I'm looking to get some better sounds from my car without losing the OEM look.. plus! without making it complicated with MSFW etc..

Is it really required to upgrade the headunit to achieve all-around better sounding system? or cna I just add subs and new speakers and call it a day?

such a noob when it comes to car audio.. hah enlightenme please!

 

Well... I had the same idea as you.... I wanted stock appearance, but not sound. So I went the route of amp and speakers. I used the JL M4300 (same as A4300). and Focal 690 CA1 for the rear. I left the front stock. As long as you have a high pass on the front you should be ok. All of my friends always ask where my sub is and I get to say "What sub?"

 

You can also use a product like JL Audio's "Cleansweep" with your factory head unit. The Cleansweep takes your factory speaker-level inputs and converts them to preamp-level inputs for your amplifier(s). Plus, the Cleansweep will cancel the factory equalization and adjust the equalization of the audio signal so you get a flat frequency response, even with aftermarket speakers (whether or not the aftermarket speakers are mounted in the factory locations).

Best of all, the equalization is automatic. You pop the test CD in your player, and the cleansweep uses a microphone to compare the frequency response in your car to how it's supposed to sound, and adjusts the equalizers automatically. There's a built-in 30-band EQ for each channel (front-left, front-right, rear-left, rear-right), and they're all adjusted independently. So, all the adjustments that I used to have to do with a real-time analyzer, manually-adjusted equalizers and white noise/pink noise generators is now obsolete.

 

No new head unit required... DPSM!

 

I've always been amazed at how good stock front speakers can sound when you feed them a high-pass signal instead of a full-range signal. Once the front speakers no longer have to reproduce the low notes, they sound a lot more open and less "stressed".

What crossover frequency did you use for your high-pass filter?

 

I can't remember off the top of my head but i want to say 5kHz. Its low enough to get vocals and some bass, but high enough to let the rears do all the hard work.

 

Digital POWER SoundModul (DPSM). Nuff said.

Oh yeah.

Alriiiight!

Uh-huh.

Yeah!

 

How much time and money did the full DPSM upgrade end up costing you? Or is it still ongoing?

 

My case is not typical. As long as sprp85 (or anyone else for that matter) doesn't have the H/K, they really should at least consider the DPSM. It's that good.

The price I pay for my total car workover will never be revealed to anyone. Sorry.

 

So all of the wiring harness replacements and the associated labour (and the four+ months it took to get it installed and working) was just because you originally had the H/K system?

The quoted price I've seen for the DPSM was about $2000, dealer-installed.

I'm glad your DPSM odyssey turned out well, but having installed quite a few systems myself, I would like to point out that for anyone considering the DPSM, $2000 will go a LONG way towards aftermarket components and installation, especially if you're not having to replace the factory head unit.

 

Yep.That sounds about right (for those without H/K).One question... have you actually HEARD a DPSM yourself?

Trust me, it blows a LOT of aftermarket solutions away. All of them? Of course not. But the sound quality, volume, stock OEM appearance, no interior space usage... it's a VERY impressive system. Worth it, IMO. Fully covered by your car's warranty too, which is nice.

 

At this point, you likely know more about the DPSM than anyone else on the board, so you're probably the person to ask. What exactly makes the DPSM amplifier "fully-digital", as MINI describes it?

I know the amp's outputs are analog, and I suspect that the amp's inputs (the outputs from the factory head unit) are analog as well. Does the "digital" description refer to the signal processing in the amp, or just the fact that it's got a digital-switching power supply, making it a "Class D" amplifier, rather than Class A or AB?

 

I can't speak to the inner workings of the DPSM amp, because I am not an electronics engineer... but I wikipedia-d Class D amplifiers, the D does not stand for digital, so I'm not sure.

All I'm saying though, is when you talk down the price of the DPSM, wait until you've heard it first. Remember that it wasn't developed in-house at MINI, but by German Hi-Fi specialist AUDIO MOBIL... and they know what they are doing, developing systems (and not just stereo stuff) for other high profile clients like BMW, Rolls Royce, Daimler Chrysler, Audi & Lamborghini (see this link).

 

No, the 'D' doesn't stand for "digital", but all class D amps do have digital-switching power supplies for efficiency, so that's why they're often referred to as "digital" amps. I suspect that's what MINI means.

If it's a 660-Watt amp that fits behind the factory panels and doesn't require 4-gauge (or larger) power and ground leads, then it's definitely a digital-switching amp.

