Hi all, I decided to replace all speakers in my 2003 Cooper (R50) and was wondering if the yellow wire with the brown line is the ground - and the other the +, any input would be great, thanks in advance.

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BMW/MINI use a standard color scheme throughout the car with brown for ground wires (either solid brown or brown stripe with other colors).

 

With most modern automotive audio, the speaker wires typically has no ground. They still have polarity and for German cars brown is the color denotes the negative side of the audio system's speaker amplifier. The significance is never try to short this negative side of the speaker wires to the chassis ground.

The reason - modern car audio power amplifier typically are configured as bridged with two amplifiers set up with one push while the other pull. You don't need to understand all these. Just make sure you connect the brown (often brown with an other color stripe to denote front/rear and left/right etc) wire to the negative terminal of the speaker.

This ensures that you have the phase correct. To reiterate - connect the brown/x to "-" terminal of the speaker and you would be fine.

 

That's what I thought, the only problem now is doesn't sound right, it needs bass. What would be best to do now? Install a tube and come of the speakers and hook to the high level input or change the head unit out for a much newer one?

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While this may not be your problem but it can be and is very common - the speakers are out of phase. Assuming you pay attention to ensure you reconnect +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve with your speakers, there can still a chance that the front and rear speakers are out of phase. The problem with out of phase is the cancellation of sound waves especially on bass. I suggest you play with the fader control of the head unit by setting it all the way to front, and all the way to back to see if the bass improves. If so they are out of phase. To correct the out of phase situation, just reverse the +ve and -ve on both left and right channel of only either the front, or the rear sets.

 

Here you go buddy. I beleive the speaker wiring diagram is in the very first post. Good luck

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