anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

[__iceman__]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

Its damn hard trying to give advice without suggesting for the person to spend more money.

But yes, motofish will attain the next level of nirvana with replacement HU and singing/dancing DSP like the 701. OR - any other brands that will give a good CD pickup, and features like time alignment, 31 band EQ, 8 channel crossover etc. There are offerings by Pioneer, Sony, etc that does this. Too bad I have lost touch with other brands.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

ICE gurus, looks like I am going to in to replace the Mass vacumm pre-amp with the Alpine 701. And I am also thinking of adding the mono-block to power the sub. I can't resist the temptation under the influence of this forum.

Longhorn - have the hissing sound that came with the 701 installation been removed from your set up?

 

[longhorn]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

hahahaha... it is a black hole... bottomless pit... am itching to upgrade again.. maybe if I stay away from this forum for a while...:juggle:

yes, the hissing gone after I change to the Audio Control LC6 hi-lo converter. i think Oneheadlight did say hissing is a known problem for 701....

when and where are u going? let me know. am due to go back for a tune-up after running in my new amp and cables for 2 week liao....

separate matter : earlier post u said u installed your free air amp w/o having to cut the metal at your parcel shelf?? am I correct? I checked several installers and all say must cut. so I want to see how you did yours...

cheers

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

LONGHORN - thanks for the speedy reply. That's a damn good advise - staying away from the forum if you do not want to be sucked into this bottomless pit. Going to the meetups is also bad for your wallet. But then, if you do not enjoy all these, you are better off driving a Kia.

Enough of cheeky remarks. Glad to hear that the hissing is gone. Since my set up was done at 6th Ave (Acoustic Auto), guess I will be going back there for the upgrade. Chia (owner) offered to take back the Mass pre-amp for more or less the same value and I checked to make sure that he is not marking up too much for the H701.

They are the ones who set up my free air subwoofer. Its mounted on the rear shelf which already have a rectangular hole. They made a panel and match it to the same fabric color - make it look quite OEM. I have posted some picture earlier in this post, see page 7.

Got time for kopi or lunch tomorrow? Better for me to listen to the set up with H701 and for you to see the free air sub in person. PM me if you are available. I may have to go back to PML East Coast tomorrow regarding my fluctuating idle RPM issue. Maybe we can meet there or the KFC carpark in Kallang.

 

[longhorn]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

oki. bring your fav CD.

I will sms you later to confirm meeting. cheers

 

[oneHeadlight]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

one word of caution if i may.... mounting free air means u need a good sub and a very powerful amp, and u probably need class AB amp.

the thing about sub-bass... although its subjective to personal preference... many people tend to let it drown the vocal and the midrange... and many people judge a system but how boomy it sounds. Sub-bass has emotional impact but be careful..

the H701 is as good as the person tuning it. The hiss problem, i should clarify is only at zero-bits, meaning its not audible and not important unless u chase competition standards. Sometimes its due to recording, esp on CDR.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

oneheadlight - realised I need a powerful amp to drive the sub thus adding the monoblock in the next upgrade with the H701. I started as a non-audiophile and still is a green horn today. Certainly not preparing my humble car for any competition. Having clarity and enjoyable music is the primary objective, not trying to impress the young chicks with loud booms. Most of the time, I am playing MP3 in the car anyway.

With the monblock and H701, that will bring my total investment on ICE to about 3K (after trading in the Mass pre-amp). That's peanuts compare to die hard ICE enthusiast like some of you. Not hard core but its still many times better than stock. Hopefully I will be happy enough with the new setup and will try to stay away from the forum forum is free but if you are bitten by the mod bug, that's gonna cost you $$.

If the hiss is not audible, then it will not bother me then. It always good to know that it it does, there is a solution. Cheers.

 

[richlee7]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

hey, wud luv to hear some setups myself... can i? when where are u guys meeting?

 

[oneHeadlight]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

ya... its a blackhole. But don't worry la... can withstand temptation...

 

[longhorn]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

hey, wud luv to hear some setups myself... can i? when where are u guys meeting?

not confirmed yet but probably after work today. if u PM me yr hp number, i will sms you when we arrange.cheers

 

[BorisRS]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

Motofish and Longhorn,

I have been lurking and following the thread with interest. I have the same desire to improve the quality of the stock system (but not in a BMW) while maintaining the headunit and am pretty certain that I will take the 701 route. Pls do keep us posted on how the 2 systems stacked up and where this will take you.

Like yourselves, I dont intend to spend anything more than 2-3k (famous last words....)

