So I decided to take the plunge and updrade my woofer and midrange speakers to the Harmon Kardon speakers in 2008 R56 with the [so-called] Hi-Fi stereo.
With my time being at a premium, I don;t have time to pull door panesl and install speakers so I checked with my SA at Cincinnati MINI for the cost of the speakers and the swap.

As I sat there in the service waiting roon drinking $37.oo dollar "free" Diet Coke {they are charging me for it in the 145 dollar per hour shop fees ] my SA comes out and [with a straight face] lays it out like this.

"Well we can do it but it cost $3800 dollars. $2000 for the amp, $1300 for labor and 500 for the speakers. It may be another $1000 if the car isn't prepped for the HK amp" The following "smilies" illustrate my response:



So I say, "I only want the speakers pulled and the HK ones put in. No amp"

SA says, "We wont; do it without replacing the amp and wiring. Dude, its all about the wattage, you know?"

I explain that it has been done and he just says we can't just replace the speakers. it has to be the whole system.

I just say thanks for checking and wipe up the Diet Coke I spit when he told me the price [not really but think of the classic slapstick routine of someone drinking when told something outrageous.

Next stop is to order the speakers from Morristown and find an indepedent stereo shop to plug 'em in for me.

 

lol you non HK folk...with your wittle speakers. not just wattage but rms wattage


Also as long as you have cross over so that you can dedicate frequencies you can make almost any system sound good.

 

what the helllll see, it's stuff like that that makes me not even want to bother inquiring about upgrading. but then a couple days of the rattling puts the thought in my head again. just want the easiest possible upgrade w/o voiding any warranty

 

Make sure you get the correct impeadance speakers!! I'm pretty sure you could have 2 ohm or 4 ohm depending on your system in the MINI.

http://www.lacar.com/?p=4583 Killer sound for cheap article!!!

 

Actually, it is not "about the watts" It is about the SPL that you can generate. So wattage matters, but so does efficiency! Look at various speakers efficiencies. You will see from 85 to about 93 dB/w @1M. for conventional dynamic drivers. This means a difference for the same sound level of over FIVE times the power between them. Unfortunately, the higher fidelity drivers are sometimes the less efficient ones. Not always. Unfortunately, really low power amps are also usually not very high fidelity.

Replacing the speakers is not that hard. Rears just take a while to pull everything out. About the hardest thing to do was to get the rear pillar snapped back in place with the airbag in it.

For reference, I put in the almost top pioneer stuff. If I was 20, I would want an amp. Windows open it can't keep up. Windows closed, it is fine for me. A 4 x 100W amp may be on my list, just not real soon.

 

Big,

As speaker building is my other hobby. I would disagree with your statement about making any system sound good. I fully agree a "proper" crossover is necessary to get the best from any given set of drivers, but a turd is a turd.
I was tempted to add a tweeter and a real woofer to the OEM base speakers to see what they could do, but a proper crossover is a terrible complex device and I decided it was just not worth it. The OEM speakers are not that bad if used within their limitations. ( 200 to 4K or so)

 

He's saying he's too busy to mess with this and was looking for a reasonable cost solution. The dealer obviously was behind on his yacht/plane payment looking to really lay the smack down. Makes you wonder if that was the situation how is people's warranty work/goodwill warranty work going?

Or for that matter the hard sell (which I didn't make this up, from a criminal, later confirmed as a criminal, at the precision tune in concord, NC)
You need complete brakes. I wouldn't drive this car another mile like it is.
It's time for you to put some money in your car. It's going to be about $900.

I guess he was behind on his mortgage. That was for a basic brake job.
Of course I was like, uh, well, I guess I'll drive it home and park it lol.

 

Well this is a companion thread for swapping out the HiFi stereo speakers with the new HK speakers As stated in another thread, it is simple swap. Same connectors. Same scre holes etc. IMy intention is not to debate speaker choices etc. Basically it is an incredulous response to a rediculous response from my dealer

 

If the Hi-Fi system uses 4Ω speakers and the H/K speakers are 2Ω, I probably wouldn't have done the swap either if I had been in the tech's shoes.

I know that was an issue in the first-gen cars where the standard "Boost" radio used 4Ω speakers and the H/K used 2Ω speakers, but I don't know what the impedance is on the Hi-Fi speakers in the second-gen cars.

 

Just looked. Marked as 4 Ohms.