Hi all. I have. An 05 MCS cabrio with the factory base stereo, non HK system. I recently replace the door speakers with the ones below and ran into some annoying issue. Sometimes the stereo would not produce sounds but the radio still works. I would have to turn off the car and turn it back on for the sound to come back. Sometimes it'll happen a lot, other times I'll be able to make a full 20 min trip to work without any hitch.

Does anyone know if I would need a crossover, a new amp, or a new headunit to work
with the speakers? Or is there something wrong with the factory hu. Thanks in advance.

 

Either the amp inside the headunit is going out, or there is a ohm rating issue. I don't know off hand what the factory non-HK speakers are resistance-wise. When I swapped in my Alpines and Infinitys in, I replaced the head unit too.

(On another note, if you get a new HU with the 'any color' option, you can pick the Mini's dash color and it looks totally factory)

 

The stock speakers are probably 4-ohm and those JBLs are 2-ohm. The stock head unit amp is most likely not stable to 2 ohms and it's going into what is effectively 'safety protect' mode to protect itself.

 

Is there a remedy for this problem aside from replacing the HU? Thanks for the responses.

 

maybe a small 400W amp?

 

I'd rather upgrade the head unit for the price of an amp though.

You could upgrade to one with auxilary inputs, USB, Bluetooth, you'd get a whole bunch of configurations for sound preference. and it'll look good in the dash.