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      05-18-2019, 09:15 PM   #1
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Drives: '19 M2C, '02 330Ci
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Alpha One Audio System Installed - Long & Lots of Pics

I finally got a chance to install the Alpha One Audio System by Bimmertech last weekend and have been spending the last week breaking them in.

I opted for their full speaker kit and the AudioTec Fischer amplifier. The speakers and woofers are nicely constucted and come in really nice packaging.

Front Speakers:

I accidently ordered 4 front speakers and BimmerTech was able to swap them out for the correct rear ones. You'll note that the front center speaker is exactly the same as the rear speaker/tweeters. The main difference is the lack of the foam around the circumference of the speaker and the tweeters come in an aimed enclosure.



8" Under Seat Woofers:

The woofers are much nicer than the stock ones. Too bad I'll never get to see them or any of the other speakers.



And here is the Audiotec Fischer amplifier.



I've taken some pictures of the door speakers side by side to show you the differences in construction and size of the main magnets.

Front View:



Rear View:

The main neodymium magnet is much wider than the stock one but is about half the height of the HK system (~0.5" vs ~1").



The thing that surprised me the most is the the Alpha One speakers barely weigh any more than the stock ones. I used my kitchen scale to check each door speakers weight.

Stock - 237 grams



Alpha One - 239 grams



The entire system is plug and play and is really simple to install. Bimmertech does a great job of providing very helpful videos to walk you through the install process, and my install lasted about 4 hours in total. I took my sweet time uninstalling the doors and putting them back together. Taking them apart was very similar to my E46.

I didn't end up taking a picture of the Audio One speakers installed in the door - only the stock ones.



Rear Stock Speakers:



Rear Alpha One Speakers:



One thing I noticed about the Alpha One rear tweeters is that they don't fire front facing toward the driver, but actually fire towards the rear pillars. I don't know if this was for a specific reason or not.

First Impressions:

The first thing I noticed was how much cleaner the system sounded over the stock HK system. The stock system sounds muddy to me in comparison. The Alpha One speakers are really crisp and bright, while the woofers are much louder than stock and hit harder as well. The woofers are not meant to punch you in the gut with bass, and you shouldn't expect anything like you would get from a 10 or 12" dedicated subwoofer, but I can say that these sounds really good, and I wouldn't look to add any additional bass to the system.

This system is also loud. With the stock system, when you turn up the volume, the speakers don't actually distort but they sound less clear than at lower volumes. The Alpha One's are clear at all volumes. I honestly didn't try to anything above 3/4 volume because they were already too loud for me.

The amp allows you to tune the speakers using a windows based program and I'll be playing around with this at a later date. They sound pretty good with the tune that BimmerTech installs before shipping, but the mid's and highs are a little too bright for my taste.

The only criticism I have is not for BimmerTech, but for BMW's decision to put a center channel speaker that pipes both left and right channels into it. With the new speakers, I couldn't stand the fact that there was no separation in the sound stage. Everything sounded as if it was coming from that damn center speaker. Today I decided to completely disconnect the Alpha One center speaker and tweeter. The system sounds so much better and I would highly recommend doing this simple mod yourself - regardless if you have the stock system or not.

Overall I am very pleased with the sound quality of BimmerTech's Alpha One speakers. Total cost was around $2,200, which was right around what I was looking to spend.
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