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      06-08-2019, 05:29 PM   #1
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Audio Upgrade: BAVSound Revenant Amplifier & Full Speaker & Ghost Subs Upgrade

Hey everyone, I wanted to post some results I had from upgrading my audio system. I was told "no it couldn't be done" virtually everywhere I went, until BavSound provided exceptional customer service. Plug and play was easy, taking apart the car lining was moderately difficult. Sound is 100x better with the new amp. (1300w versus the 205 w factory is a definite improvement). Highly recommend bavsound for your bmw if you want better quality sound from your base speakers.

https://www.bavsound.com

Here are the photos of the base amp unit compared to the bavsound revenant unit (which comes with the plug and play adaptor designed for bmw).
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      06-09-2019, 04:39 PM   #2
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Good to hear positive reviews on the Bavsound amp.

I am heavily considering going with a Stage One Speaker, Ghost Sub, Revenant Amp upgrade.
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      06-13-2019, 12:02 PM   #3
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I have has mine now for 3.5 months. Initially I was not all that impressed but as time goes on I am happy I did the upgrade, along with the Ghost subs and full speaker package.
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      06-13-2019, 01:22 PM   #4
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Been debating doing ghost subs and their amp as well. I've emailed them and got a very nice response with personalized advice from them. Pretty impressive. The place I had instal my Dinan V2 had good things to say about bav sound. He said what's he's done is made the subs under seats into mid range sound with a new bypass, a custom built sub in trunk with a new amp with him personally tuning bypasses and speaker ranges for about $1300. But even though he was trying to sell me his service, he said nothing but good things about bavsound
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      06-13-2019, 05:07 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miner42 View Post
I have has mine now for 3.5 months. Initially I was not all that impressed but as time goes on I am happy I did the upgrade, along with the Ghost subs and full speaker package.
Did you install them yourself or have a Bavsound authorized installer do the work?
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      06-15-2019, 09:21 AM   #6
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Full Audio Speaker Upgrade: BAVSOUND

Quote:
Originally Posted by AddyDaddy View Post
Been debating doing ghost subs and their amp as well. I've emailed them and got a very nice response with personalized advice from them. Pretty impressive. The place I had instal my Dinan V2 had good things to say about bav sound. He said what's he's done is made the subs under seats into mid range sound with a new bypass, a custom built sub in trunk with a new amp with him personally tuning bypasses and speaker ranges for about $1300. But even though he was trying to sell me his service, he said nothing but good things about bavsound
After hearing the amp in my car I decided to go all in with bavsound. Once again, their customer service was stellar, just a great experience all around. I installed myself by watching their how-to video and they have a tool set that's $35 if you want to go that route. How's the sound? It's crisp, clear, softer than I'd expected but exceptionally balanced and clean. You can tell they eq'd the amp nicely. For reference see pictures of the Bav subwoofers versus the BMW OEM hifi subwoofers, total difference in construction materials all around, weight and feel. UPDATE: also, regarding the sound being 'softer' than expected: I take that back. After listening and adjusting the volume there's really so much more depth to the speaker fidelity now, that I don't tend to need as much volume, you may experience this too.
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      06-15-2019, 10:57 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cgnpower View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AddyDaddy View Post
Been debating doing ghost subs and their amp as well. I've emailed them and got a very nice response with personalized advice from them. Pretty impressive. The place I had instal my Dinan V2 had good things to say about bav sound. He said what's he's done is made the subs under seats into mid range sound with a new bypass, a custom built sub in trunk with a new amp with him personally tuning bypasses and speaker ranges for about $1300. But even though he was trying to sell me his service, he said nothing but good things about bavsound
After hearing the amp in my car I decided to go all in with bavsound. Once again, their customer service was stellar, just a great experience all around. I installed myself by watching their how-to video and they have a tool set that's $35 if you want to go that route. How's the sound? It's crisp, clear, softer than I'd expected but exceptionally balanced and clean. You can tell they eq'd the amp nicely. It was worth it.
How did the amp alone affect the sound? Did you have HK stereo already?
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      06-16-2019, 07:19 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AddyDaddy View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgnpower View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by AddyDaddy View Post
Been debating doing ghost subs and their amp as well. I've emailed them and got a very nice response with personalized advice from them. Pretty impressive. The place I had instal my Dinan V2 had good things to say about bav sound. He said what's he's done is made the subs under seats into mid range sound with a new bypass, a custom built sub in trunk with a new amp with him personally tuning bypasses and speaker ranges for about $1300. But even though he was trying to sell me his service, he said nothing but good things about bavsound
After hearing the amp in my car I decided to go all in with bavsound. Once again, their customer service was stellar, just a great experience all around. I installed myself by watching their how-to video and they have a tool set that's $35 if you want to go that route. How's the sound? It's crisp, clear, softer than I'd expected but exceptionally balanced and clean. You can tell they eq'd the amp nicely. It was worth it.
How did the amp alone affect the sound? Did you have HK stereo already?
My car came with the base hi-fi system: it had the center speaker with tweeter in dash, the tweeters and mids in the front doors, the mids and tweeters in the rear, and the under seat subwoofers. Everything dropped in nicely, however the "plug and play" came with one hurdle. The instructions on how to re wire the speakers are not altogether clear, but luckily Bavsound's support was top notch, they got back to me in minutes and talked me through how to wire it correctly (essentially there are a few wires that are not used and the tweeters are tied into the new mids...) the installation video is helpful but lacks these details.
On just the amp: I noticed deeper quality right away with just the amp and better sound - you're going from 205watts to 1300watts with that swap alone. It definitely makes a difference. However once I had the amp installed, I couldn't help but wonder how much better the whole system would sound together. Now that I've got all three components, the amp, the subs, and the speakers, I can def say it's a powerful and top-notch sound system that I really enjoy.

