm/cl69subcf2.php

Hoping they will fit.

Might also make a low pass first or second
order low pass filter and unplug the rear tweeter.