When we were ordering our Mini, we were offered the choice of the Audio package for $1,500 which would upgrade the system to 10 speakers as well as a lifetime Sirius subscription. While the Sirius was tempting, the additional speakers weren't so we decided to pass on the Audio Package.

However, we did want to upgrade the audio and since Sean (my husband) used to be into working on car audio stuff, he wanted to do it himself. After visiting one of the local car audio stores several times that a friend of ours owns, we decided to go with the Diamond Audio line products based on cost, features, quality, warranty, etc.

Here's what we ended up going with:

Diamond Audio D3 500.4 - 500 watt four-channel amplifier

Diamond Audio D3 series 6 1/2 inch separates

Diamond Audio D3 series 6 inch co-axials

Diamond Audio D3 series 10 inch subwoofer

Sean was able to switch out/install all the speakers and the amp in a couple of days and he just recently finished installing the sub and building a very cool custom sub box.

There's a perfect spot for the amp under the front passenger seat because I don't have DSC (otherwise the DSC would go in that spot). With the styrofoam insert (used to fill the hole where the DSC goes) removed there was ample room for the 4 channel amp with all connections. The 6 1/2" midrange was an easy fit to the OEM 5 1/4" location. As for the tweeter, Sean made a mounting plate out of 1/4" black expanded PVC that was identical to the shape of the OEM 3 1/2" midrange so that the tweeter assembly fit perfectly in place of the original midrange. Since we didn't get the Audio Package upgrade, I had 6 speakers in my car. For the rear OEM 6"x9" locations, Sean made another mounting plate out of the PVC sheet that he then mounted the 6" co-axials to. It worked out perfectly!

I'm sure someone is wondering what the deal was with Sean using a 4 channel amp to power a front stage, rear fill and subwoofer. Well that was another part of the decision for the Diamond Audio products. The crossovers that come with the Diamond D3 separate set have "RAF" or "rear acoustical fill" outputs on them. So you have your amp powering the crossovers as a front channel but the crossovers actually supply signal to the front and rear speakers, limiting the rear speakers just right so that the front stage sound is correct and is not overpowered by the rear stage. This uses just 2 channels or the "Front" channels on the 4 channel amp. The subwoofer is powered by bridging the "Rear" channels of the amp giving sound to 5 "channels" while only requiring four. Best of all... no need for a separate bass remote to turn the subwoofer up or down because the head unit acts as this remote. Need less bass? Use the OEM radio and dial the fader to the "front" of the car! Need more bass? Dial towards the rear. He set the perfectly center fader for the best sound and if it needs adjusting it can be done from the factory head unit.

Then he started working on the sub box. He built it using MDF and fiberglass. It sits in the boot and ends flush to the lip edge inside the boot. Sean got the idea to do something kind of unique on the top of the sub box. Since the sub speaker is round (of course), he made a template in the shape of the MINI symbol and attached it to the top of the box with the speaker being the center circle. Then he took a piece of metal mesh, spray painted it black and then spray painted "MINI" in white on the center of it. This went over the speaker to protect it and once the felt was laid on top of everything, it made a subtle but very cool Mini emblem embossed on the top of the box covered by black trunk liner! There's even room on the side of the sub box for my Slime/Fix-a-Flat stuff and the tool kit!

Best of all - everything sounds GREAT!

I didn't get the chance to take photos of the entire project but here are some photos that I did take...

 

That install looks nice. Her deserves alot of credit for that work, really well done.

Enjoy it.

 

Nice sub enclosure, and super nice touch on the MINI grille! Gorgeous setup, I'd say!

 

I like what you put into the front doors, looks good and i bet it sounds good too.

So what is the connection that was used between the oem headunit and the amp, just speaker level into the amp or something like the CleanSweep?

 

Very nice!

How did he get around the crossovers in the head unit?

 

Hi guys...

I am Celia's husband, Sean. I always lurk on the forum and leave the posting to her but we figured it would be easier for me to give technical adivse as myself on the forum instead of telling her what to write.