I investigated doing this with aftermarket parts and nothing seemed to fit, every audio shop I called either seemed confused or told me an upgrade couldn't be done, but these guys made it happen.
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      07-06-2019, 08:34 PM   #9
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I have the 4 series convertible and did the Revenant amp only. I didn’t change the speakers. It sounds way better than stock hi-fi. I can hear and feel the music now with the top down and the volume is not all the way up. I might do the ghost under seat speakers next.
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      07-15-2019, 07:55 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dobie Dog View Post
Did you install them yourself or have a Bavsound authorized installer do the work?
I had the speakers installed by a person familiar with installs on BMWs. I did the amp.
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      08-01-2019, 11:09 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dobie Dog View Post
Did you install them yourself or have a Bavsound authorized installer do the work?
I installed the amp and had a custom installer do the speaker/sub install. He was authorized by another BMW speaker manufacturer so I knew he would be familiar with the install process. He did watch the vids prior to the install
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      08-02-2019, 09:12 AM   #12
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Note this amp is not compatible with G30's equipped with the Harman Kardon system. Here is their response to my inquiry:

"Currently, the Revenant amplifier isn't compatible with your Harman Kardon equipped BMW due to the fact that it uses a fiber optic connection between the source unit (the iDrive system) and the amplifier. However, we are going to be doing some development work over the next 1-2 months, and while we can't say for certain we'll be releasing the amplifier upgrade for your application, we hope to be able to so within the 6-12 months."
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      10-26-2019, 08:07 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VirtualGuitars View Post
Note this amp is not compatible with G30's equipped with the Harman Kardon system. Here is their response to my inquiry:

"Currently, the Revenant amplifier isn't compatible with your Harman Kardon equipped BMW due to the fact that it uses a fiber optic connection between the source unit (the iDrive system) and the amplifier. However, we are going to be doing some development work over the next 1-2 months, and while we can't say for certain we'll be releasing the amplifier upgrade for your application, we hope to be able to so within the 6-12 months."

Audiotec Fischer is the company that manufactures the BavSound amplifier. It is essentially a Match UP7BMW unit.

The Audiotec Fischer website lists their digital MOST interface as being compatible with the G30 with Harmon Kardon audio.

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/h...ssories/sdmi25

This device is similar to a mObridge DA1 preamp, which takes the MOST adapter from the factory amplifier and converts it to a stereo optical output. That optical output can feed an aftermarket DSP and/or amplifier.

While this is not as simple as the plug-n-play BavSound Revenant upgrade, it does at least offer people with the Harmon system an upgrade path that keeps the iDrive fully functional.


From their website database, when I searched for G30:
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      10-29-2019, 04:03 PM   #14
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I tried the Bavsound Revanant amp on my 5 series Hi-fi and I wasn't pleased. It was too bass heavy for my taste and I could not adjust it enough with the Bass Treble settings. I ended up returning the amp and going back to the stock amp.
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      10-29-2019, 06:44 PM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robby818 View Post
I tried the Bavsound Revanant amp on my 5 series Hi-fi and I wasn't pleased. It was too bass heavy for my taste and I could not adjust it enough with the Bass Treble settings. I ended up returning the amp and going back to the stock amp.
Not surprising if you didn't go with the Stage 1 and 2 upgrades also. The stage 1, 2, and 3 upgrade combo is fantastic.
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      10-31-2019, 03:49 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by subterFUSE View Post
Audiotec Fischer is the company that manufactures the BavSound amplifier. It is essentially a Match UP7BMW unit.

The Audiotec Fischer website lists their digital MOST interface as being compatible with the G30 with Harmon Kardon audio.

https://www.audiotec-fischer.de/en/h...ssories/sdmi25

This device is similar to a mObridge DA1 preamp, which takes the MOST adapter from the factory amplifier and converts it to a stereo optical output. That optical output can feed an aftermarket DSP and/or amplifier.