Seriously, I *am* happy that you're so thrilled with the DPSM, and for someone wanting to upgrade while keeping a stock appearance, and who just wants to stroke a check for a dealer-installed solution that's backed by the factory warranty, I really don't have a problem with the price, especially considering that $500-600 of it is in labour costs.

But, you brought up the DPSM twice in the first seven posts, and made it sound like it was the only/best option, and I just don't think it's as cut-and-dried as that. If I wanted to keep the factory head unit and had $2000 to spend on everything else, I'd go in a different direction, that's all.

 

No, of course not... but everyone is so quick to point out aftermarket solutions, that I feel it is important to make sure that all of the options are considered, DPSM included.

I only came back to post a second time because I realized that my original post may not have been clear enough, likely to raise the question "What the heck is DPSM?" That's why I posted again with links.

It's not as though I stand anything to gain personally by singing the praises of the system. I just didn't see anyone mention it as an option, and so I wanted to suggest it.

Likewise, I don't think an aftermarket solution is a "cut-and-dried" superior choice either, especially for those who have never heard a DPSM to compare to.

 

I have heard the DPSM, and I think it sounds great. I like it better than the H/K system in my car. And for a kit that's nothing more than replacement speakers and an amp, they did a great job.

But I've heard aftermarket systems that I think sound significantly better, without having to spend mega-bucks.

It's kind of hard to compare apples-to-apples, though, because in most cases where the customer is spending $2000 for an upgrade, you usually end up doing more than just putting new speakers in the factory locations and swapping out the amp. Usually, there's some custom equalization and other signal processing involved, experimentation with alternate speaker locations, and the addition of at least a small subwoofer.

 

For me, the answer went this way... I looked at a lot of options keeping the stock head unit. The closest I came to reproducing the DPSM sound was using the Alpine PDX4.150 amp and using high quality speakers like Polk, BA or JL mounted in the stock locations. The typical price tag for this work was in the $1250.00 range, give or take a hundred or two. Plus a mounting location was needed for the Alpine AMP.

I then found a stellar deal on the DSPM at a dealer and after reviewing the install instructions, decided to do this myself. Prior to embarking on this adventure, I had NEVER taken interior panels of a car apart nor had I done any wiring in a car. I am fairly handy though and can follow directions well so I took this one as a challenge. The end result; this was easier than I expected. The MOST difficult thing was getting the left side screw reinstalled for the glove box. Seriously.

My bottom line is that I spent about the the same amount of money on the kit, got the SUPERIOR sound that is DSPM, got the satisfaction of doing a moderately involved job well and also got dealer support when my amp went south to boot (they replaced it under warranty, labor and all).

My advice to sprp85 is this, go with what sounds best to you and fits your budget. My solution worked for me and it may or may not work for you.

 

can't this be quantified with numbers? From what I know about amplifiers, you can describe pretty much everything with noise specturm and distortion specs. Throw in some power amp specs and headroom issues, and it's done. I read every link on the DSPM and can't find ANYTHING that really says what it does other than "all digital" and "designed specifically for the Mini". Heck the only band width information I came across was some Mini doc saying it went from 20 to 25000 Hz.... Yet it doesn't say if these are 3 dB points or what... No information on the linearity vs frequency either.... While this is interesting, it's far from quantitative.... I guess the best thing is that everyone who has one, loves it (other than one poor person whos system keeps dropping out).

But I get baffled when something objective becomes subjective! But then, I'm still running the stock system from 02!

Matt

 

How an amp sounds really can't be quantified, because frankly, any two amplifiers that are producing the same amount of power and operating within their design limits (not being overdriven into clipping, etcetera) will sound the same. The only thing that will make one amp sound different from another is if there's signal processing going on in addition to the amplification, such as "bass boosting" or other equalization.

If you're interested, look up "Richard Clark amplifier challenge". Clark has a standing bet that he will give $10k to anyone that can reliably tell the difference between two amps connected to the same speakers in a double-blind test. He's had the challenge going for at least ten years, and I don't think anyone's ever won the money.

Speakers (especially their placement) have a *lot* more to do with how a system will sound than the amplifier. It's also almost-impossible to end up with a great-sounding system in a car without some kind of equalization as well. The interior cabin space in a car and the limited choices for speaker placement simply screw with the frequency response too much to hope to get a smooth response curve without some external help.

