So, did this last night. Took about 10 min of actual work, after a few hours reading the thread. Worked like a charm. This sounds soooooo much better than before.

 

I am interested to see if anyone has tried the software method of doing this I mentioned earlier. When I have some time I will RTA before and after the change and see if it made a difference in response.

 

I also did the channel swap today. However, instead of repinning the plug, I went the lazy route and used the swap harness from New Mini Stuff. It made an immediate and noticeable difference. Even if it's not free, this mod is HIGHLY worth doing. It takes the factory speakers from being disappointing to completely acceptable. The rear 6x9's can't move mountains, but mid-bass is significantly improved and the front stage comes through a lot clearer. This is the way the stereo should have come from the factory.

If you are considering an aftermarket speaker replacement, do this first. The channel swap is cheaper, easier and will be satisfactory for most non-audiophiles.

 

+1 on the newministuff harness. I got that built in to a harness for front speakers that go in the A Pillars. I'm so happy with the system now I'm not even going to go for the amplifier install that I was considering. I'm angry at Mini though for blocking bass to our rear speakers so they can sell the crappy HK System which does not even sound as good as this simple mod.
Phooey on you Mini !
I fart in your general direction.

 

Glad, I found you (sounds like an old fashion song) and i will try out the "Speaker turnaround", since the idea looks logical.
TOOL for removing the male pins : I tried a very cheap and simply made device,that did a good job :-)). Take 1 blind rivet ( POP )
ø 3mm length at least 15 mm, remove the mandrel( ø 1,5 mm) and carefully enlarge the hole to 2,5 mm. !. take a 2,0 mm drill 2. take the final 2,5mm drill.
Slip that device over the male pin whilst pushing the cable against the socket.Push the device until "klick" and the pin comes free :-))).Hallo from Hamburg , Germany

 

just did this pin swap today. I should have done this a LONG time ago. sound is much improved and it will at least hold me over until I get my Focal components, Kenwood deck and Soundstream amp installed. I highly recommend this swap, and the diagram posted 1 page back is really all you need to see.

 

I want to do the swap. is this all I need? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Delphi-Packard-Weather-Pack-Extractor-Tool-Weatherpack-/370504592169?pt=Race_Car_Parts&hash=item5643cb6b29&vxp=mtr
I read the first 5 pages of this thread but this thing is longgggg!

is there something better I can buy locally?

 

You could try an extractor from a car stereo store.

I just said "screw it" and spliced the wires and put a shrink seal on them :D

 

I'm a little nervous about disconnecting the battery. why does the first post say to disconnect the negative? I thought the positive is safer to disconnect and there would be no power going to the car?

 

well this is weird. I did the swap but don't notice a difference. also the fader left to right and front to rear didn't get swapped. I'm wondering if it was already swapped from the previous owner and I didn't notice the fader being swapped. I have a 07 MCS with "boost cd". I did the female end.

when using the fader, turning the **** to the left should make the sound goto the front if its swapped?

 

On both sides of the plug before you started. Unless someone did the swap behind the radio which is one hell of a task.

 

what do you mean?

 

If so then the previous owner may have swapped the wires behind the radio and then you came along and undid their work by swapping the wires again at the kick panel harness. Did you try the fader and balance before you did the swap?

 

ugh. I'm a clown. I did the swap again, but nothing changed. all the wires match up. I clearly don't understand the directions in the first post.

what I'm doing is finding for example BL/SW and SW/VI wires and swapping their positions. then doing GE/BR and BR/OR and so on down the list. by the time I finish the 8th pair, everything is back to original.

EDIT: found this photo, should be good to go now. on another note. the plastic piece that holds the plug against the car fell off down into a pocket. I couldn't reach it with my fingers.

 

Hi guys, is it possible somehow to view the pics in this tread i would like to make it myself( just interesting ) and can't see any pics or video?(

 

Pics are working just fine for me.
Check your browser.

 

I donno, i still don't see any pics in on the first page of the topic

 

Can anyone shed some light on what this harness is for in the little cubbie of my 07 cooper?

 

any tried a straw to remove the wires?

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75462

http://dorkus.net/pics/misc/bimmer/pin_extraction/4.jpg

 

So I did the swap today... took me an hour. Not hard for someone with mild mechanical skills. Used a T20 torx on the female connectors, worked like a charm.

My notes on the whole process:

1. When reinserting the wires into the molex connector after pushing out with the T20, understand that they're not meant to be changed around. A little bit of plastic gets removed when you push the wire out and the "fishhook" effect of the connector in the plastic is greatly reduced. The wire wants to pull out of the connector until you slide up the locking block then all is good. Also I wasn't able to get the connector attachment re-hooked behind the triangular trim piece. It's just shoved up in there without being attached to the metal bracket. Not a huge deal just something to be aware of.

2. I'm no audiophile but the sound performance increase is mild at best. I do notice an increase in bass response/performance but I wouldn't classify it as earth-shattering. If you are leery of doing this and not very mechanically inclined I would quite frankly skip it. IMO the sound gains aren't worth possibly screwing up the connector/wiring if you are not sure what you are doing.

That said, great write-ups and many thanks to those who donated time and effort to put together this how-to.

 

FWIW, This weekend I will go into the ECU and remove the filter that is placed on the speakers and do some measurements before and after to see if this is equivalent.

I finally have some time to test this. Will report back on findings.

 

I did this today, it is like I upgraded the stereo.. Hugh improvement!

Notes
T20 torx pops the female pins out easily. . BUT you must release top of the connector sliding it up the wires a bit first.
Then pop the pins out and rearrange.

 

As promised, I finally got some time today to do this in the 2RAD ECU module instead of the wire swap and am able to confirm that it makes a huge improvement in the sound. Please note if you attempt to duplicate you should read up on NCSExpert and what is needed to program the ECU. I can't be held responsible if you fry things. Likewise, I am not sure of the longterm issues with this, like burned out speakers/amp due to impedance issues, but I assume this is very similar to doing the channel swap. Please read the many threads here on NCSExpert for info on all of that.

The software setting that I changed should only remove the 100Hz filter from the rear stage. Please see the before and after RTA output from a pink noise generator to show the increase. Note my RTA is cheap with no dedicated mic and is not calibrated, so sound engineer's out there, please forgive me. Please refer to the peak hold for the improvement in dB. I can say playing something like Sub Focus, Major Lazer, Agent Alvin, Deadmau5, I can actually hear the sub base parts. While the stock speakers don't do well on really low stuff 20Hz (They don't reproduce it loudly), the sweet spot stuff at 50Hz and above sound amazing and it is enough to make this system sound completely different. I can imagine swapping out the speakers for aftermarket with this setting in place will make this a way better sounding system, however I am satisfied with the results.

Here is what I did:
1) Did baseline pink noise test with a rudimentary RTA (Labeled Before)
2) Read in the 2RAD module into NCSExpert
3) Modified VEHICLE_FILTERS from r56_stereo to r56_hifi
4) Wrote the 2RAD module
5) Restarted the car
6) Tested
7) Did pink noise test with RTA to show results (Labeled After)

Note: I re-read the module and VEHICLE_FILTERS now included a bunch of lines saying hifi.

Before:



After:

 

Do you still have any photos of this tool you made?

 

Did anyone answer this question from rlapinsky?

I found it in my 07 mcs too, is it for an amp or a tester?