While this is not as simple as the plug-n-play BavSound Revenant upgrade, it does at least offer people with the Harmon system an upgrade path that keeps the iDrive fully functional.


From their website database, when I searched for G30:
Harness and the number of outputs of the Revenant are not compatible at all with the HK system, regardless of the MOST converter.
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      11-03-2019, 12:21 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by robby818 View Post
I tried the Bavsound Revanant amp on my 5 series Hi-fi and I wasn't pleased. It was too bass heavy for my taste and I could not adjust it enough with the Bass Treble settings. I ended up returning the amp and going back to the stock amp.
Wow! In my 4, I thought it didn’t have enough bass and was thinking of upgrading the underseat speakers or adding an amplified subwoofer in the compartment behind my rear seats.
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      01-02-2020, 07:39 PM   #18
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for the price we paid for our cars we should be fine in paying a bit of money for some really awesome speakers and power.. I would run the helix up7 match plug and play amp. but I would go with, unquestionable, the best mids and tweeters made today, and those are the AudioFrog tweets and mids. No engineer in the world has more working knowledge on BMW and speakers as Andy the owner of A.F. as he worked for JBL for yrs building and designing speakers. HE KNOWS OUR CARS!!!! and the tech support is better than any other company. They are a bit more than the bavs but the sound quality is night and day, even over the b/o speakers.. AND the tweets will need to be slightly modified to work.. NO biggie for a good shop tho.. I can ususally get them in the a pillars stock locations for a good price, 4s just drop in, underseat 8s are a great midbass, leave them alone... don't worry about the back speakers as you don't sit back there, get a 10 moulded into the rear of the trunk and voila,, music nirvana
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      07-08-2020, 03:50 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by instalher View Post
for the price we paid for our cars we should be fine in paying a bit of money for some really awesome speakers and power.. I would run the helix up7 match plug and play amp. but I would go with, unquestionable, the best mids and tweeters made today, and those are the AudioFrog tweets and mids. No engineer in the world has more working knowledge on BMW and speakers as Andy the owner of A.F. as he worked for JBL for yrs building and designing speakers. HE KNOWS OUR CARS!!!! and the tech support is better than any other company. They are a bit more than the bavs but the sound quality is night and day, even over the b/o speakers.. AND the tweets will need to be slightly modified to work.. NO biggie for a good shop tho.. I can ususally get them in the a pillars stock locations for a good price, 4s just drop in, underseat 8s are a great midbass, leave them alone... don't worry about the back speakers as you don't sit back there, get a 10 moulded into the rear of the trunk and voila,, music nirvana
Hello, could you explain a bit more?.
You recommend to change the tweeters (wich model?), that need some modification (adaptation or modification to fit? What modification?). Then 4s (wich ones?) that fit straight? Where?. And finally 8s (wich ones?), instead of stock subwoofers?.
Sorry, my not so good english doesn't help.
Thanks
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      07-24-2020, 05:09 PM   #20
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audio frog has what is considered the best sounding tweeter in the world for car audio and its a direct fit. any other good speaker will need to be modified.. on to the 4s.. ok I just pulled my door apart on sunday and got a depth of 1 5/16 inches.. so that leaves only a hand full of drivers, If you want a excellent one go with the Audiofrog gb40, it has a ton of reviews on line so my word is not the bible on these.. they are excellent sounding but most of all, THEY FIT!! Focal makes one as well and they are decent.. Now onto the 8s.. this is a tough one.... if you have the oem H.K. 8S leave them and give them more power.. The engineers designed that driver to match the goofie enclosure exactly.. its downfall is lack of power.. This speaker will handle 200 watts rms all day and sound excellent.. its just a midbass so 80 to 150should be all it plays anyway...
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      07-27-2020, 08:44 PM   #21
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Nice I've been trying to upgrade to a Bavsound amp but they told me that they currently do not sell the amp for the 2017 5 series on their website because they've had instances where wiring harnesses would not fit in some models.
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      08-17-2020, 05:22 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cgnpower View Post
Hey everyone, I wanted to post some results I had from upgrading my audio system. I was told "no it couldn't be done" virtually everywhere I went, until BavSound provided exceptional customer service. Plug and play was easy, taking apart the car lining was moderately difficult. Sound is 100x better with the new amp. (1300w versus the 205 w factory is a definite improvement). Highly recommend bavsound for your bmw if you want better quality sound from your base speakers.

https://www.bavsound.com

Here are the photos of the base amp unit compared to the bavsound revenant unit (which comes with the plug and play adaptor designed for bmw).
I have this amp for sale! $700 used like new comes with harness and mounting bracket.. I’m new to the forum so apologies if I’m posting this in the wrong place lol
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