Has anyone experimented with kickpanel locations for the front stage? Maybe even HLCDs?

My prior car had a nice component set in the kickpanels - awesome.

Had the Mini since Saturday, and the only disappointment is the audio system.

Not in a big hurry, just curious. Did a search and couldn't come up with anything.

 

I agree both the base and H/K systems are lackluster in general; ****-poor soundstaging and generally crappy resolution. I'm sure the MINI audio engineers ended up DSP'ing themselves into oblivion Kick-panels will be very tough to implement without very much impeding foot-room. The stock tweeter and mid-bass locations can be made to work quite well. (read: quality passive crossover and/or Pioneer (or other quality) DSP)

Cheers,
Ryan

 

The kickpanels are hiding a very large fuse box on the left side and the body control module on the right; relocating these and the very involved wiring harnesses connecting them would be quite difficult. I havent been inside the doors to see what resides just above the stock speaker location (I think the window lift is there) to allow moving the speakers up somewhat. Anything is possible though.

 

I agree that the stock locations could be made to work well. However there is, as you know, an advantage to the kickpanel location in that the pathlenghts are closer to equal, and the tweeter/mid combo can be placed closer together eliminating some phase issues.

My last car was a Suzuki Swift GT, if kickpanel enclosures can be done in that car, it should be possible in the Mini.

The DSP reference made me LOL. I guess I'm still a purist.