But I must admit that it has been entertaining watching you guys valiantly clinging on to the edge of the slippery slope with limited success!

 

[__iceman__]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

Dun forget that oil is continuously poured onto the slope. You guys stand no chance once you get bitten by the bug.

Check the other thread on how happy Keyn is with the 701 setup. Also with stock HU.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

I have succumded to the dark side of ICE, again. Even though I have not listen to longhorn's set up, I was convinced by HG to trade-in the Mass Pre-amp for the 701. Added a Audio system Twister series 2 channel amp to drive the 12' sub. So my 4 channel amp is driving the CDT components - active. Also included the LC6. After 2 hours of tunning, my car was transformed again. Have not get too much time with the new system yet but the first drive was great. Played Josh Gorban when I pick up the wife - she smiled and asked how much. No much of a romantic sort

New resolution - enough of ICE upgrade. Please bar me from entering this site.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

After one week with the new set up, including a 3 days driving holidays to Cameron Highlands, here's how I feel , and

Delighted with the sound stage and the mid range that were missing in my previous set up. Like all the gurus mentioned, I can put Josh Gorban's vocal in front of the steering wheel or right in the middle of the dashboard. HG does a great job at tunning it.

On the down side, I can hear the hissing sound in the background even when I have the LC6 included. Lowering the volume control at the 701 helps but the hissing is stil noticeable. The other thing that bothers me is the set up with only front component speakers seems to benefit only the front seats. Even with the magnificent Alpine 701, the rear seats audio quality is some what compromised. Is this common?

 

[__iceman__]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

Car audio - you can never get every single one happy in the car. There has to be a sweet spot, and when you make the front perfect in terms of staging and imaging, the rears will be so so only. At least with your setup now, the rear effect is just not really spot on for imaging, however at least I would expect that the overall sound is tonally balanced.

Hiss? Dunno leh, maybe because you combine with the original HU. I never got hiss before as I matched the 701 with a replacement HU (9833) straightaway, came away really happy and then after that was even happier when I put in the DVA-310 and ran optical cable direct to the 701.

So hor... you got one more small step to go, and one big quantum leap in SQ to complete the picture.

***evil laugh***

 

[sqgator]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

There are just too many cases of hissing issues when one combine H701 with non-optical output HU. I am surprised that some installers continue to do it. My installer does not even want to install for me when I try to do it a few months ago because he had bad experience with that and does not want to deal with customer complaints. And believe me if you surf some of the car audio forums, there are too many issues with this combination, I would never do it.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

iceman - give me a break lah. Started off with a simple upgrade from stock to improve the sound. Now I have got 2 amps, free space sub, ALpine 701, LC6 and CDT components. You are right about overall improvements. But I don;t think changing the head unit is a option, not in the near future cause I like the steering wheel controls. Will go back to HG for another tunning in Jul. Maybe he can help to reduce the hiss and make the rear passengers a little happier.

sqgator - what to do when I can't give up the steering wheel controls? I thot that some bros are able to remove or reduce the hiss after they added the LC6. Somehow, that did not work for me even though we have the same stock headunit in the same e90.

 

[oneHeadlight]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

The hiss u are experiencing could probably be install or source issues because when people talk about hiss in H701, its only audible for zero-bits stuff at high volume. Even for those using optical out, some have the same issues. It is however not the kind of obvious hiss u are probably experiencing...

The Hi-lo converter, in your case the LC6, is not meant to remove hiss... and i personally don't think HG should project as such.

 

[Motofish]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

oneheadlight - thanks again. Guess I will have to bring it back to HG for investigation.

 

[__iceman__]

Re: anyone upgraded ICE on E90?

iceman - give me a break lah. Started off with a simple upgrade from stock to improve the sound. Now I have got 2 amps, free space sub, ALpine 701, LC6 and CDT components. You are right about overall improvements. But I don;t think changing the head unit is a option, not in the near future cause I like the steering wheel controls. Will go back to HG for another tunning in Jul. Maybe he can help to reduce the hiss and make the rear passengers a little happier.

sqgator - what to do when I can't give up the steering wheel controls? I thot that some bros are able to remove or reduce the hiss after they added the LC6. Somehow, that did not work for me even though we have the same stock headunit in the same e90.

Kidding lah. You have already said in beginning you won't change headset. Sorry I couldn't make it down to meet you during your install the other day.

Anyway, get HG to fix the problem, and reduce the hiss. They have done it successfully before, matching the 701 with a stock HU. Its a question of troubleshooting it and also playing with gain levels (level matching).