 

"Heck the only band width information I came across was some Mini doc saying it went from 20 to 25000 Hz.... Yet it doesn't say if these are 3 dB points or what... No information on the linearity vs frequency either.... "

Check out this link to the specs for the DSPM amp...

http://www.gbmini.net/wp/2007/03/the_dpsm_user_guide/

 

Thanks for the link. So, the "660-watt" DPSM amp is really only 320 Watts RMS. That's not surprising - a lot of manufacturers use peak power in their advertising these days. I'm a little disappointed that the crossover slopes are only 12 db/octave, though - that's probably a money-saving strategy. Likewise with the paper-cone speakers - hope those are available separately when it comes time to replace them.

 

I'll give you the points about the alternate speaker locations and the subwoofer... but you are completely ignoring the fact that the DPSM is precisely custom equalized for the MINI. The interior dimensions and shape of the R50 & R53 do not change, and the DPSM has been designed exactly for this car, with many, many hours put into it.

To oversimplify the DPSM as simply slapping in speakers and an amp does a great disservice to the significant tuning efforts put forward by AUDIO MOBIL.

As for the alternate speaker locations & subwoofer, to many people, the fact you don't have to cut the car apart for custom speaker locations, and that you don't have to sacrifice any additional interior space when choosing the DPSM, are both huge benefits, particularly in a car as small as the MINI, where every cubic foot... no, every cubic inch... is valuable real estate.And the DPSM does take all of it into account. It's greater than the sum of its parts, and much like the H/K is specifically tuned for the MINI, so is the DPSM. Please don't disregard that. With any aftermarket solution, if you want optimal sound from that system, you will have to go through an extended tuning process. That work is already done with the DPSM.

 

You should see the raging debates between audiophiles. Many well regarded high end systems do not measure particularly well. It seems that the usual simple measurements (dynamic and frequency range, harmonic distortion, etc) do not necessarily correspond well with how "good" something sounds to a listenser.

 

Look at Audio Mobil's own test results from the link in post #20. In the range from 20hz - 1000 hz (the area where most music lies), the frequency response is *all over the place*, spanning a range of over 30dB. A 30 dB variation is HUGE, meaning that given equal input power across the range, the output at various frequencies in the range differs by a factor of a thousand.

Specifically, the huge hump around 100hz is from the natural resonance of the car's cabin. But then there's a huge dip between 150hz and 200 hz. I can only hope for Audio Mobil's sake that this is the frequency response *before* equalization, because if that's after the equalization, then they need to stick to headlight control modules and in-car cameras, which seems to comprise most of their business for the OEM market.

And there are a several options for alternative speaker placement that don't consume usable interior space. There are component installs in the kick panels, waveguide speakers under the edge of the dash, component speakers on top of the dash, door speakers that are mounted higher in the doors than the factory locations, just to name a few.

And as for "tuning" the system "specifically for the MINI", if you've committed yourself to using the factory speaker locations and not adding a subwoofer, there's simply not much tuning to be done. Give any competent audio tech a real-time analyzer, a microphone, a test disc and an hour, and he can optimize the frequency response for any car.

Tuning only gets challenging when you're experimenting with different speaker locations in an effort to optimize the frequency response and phase response so that you only use a minimum of equalization.

 

The reason behind this is that modern amplifiers and music sources have gotten so good that the differences are literally inaudible. Marketing types love to crow about how their amp only has 0.002% total distortion compared to the competition's 0.05%, but both of those measurements say the same thing - that the distortion is completely and totally inaudible. Likewise with signal-to-noise ratio. The difference between S/N ratios of 90 dB, 95 dB and 105 dB is completely inaudible. So while a particular amp may have numbers that look "lousy" on paper, like 1% THD and a S/N ratio of "only" 80 dB, those numbers are still below the threshold of detection, at least without hooking up lab equipment.

The rabid "audiophiles" are almost without exception utterly full of crap. They'll go on and on about how important it is to use a particular brand of $1500/meter RCA cables, or how suspending the speaker wires off of the floor improves the sound, but time and again, they fail to hear the differences in double-blind testing. In short, if you give them two different components, if they don't know *in advance* which one they're hearing, they can't tell the difference between the two.

Psychacoustics has a lot to do with this as well. It's been demonstrated multiple times that if you have somone listen to two different amplifiers played through the same speakers, and ask them which one sounds "better", they'll almost always pick the one that's set to play louder, even if the volume difference is miniscule (like 0.5 dB). Even if both amps are identical, they'll subconsciously pick the louder one (as long as they're not told during the test that both amps are actually the same model).

Every stereo salesman knows this, and will use it to their advantage when demonstrating the various systems in their sound rooms. If you go to a high-end stereo store and bring along a $20 Radio Shack sound meter, and make sure that all of the amps you listen to are producing the same volume, the differences suddenly disappear.