I have a 2014 F56 with a factory installed audio system consisting of a head unit and 6 speakers (2 front/2 rear/2 underseat). In Europe it is called visual boost. Trying to improve its performance I replaced the four 4" front and rear speakers with the Focals IFBMW-S (4" coaxial). The sound improvement was obvious, but not as expected. I am now thinking of installing an external amplifier (the factory system uses the head unit) and separate the underseat from the front door speakers (they are connected in parallel and used as front channel), for better performance.

Has anybody tried something similar ? Please share your results or comments.

Also your suggestions for a 6 channel amplifier.

 

In my 2014 MCS I ran two very small Focal Amps (FD 4.350) and 2 way component Focals in the front and 2 ways in the back.
I bridged one of the amps and had it run the speakers that I upgraded too.
Component speakers are a most as it gets the sound stage higher in the car. You have to buy the upgraded A pillars and throw away the tweeters that come installed in them.
There are plenty of places to hide the amps (back drivers side in the trunk worked for me -I'm in NA)
I already had the upgraded sound so it was quite tricky with CANBUS but you won't have those problems with the base system. HU is the same for both systems.
Difference in sound? Silly better and I had the Bose system. If you do one thing component speakers and an amp for the front....
One last thing. Not sure what car you have but if it has a noise maker (active sound) bypass it or code it out otherwise it will sound like you are driving a race car.
Good Luck!

 

GregoryK, thanks for the feedback. Does you car also have an underseat subwoofer set ? If yes are you driving them in parallel with the front speaker set or as an independent channel.

 

My system was HK and I used Gladen subs that were a pain to fit but sounded great in the end. Also I used a Helix sound processor. That way I was able to tune the sound for the drivers seat.

 

Well that is quite a system !!! Way out of my budget. My plan is to use an external 6ch amp for driving the door, rear and subwoofer sets separately. Depending on the result I may have to add a sound processor as well.

 

I wanted to improve the BASS, not to rattle the neighbours but to improve the sound presence. I found the Bass lacking in anything that was not a high end FLAC format. It was just ok.

So I went with a rear mounted subwoofer, and a dedicated subwoofer amplifier.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...56-2dr-hb.html
Now whatever I listen too, removes the stress on the factory amplifier to produce the Bass ( I am sorry, but the under seat factory Bass Speakers are NON existent imho). And the factory amplifier and HK speakers can do there job of mids and highs (ok, it's not on par with a custom sound system by any means, but closer to a Mark Levinson Lexus setup) while the rear mounted sub does the work with the aftermarket sub amplifier.

I even went with a driver position accessible bass control **** for the amplifier to control bass quantity / output. Music is so dynamic, in all the various formats, but now I can enjoy them whether I am listening to spotify or a flac file, or even a youtube or slingbox feed.

Cheers

P.S. oh, and it was affordable and within my reason for a budget to improve sound. Do the work yourself, save yourself a fortune.