I do not mind paying for really good speakers. Heck, I have two sets of B&W Nautilus speakers at home. They ain't exactly cheap.

Cars are actually an acoustic nightmare. The irregular surfaces and many types of materials make it a helluva challenge to get something that sounds good without having to overpower the elements in the interior.

Sounds like Focals should be what I look at. Now all I need to do is to verify the impedance of all the individual speakers in the HiFi setup.

 

Of these higher end speakers being mentioned, are any of them suitable without an additional amp (running straight off the stock headunit)? Or at this level does it only make sense to add an amp?

 

To keep it simple, a good speaker will give you a quality sound. It will do little for volume. That's what the amp does.

If you want it clear: upgrade the speaker.
If you want it loud: upgrade the amp.
If you want it clear and loud: upgrade both.

 

Agreed 100%, you could not have made any simpler.!!

 

One other thing - don't get too wrapped up in the impedance of the speaker. It's just a measure of resistance, averaged. Consider the following analogy.

Your lungs have a finite capacity. Your goal is to blow air as long as you can without running out of breath (analogous to "headroom" of the amp). If you pucker your lips tightly like you're whistling, you can blow pretty hard without running out of breath. Your lips are offering a higher "impedance". If you open your mouth completely, you'll run out of breath almost immediately. There is little "impedance" in that case. When that happens with an amplifier, bad things are the result.

 

focals should really have a high end amp pushing them. They'd play with the stock one, just not very loud - and you'd possibly lack the bass they can offer. I push them with a 100watt/ch RMS Orion amp in my truck and they sound fantastic.

 

Regarding speaker impedance. You can't measure it with an ohmmeter which reads DC resistance. Impedance, in essence, is AC resistance (the music signal is AC). Someone on this forum who removed the stock speakers from an R56 stated that they were 4 ohm speakers. Two ohm impedance speakers require an amp that can deliver a lot of current on demand. An amp like that is more expensive and very hefty. I doubt that you'll find anything like that in a stock Mini Cooper.

 

mikeythemini reported that the HiFi upgrade has 2 ohm impedence speakers (as did the HK upgrade in the 1st generation MINI). He also said the HiFi system is made by HK.

 

Bingo.

Sometimes you can get lucky and put in a more efficient speaker and get a bit more volume out of the system ...but I don't think differences in efficiency vary widely in car speakers.

dean.

 

Regarding speaker impedance, check out post #6 by OUTMOTORING in this link:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...&highlight=ohm

 

His is the regular stereo. There seems to be some question as to whether or not the impedance has changed between the HiFi and the regular stereo.

 

I will trust that he knows how to determine that. If it's not marked on the speaker, if you take a resistance reading of a 4 ohm speaker it'll read about 3 ohms, and a novice (which mikeythemini isn't) might assume that it's < 4 so it must be 2 ohm.

 

The low impedence speakers is one reason why it was difficult to upgrade the HK system piecemeal. Also the crossovers were built into the amp. The R56 HiFi system is reported to be also made by HK and seems to have a similar configuration.

 

I keep hearing it is Alpine.

 

I'm referring to the HiFi upgrade, not base system. Actually in the 1st gen MINI the headunit was always Alpine and the HK system was an additional external HK amp and speakers.