Having said that... Thanks for the compliments. This is by far the best install that I have ever done and the sub box came out exactly how I thought of it in my head. The top is really subtle and VERY hard to photograph but it came out IDENTICAL to the way Mini makes their emblem, bevelled edges and all.

Drewster : The sound is incredible! I'm sure it's not the best but then again this system contains the middle-of-the-line products from Diamond not their high end D6 or the "Hex" series of which 6.5" woofers wouldn't fit in the door locations. I severed the speaker line outputs behind the head unit and hooked them up to a set of Stinger brand line level converters like this... http://stingerelectronics.com/prodDetail.asp?strID=174

I didn't want to use the Cleansweep because it is a large unit that would be hard to find a cozy home for in the Mini and also because it doesn't work right unless you use the Cleansweep volume remote. For the truest sound you must use the remote and not the MSWC or the head unit volume ****.

Thanks!

 

Robin : Crossovers in the head unit? I brought the car to a friends audio shop and we hooked up the speaker cables in the doors to an Audiocontrol Audio Analyzer and according to its readout we were getting a full range signal from all of the OEM speaker wires. I then took the Speedo/Head Unit assembly out and cut all the speaker wires from the head unit and attached the (hyperlinked above) line level converters to the back of the head unit.

Take care...

 

Absolutely and excellent job. I plan on doing the same minus the cool sub in the back - maybe later. Would you consider making a pair of those tweeter brackets? They look perfect. I'll bet others would benefit from too. If you don't want to post the price maybe you could PM me.

Again, just an excellent job!!

 

Excellent job Sean! Looks darn good!

 

Very nice!!

 

Great Setup. One question though, where did you put those crossovers. I heard that it was tough to place the crossovers in the doors as there isn't much space there. Second, I was thinking of getting the Diamond Audio Hex S600. Attached are the specs for the D3 and the Hex. They are very similar in dimension and both their mounting hole is less that 5.5 inches which is key to fit a 6.25 inch woofers there.

 

Hey guys...

Thanks again for the compliments!

Nui : I would certainly sell some of these mounting plates. I don't know how much it would cost but I'd be happy to let you know. I dug out the 3.5", 5.25" and 6"x9" and I can make plates for all three. The 6"x9" one could have a 6" or 5.25" co-axial mounting hole, the 5.25" plate could have a mounting hole for a 5.25" woofer (a 6.5" woofer would just need to sit right in the plastic OEM opening with no plastic plate) and the 3.5" plate for the tweeter just as I made it. I'll keep you posted.

silnt_assn_009 : The crossovers were mounted inside the door below the 6.5" woofer on the "inside" of the door. So not mounted to the inner part of the outer body metal but to the metal that the woofer gets mounted in. As for the Diamond HEX series... I think the speaker is too deep for the Mini's door with the power window rolled all the way down. This is one reason that I didn't mind paying retail at a local shop for my equipment, I was able to go there with the door panel removed and try a bunch of different 6.5" sets to see which fit best. The 6.5" Diamond D6 series was too deep and it butted up against the window when rolled all the way down. Perhaps you can adjust the opening enough to allow the speaker to fit. I was more interested in the entire D3 series for cost vs. performance. This set-up has allowed for some great sound at a fairly low price. Now that all the hard work is done and all the lines have been fished and spliced I can change out these components with relative ease, except for those damn rear speakers of course!

Another thing... if the Diamond's RAF feature is enticing you remember you have to be able to run a speaker cable out of each door to allow for the rear fill feed from the crossover. This was a HUGE PAIN! Those nice little loom boots that the factory wires fish through from the door to the main cockpit contain and massive amount of wires who are joined by a large molex connector that has to be drilled out to allow room for the wire to go through. Then once you get the wire through that connector there is a completely sealed rubber grommet that keeps the wires pretty sealed up as they enter the inner wall of the cockpit. The driver's side isn't bad but the passenger side is HORRIBLE because this grommet comes in next to the upper part of the glove box housing. There is much more than meets the eye with this audio package in the R56 Mini... If I was a mobile installer I'd be quoting BIG BUCKS $$$

Good Luck!

