Our first install is by Bing Xu of Simplicity in Sound (SIS) in San Jose, CA. Anyone who's been on DIYMobileAudio.com or followed him on CarAudiomag.com should be quite familiar with his clean, elegant style and high standard for audio quality. That description of course aptly applies to the Bimmer featured here.
Chief among his concerns for this build was the noise issue: "Late model BMWs are very noisy cars electrically, spitting out a ton of interference and have been known to induct noise directly into the circuit boards of amplifiers and passive crossover modules!" said Bing. Beyond that, in general his goals for this project were:
1. Maintain a totally stock appearance in the interior.
2. Achieve a clean and stealthy appearance in the trunk while maintaining as much space as possible.
3. Obtain a decent level of sound quality given the stock locations.
This was Bing's first install as a Morel dealer. As he explained, it's "a brand that I have always loved." He used the Morel Hybrid Ovation II 4" component set for the front stage with the tweeters mounted in the stock sail location. They dropped right in and even the stock foam fit perfectly.
Adapter rings were fabricated and the HOII 4" drivers mounted to them.
The area on the door card around the midrange was covered with damper and the speaker was bolted in place.
The car has the base Hi-FI system with no center channel, so Bing installed a Morel Integra Ovation 4" coaxial into the stock location.
In the fiberglass side box of approximately .7 cubic feet sits a Morel Ultimo SC10 2ohm subwoofer. It is also trimmed in a ring of graphite vinyl.
An overview of the trunk.
There are a pair of Mosconi AS200.4 four-channel amplifiers, one sends 200 watts to each midrange and tweeter, while the second unit powers the under seat woofers with 200 watts and sends a whopping 950 watts RMS at 2 ohms to the sub.
Some details on the build of the subwoofer enclosure: the fiberglass side box area was all taped up and a dozen or so layers of cloth were laid down. The mold was then pulled out of the car and trimmed to the desired shape. A ring baffle and a strip of low heat plastic was attached to the structure to give it shape, and fleece pulled. Once that dried, the entire thing was sanded a bit to get rid of the rough edges. Bing cut the back of the box open and reinforced the box from the inside with nine layers of mat. Two quarts of Duraglas/resin milkshake were then poured into the enclosure to seal everything and make the corners solid. The opening was sealed back up with six layers of cloth from the inside and out. Finally, the box was wrapped in trunk liner, and then dyed to a lighter shade to match the stock color. The trim ring was wrapped in vinyl and wire run into the box. Now it was ready for the subwoofer. The metal bracket at the top edge of the box meets up with a stock hole in the trunk so the enclosure can be secured with a single OEM plastic clip. The bottom of the enclosure is held in place by the fake floor.
See more at http://simplicity.elitecaraudio.org. Also read the announcement about SIS's new retail store: http://bit.ly/Vtdmml. You can find the shop here as well: http://www.facebook.com/simplicityinsound.
Our thanks to Bing Xu and Simplicity in Sound!
