Mini Cooper SE speaker help!!

squirrelking86

squirrelking86

New Member
Hi everyone I have my new 2022 Mini SE and I have the standard 6 speaker system and I cannot figure out how it’s wired. I’m trying to add a kicker underseat Sub and if I tap into either front or rears I get little bass out of it? Has anyone upgraded their system by either amp or speakers or better yet adding a sub? Anyone have speaker diagram? Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!!
 
squirrelking86 said:
Hi everyone I have my new 2022 Mini SE and I have the standard 6 speaker system and I cannot figure out how it’s wired. I’m trying to add a kicker underseat Sub and if I tap into either front or rears I get little bass out of it? Has anyone upgraded their system by either amp or speakers or better yet adding a sub? Anyone have speaker diagram? Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!!
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Perhaps there are forum members who have upgraded their non-harman/kardon audio systems, but I can't remember seeing any audio system wiring diagrams here. BimmerTech might be a good source of info and/or upgrade components.
 
I’ve ordered the bavsound kit for my car and will probably install it in the next week or two. The Mini has two underseat subwoofers already, the bavsound woofers are plug and play. I previously installed their kit in an E9x BMW and the sound quality was great.
 
Bavsound speakers are entirely plug and play (no splicing) and no amp upgrade required. The subs are under the front driver and passenger seats.
 
david9999999 said:
I’ve ordered the bavsound kit for my car and will probably install it in the next week or two. The Mini has two underseat subwoofers already, the bavsound woofers are plug and play. I previously installed their kit in an E9x BMW and the sound quality was great.
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I did the Bavsound speaker upgrade on my i3 (base stereo) and was very impressed.

I'm going to give the HK a go in the Mini and may do some Bavsound upgrades to it depending.
 
I’ll be interested to hear an update on the sub. I am planning to put a sub in the lower trunk space at some point. I also have the 6-speaker system. Perhaps the front and rear speakers have a crossover to cut out the lower frequencies which are sent to the under-seat subs?
 
I did a bit of research on this awhile back.

The signal going into the rear speakers are very bandwidth limited---there are no lows to speak of, so tapping into the rears is a waste of time.

The fronts and the underseat subs are getting the same signal, and are wired in parallel. The fronts and subs are rated at 4 ohms each, so in parallel they present 2 ohms to the head unit. This is as low as you want to go, so be cognizant if you want to wire an unpowered sub in parallel with the existing speakers. A powered sub would be better, but adds complexity in wiring the power and turn-on leads.

I think replacing the existing speakers with better ones (better freq response or higher sensitivity) would be the simplest solution to get better audio. Frankly, I've found the existing audio quality (non-HK system) pretty decent and haven't changed anything yet.
 
I replaced the two front speakers with Focal RCX-100 speakers. I am a cheap audiophile so only spent $90. It was easy to do. There are a few videos in Youtube. They are better than the OEM speakers but you can only expect so much from 4" speakers. Diffidently got better highs/mids and imaging. The back two speakers are a little more difficult to get to. I might get something better and put the RCX-100 to the back.
 
Ketos said:
I replaced the two front speakers with Focal RCX-100 speakers. I am a cheap audiophile so only spent $90. It was easy to do. There are a few videos in Youtube. They are better than the OEM speakers but you can only expect so much from 4" speakers. Diffidently got better highs/mids and imaging. The back two speakers are a little more difficult to get to. I might get something better and put the RCX-100 to the back.
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How much difference would you say the Focals make? I like the idea of "cheap audiophile" at $90. Bavsound seems like a solid recommended choice too, but if install is easy on the Focals (do they fit the factory mounts as is?) and the overall sound is really good, that might be a wise way to go. We have a Signature on a boat right now, so it shouldn't be much longer. Thanks for any feedback or other recommendations.
 
anyone know the power difference between the HK and the non-HK? I assume the amp is much more powerful in the HK.
 
MiniFish said:
How much difference would you say the Focals make? I like the idea of "cheap audiophile" at $90. Bavsound seems like a solid recommended choice too, but if install is easy on the Focals (do they fit the factory mounts as is?) and the overall sound is really good, that might be a wise way to go. We have a Signature on a boat right now, so it shouldn't be much longer. Thanks for any feedback or other recommendations.
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The Focals are a big improvement to the sound quality. I saw this video on youtube and it gave me the confidence to FIY it. I didn't have the adapter brackets. I was able to use two of the original holes and then drilled another one to mount it (I only used 3 of the 4 mounts on the speaker). I also added some sound deadening material to fill in the gaps.

After installing them, I set the "Fade" setting in "Tone" to more of the front so the sound in the back speakers are not as loud as the fronts. I might get to the back someday but I'm not sure it's worth all the work.
 
Thanks Ketos and Alf. What a great, helpful community. Once my SE arrives (In Transit from initial port) I'll likely tackle one of these simple speaker upgrades and then report back any pros/cons for others.
 
yoomini said:
anyone know the power difference between the HK and the non-HK? I assume the amp is much more powerful in the HK.
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I read somewhere that the stock non-HK amp is 4x25 watts. Plenty for the rears, but not much for the fronts where each channel is shared by a speaker and a sub.

The HK system has an external amp, but I don’t know the wattage.
 
I had some sound deadening mat left over from a previous project and I put them to use in my SE. Looks like I only used two screws to secure the speaker to the mount. One to the original mount and another that I had to drill. ( I used the supplied screw tab from Focal) I then use some mats to seal off some gaps.

I found that Mini only applied sound deadening material to a small area of the metal door; maybe 8"x10". (sorry I should have take a pic of it.) I pulled some of the gray mat off from the bottom and added about 4X more of it. The plastic side was easier to apply the material. I covered most of the flat surfaces as you can see.
 

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How easy is it to pry off the door panels? I’ve had some cars where they pop off easily and go back perfectly, while others whose clips were permanently damaged even with the most careful removal possible.
 
SameGuy said:
How easy is it to pry off the door panels? I’ve had some cars where they pop off easily and go back perfectly, while others whose clips were permanently damaged even with the most careful removal possible.
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It was tough getting the first fastener clip to release. Once the first one popped off, all the others came off pretty easily. I used a plastic pry tool give me some space to slip my gloved hand to put at the bottom corner.
 
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squirrelking86 said:
Hi everyone I have my new 2022 Mini SE and I have the standard 6 speaker system and I cannot figure out how it’s wired. I’m trying to add a kicker underseat Sub and if I tap into either front or rears I get little bass out of it? Has anyone upgraded their system by either amp or speakers or better yet adding a sub? Anyone have speaker diagram? Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!!
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2024
Sorry for the late update but I did figure out what the problem was, the head unit itself has bass roll off and was throwing off the underseat subwoofer. I fixed it by adding a Audio Control LC2i Pro to fix the bass roll off. Now that I have had time to mess with it I did end up removing the Kicker Sub and added a whole new system with a 5-channel amp and shallow bottom firing kicker sub.
 
Sounds like a lot of work. I did a full Bavsound for the Iconic no charge HK speaker delete Electric Collection and everything is great!
 
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