[cashsosa]

Last week I finally got my 2014 M5 CP that I had ordered. Immediately I took it to my local shop here in Las Vegas that specializes in high end vehicles and whom I’ve used for years. While finalizing the tint, clear bra, painted grille, etc. I decided to just say “f it” and go a bit further than I typically do. I ordered the vehicle with the B&O system and while I found the system remarkably “clear” and bright, it lacked the low end bass that frankly was superior in my current 2011 X5 5.0 with the HK system and my old 2011 750i. Since I was already writing a check, I figured we should throw in a couple of JL Audio W3’s to the mix and proceed thouroghly with my early mid-life crisis. The guys at the shop fabricated a custom bandpass box which was ported through the trunk (ski through pass). They paired the two subs to an Alpine MRV-M500 amp with a stealthily hidden gain control in the compartment under the steering column.

When I came back to take delivery, I was told that in order to install the subs and amp they were forced to disable the “Active Sound” feature (recorded engine track piped into the sound system for auditory sensation since the car’s cabin is so quiet). As lame of a concept as this appeared to me prior, the lack of Active Sound is quite noticeable and does in fact diminish the overall driving sensation to me unless you spend more $$ and throw on an exhaust or remove resonators etc.

Well as disappointing as this was to me, the actual sound of the subs was worse. Essentially, they disabled the 8” subs underneath the seat and apparently used that channel to feed the new subwoofers. Well when tuning the EQ from the iDrive interface I found that as if I had a presence of mid range the actual subs would produce the higher frequency tone as well. Regardless of reducing the “high pass filter” on the actual amp, the subs are still producing too high of a frequency. Now if I go into the EQ and effectively cancel out the midrange frequency’s the subs sound better since they aren’t being asked to reproduce a frequency they shouldn’t be. But this leaves me with an absurd mix of high frequency’s and sub frequency’s. Essentially I have a retarded sounding stero that sounds like it’s completely vacant of mids.

After speaking to my guys at the shop, they are going to look into an amp with more control, try to re activate the 8” subs under the seat, and look for another signal to tap in order to run the subs off of. Additionally, we’re trying to figure out how we can safely restore the “Active Sound” feature since they had stated they experienced issues with this before.

I’m hoping that someone out there has successfully been able to simply add an amp and subs while maintaining the integrity of the B&O system and Active Sound. After all this irritation I’m ready to simply bite the bullet and keep it stock like perhaps I should have…

Please shoot over any suggestions and I’ll be sure to get some photos of the mods and hopefully a successful stereo install at some point.