Ok, its tax season and i want to make my ears bleed..

I am finally tired of this stock and terrible sounding stereo..
I have an 09 Justa Mini, with the base sound system.

I did the speaker x.... swap and that helped.

I now want to do some more..

My budget is 500 bucks, i think i want to upgrade the stock speakers in all locations and add some sound dampening material in the rear hatch area.

Does this sound like a good idea? What speakers does everyone recomend?
Would you suggest a component set with the crossover and such or no?


How would you better see the money spent?

If i were to add to the budget do you think i could do an Amp install as well?

Where is everyone pulling the amplifier input from?

I have read so many forums on here for the past week my eyeballs are about to fall out.

 

For 500.00 budget you are kind of limited on what to upgrade in your car.

For Vocals, I would recommend component speakers (JL, Focal, Hertz)

You could buy some front components online like focal or JL but those will run you around 500.00 alone. My option would be to buy 2 pairs of components by Hertz ESK 165 which run around 250.00 each online and buy an amplifier for another day.

Speaker Size: Front = 6.5, 4 Rear = 6x9, 2 (i think but don't hold me to it as i have the HIFI)


For Deep Bass, I would recommend a subwoofer/ampliflier combo.

JL Shallow TW5 will run you around 300.00 online and you can buy a fairly good amp for 200.00


For the last question, I believe it has been a consensus on the forum that the easiest way to tap the factory sound system would be at the x9331. Just search for it and you will find a lot of information about it.

 

I spoke with a local stereo place and they claim to have done several Mini Installs based on the base stereo.

They quoted me 550 for all the components necessary to install a 4 channel amp beneath the seats, a 4 channel convertor so that the fader/balance still works properly, a good JL audio component set for the front and a JL 6x9 2way speaker for the rear, the amp is a 100w x 4 at 4ohm and they said this will sound great for the car..

I also asked what they would want for the install and to add dynamat to the rear of the car and they said 300 for install and dynamat..

 

Ok, i had to work today and when i got home i thought.. Lets just see if i can play with the radio and make it a little better with settings alone....

Then i began to play with the fader.. Well it appears that they MINI cooper people swithched the wiring back.. It fades front and rear properly, however, i had done the X9331 connector speaker swap.. So i pulled the kick panel and pulled the connector out from under the dash but the wires are still swapped.. according to the wiring diagram on here it should fade backwards.

This all must have happened when i had the Mini in for a radio service, seems the ipod wiring was amisss. however the repair bill stated that only butt splices and shrink tube were needed to fix the issue.. I wonder if they reswawpped the wires on the rear of the head unit.. thus un switching the outputs..

 

So i guess this means i have to reswap them back ..

 

My 2 cents on the dynamat...

I have a Stage 1 JCW which introduced a lot of "droney" exhaust noise. I added Dyanamay under in the boot and under tha back seat. Minor improvement. The real payoff was adding the sound absorbing foam [Raam Mat] to under the boot floor. I will be adding more as time permits.

Think of it this way. Dyanmat eliminates noise by adding mass to the sheet metal and making it resonate less. Sound absorbing material eliminates the sound transmission by absorbing the sound. I think the combo of both is the key

 

wow, did i just read your post correctly?

They will install 1 JL comp and 1 pair of JL 6x9 and a 4 channel amp for 500.00?

Wow, that is an awesome deal!

What kind of JL speakers are they?

 

I dont remember, they said "middle of the road" as far as price..

JL doesnt make a bad product..

The cost of materials is 500, installation is another 300.

I had planned to add the dynamat (actuallly b-quiet) to the rear area the insideof the quarter panels and the rear hatch.. Then back that up with foam accoustic cabinet liner (aka egg crate)..

Perhaps even stuff the quarters and hatch area with accoustical sound batting (or polyester pillow stuffing)

 

800 total is not bad of a deal.

 

So i did phase one of the wiring for the AMP yesterday and fixed the wiring that the mini dealer had "fixed"..

I pulled the tyco (x9331) connector out from behind the kick panel, cut it off and replaced it with two seperate connectors.. One of which is for the speaker wires, so it is an 8 pin deutsch connector, and the other is a 4 pin connector which holds all the other connections that were in the plug.

This will allow me to twist pairs of wire for each corner of the system and put them into another 8 pin plug, wire the other end to the convertor so that if i were to sell the mini, or the amp were to quit or anything i can just remove this plug, and reinstall the other plug and viola' speakers again..
(granted it wont be quite that easy but it will also keep me from having to modify the OEM harness again..

 

For the dynamat, I recommend the superlite as they work exactly like the regular but without the needed weight. I have it in my boot, and you could not hear one single rattle from the subwoofer.