 

silnt_assn_009 : I'm sorry I didn't look at the specs... the D6 series is way deeper than the HEX... I think the HEX 6.5" might just fit nicely in there. I remember now why I didn't use the HEX series... I couldn't power them enough. I knew that I really wanted to fit that 4 channel under the seat and power the whole system from it, leaving me space to fit a nice false floor sub box in the boot as well as keeping most of the tools from the toolkit mainly the jack as well as having some space to hide a SLIME kit and mini tire compressor.

I think when this is all said and done in a few weeks I'll have everything tucked away so that it is completely clean and almost appears like it comes that way from BMW MINI.

 

Thanks for the reply. What about the crossovers, how and where did you put them? I know Diamond Audio's crossovers are huge, especially the Hex.

 

 

I guess i missed that part. Thanks a lot!

 

I have a question guys... I'm going to install a pair of subs.. do i need the JL CleanSweep? or a set of Stinger line level converters could do the job?

 

We used the Stinger line level converters to get the signal to the amps and that worked very well!

 

Hello,

Can you explain how you hooked up the stinger? i.e. do you use all four front speaker wires or just two??

One of these days the light will go on....;-)

Thanks
Mark

 

I'll also like to know how to do this as I want to take on the project of upgrading my audio on my own. Thanks

 

Sean,
Where are you located?? Anywhere near LI? I'd pay you to do the install in mine!! My only problem is, I can't use the floor of the boot for a sub like that, I use it too often. I need either a side mounted woofer in the boot (like the JL audio unit), or a smaller one under one of the front seats.

hmmmmm.... got me thinking, maybe I should just loose the rear seats (Yea I know, "we have rear seats?"). I really never use thost seats, I should just loose them and get a sub put back there and have all the added "boot space".


ahhhh the decisions....

 

Nice Job Indeed!! We've been happy with diamond and have had a lot of happy customers with them as well. I like your integration of the mini logo

 

Hello Mark - you need to have two line level converters. One for the front channels and one for the rear channels.


You'll need to pull out the whole speedo and stereo head unit assembly in order to do this upgrade. It's a pain in the butt but that's what you'll have to do in order to access the rear of the stereo to install the Stinger.


We actually are in Louisiana but if we lived near you, I don't think you'd be able to convince Sean to install your system. He would *BARELY* do it for me and was cursing the entire time he did it LOL

The sub only uses the bottom of the boot so I really didn't lose much boot space at all. However, if you're able/willing to lose your rear seats, then that might be the way to go for you!


Thanks for the compliments!! The Diamond product line is AWESOME!

 

Also, here are some better photos I took a while ago of the sub box where you can really see the Mini emblem...

 

[quote=wetceal;1963731]Hello Mark - you need to have two line level converters. One for the front channels and one for the rear channels.

I understand that one goes to the front and one goes to the rear, but what I was wondering was what wires you actually connected to each Stinger?

i.e. which of these outputs from the head unit get connected to the Stinger?

Front Left Woofer (6 1/2")
41 - Black/Red (+)
42 - Black/Purple (-)

Front Right Woofer (6 1/2")
39 - Yellow/Purple (+)
40 - Yellow/Gray (-)

Front Left Mid/Tweet*
33 - Blue/White (+)
34 - Blue/Brown (-)

Front Right Mid/Tweet*
11 - Blue/Black (+)
12 - Blue/Brown (-)

Rear Left Woofer (6x9)
4 - Red/White (+)
3 - Brown (-)

Rear Right Woofer (6x9)
23 - Red/White (+)
22 - Brown/White (-)

Rear Left Tweeter*
31 - Yellow/Black (+)
32 - Yellow/Brown (-)

Rear Right Tweeter*
13 - Yellow (+)
21 - Brown (-)

Then on the other side of the amp it sounds like the front channel goes to the cross-over and the rear channel goes to the 6x9's and amp, corrrect?

Thanks for your help, I really like the way you setup your Mini Hi-Fi and would like to setup mine up the same way!

Thanks,
Mark