[lpessina]

I would like to share my experience on this upgrade. I started off with the Premium (Top Hi-Fi, harman/kardon) system on a 2016 535i. The existing system on the car was barely OK, but I could not justify the $4000 Bose sound system option.

I looked at a lot of the threads on this subject, and in the end decided that there were enough positive experiences for me to take the plunge and buy the Bavsound upgrade kit.

In a few short words, I can tell you that I am so glad that I went ahead and replaced the stock speakers with the Bavsound ones. The sound now is more much richer, and I can hear more highs and lows than before. I no longer have to adjust the Bass and Treble settings to the same level as before. I think that I might not even need to upgrade the under seat woofers. I will wait a while and re-evaluate in a few weeks once the new speakers have had a chance to break in.

These are my thoughts, comments and suggestions to anyone contemplating the upgrade from Top Hi-Fi to the Bavsound speakers:

Cost: Even with the 30% premium on the Canadian dollar, the $797 cost is well worth the upgrade
Video: The video is good, but there are a few components missing that could be better addressed by Bavsound. I will highlight these as I go along.
Order and Delivery: The ordering process was seamless, and the goods were shipped within 48 hours. The box was held up at Canada Customs for about a week, otherwise I would have received the package in less than a week.
Packaging: The box was well protected, and the speakers arrived undamaged.
Center Channel Installation: Started off with this one to build confidence. The video explains the procedure very well and I had these two speakers installed in about 30 minutes. The only difficult part was reinstalling the dash grill. Please note that there is one tab (in addition to the three back ones) that does not snap back in by applying downward pressure on the grill. The tab is angled at 90 degrees and needs to be inserted properly before the grill can be snapped back into place. If you look at all of the tabs on the underside of the grill before reinstalling it, it will be obvious. I had to remove and replace the front grill a couple of times to get it to sit flush. I think that this step could be better explained on the video.
Rear Deck Installation: I did these two set of speakers next, and it took be about 30 minutes for both. These were very easy to install and the video is good at showing the different steps. One thing to note is that you will receive three identical boxes marked mid-range speakers. I first assumed that the contents of these boxes were identical. Fortunately I opened all three boxes and noted that one of them had shorter wires than the other two. The shorter wires are meant to be used on the rear deck, and the speakers with the longer wires are meant to be used on the doors.

After installing each set of speakers and before replacing the grills, I turned on the radio to make sure that the speakers were properly connected. I took a break after completing the front and rear deck installations and drove the car to the gym. Already I could hear an improvement in the sound. I was going to tackle the door installations next day, but I was so excited that I went back to work after the gym.

Rear Door Installation: I began with the rear doors rather than the front in case I couldn't complete the installation myself. There is no part of the video that describes the rear door installation and I think that this should be added because it is a little different than the front doors. Primarily there is no need to remove the trim since there is only one screw behind the door latch cup. The cups require some force to remove and the video and other posted information allowed me to remove all four cups without damaging them. It does require quite a bit of force to dislodge the bottom of the cups with the fingers. Once the cups were off, the door clips snapped off cleanly with a bit of force. I started off at the bottom and the rest was easy. The four tweeters on the doors required the installation of capacitors which were supplied in the box. The tweeters used on the rear deck had the capacitors already installed. Not sure why the goods were shipped this way. The rear door tweeters were held down with a bit of glue, so removing them took a little bit of work. I used all of the soundproofing material on the rear doors. Reinstallation of the door panels was straight forward, and both doors took me about 45 minutes. Again I tested the speakers before reinstalling the door panels.
Front Door Installation: Very similar to the rear door install, except for the fact that the door trim has to be removed to reveal a second screw. Having now done the back doors, the front doors were relatively easy to remove, rewire and replace. Both doors took me about 45 minutes.

I wish more soundproofing material had been included so that I could have added this to the front doors as well. On the other hand, the car is already extremely quiet. I used many ties to bundle the wires and taped down the exposed wires and harnesses as much as possible to avoid possible rattling. I had bought additional door clips in case some of them broke during the panel removal, but I never needed any of them. The midrange gaskets fall off easily when you take the speaker out of the box, so make sure that it is in place before installing the new speakers. The whole installation job took me about 3 hours.

I will now try to sell the stock speakers on eBay. Overall I would recommend this upgrade to anyone not satisfied with the sound from the stock Premium system. The improvement is sound quality is noticeable.

[lsturbointeg]

glad you like the Bav upgrade. i'm in the middle of negotiating for the 201 Gladen Extremes front and RC 100's rears and underseat 8's. so far i'm looking at $860 shipped!