Motors Anyone Good with Car stereo upgrades (case of beer for a budget solution) :)

Hoping there is someone on here good with audio who can help me out with this.

Sooooo recently i picked up a bmw 318i, an older 2010 model, and well the sound off it was pretty decent but it lacked some of the newer finer commodity's, sat nav, reverse camera, android auto etc.

So like an absolute spanner, i bought a Chinese head unit. I know i know what was i thinking... well tbh i was thinking surly a 2022 made stereo would sound better than the original 2010 head unit.

I was unfortunately wrong, and im hoping someone can give me a fairly.... inexpensive solution if posisible.

Ok so, from my understanding i have the base hi fi system, its apparently crap, but none the less it sounds pretty decent to me and fairly well balanced for what it is. I bought an android generic 3t headunit from ali express https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004608482336.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.21ef18025w6Vta

So i got it, fitted it, cabled it with the zero instructions it came with, and well it worked, gps, wifi, reverse cam, play store, life is good right. Wrong. It sounds like someone stole the sole from the speakers.

Its flat, muffled, and muddy as hell, it has a dsp app with something like 36 bands (which by god is sensitive as hell when moving screens back and forth).

I need to find some way to fix the sounds, my first though was send this back (not an option with postage costs), second option was to replace with something better, but then im gonna be out the rear end of 300-400 for an android auto compatible head unit, a facia kit, button relocation (stop start, not that this part is imporant), and from what i see some iso adapter to make it work, and even then im not sure about steering wheel controls.

I went into halfords to see if the guys in there could at least point me in the right direction. Instead i was told the cheapest 200 quid head unit with android auto would cost 650 to get the kit and be fitted by them (quite forcable sales which was odd for halfords). Issue is this head unit has a tone of wires, no wiring diagram, although im sure with some digging i can source one, a bunch of cut wires (no idea why it came like that)

Links to images
https://imgur.com/a/rDaNVb5

Soooooo. Is there some form of amp, or convertor, or like usb dac i can use to bypass whatever is on this thats utter garbage ?

Edit, there is 2 usb cables for it, one is a 4 pin, one a 6 pin, not sure why, but thats why im thinking some usb option

 

First thing to check is that you've got all the speakers wired correcly, including checking for the under seat subs that were in a lot of BMW's (Including making sure they're all in phase).
Then it'll be a case of playing with EQ to match the DSP settings the old factory system had.

 

Hi buddy, I didn't have to really do any wiring , this thing came with a cable with that all done. So everything is wired already, and checking all the speakers sounds coming out then so I assume it's correct.

As for DSP, I'm finding that impossible,. I did find DSP settings over at another site, but the input for them is quite different and not the long 36 bands this apparently has, and from what I can see I can't find a config file or that , was hoping I could drag and drop something to do it. It's insanely fiddley , but not I haven't been able to locate or easily replicate the DSP the car had

 

Any pics of this DSP app?
Sounds list like an EQ which would be easy enough to sort.

 

https://imgur.com/a/yPBGJ71
Sorry for the night time blurry cam shot , worked a 14 hour shift last night doing some access control list malarky.

 

@legoman is the only one I know to have messed with audio installs

 

Yeah its been a fiasco from the start but rock and a hard place price wise, everything just all at once as usual, mot due, aircon has a leak apparently, reverse camera i bought was wrong one (altho stated for my model), road tax has come back asking for vin number. Been super fun lol

Ontop of it all my audio has been gash and listening to my podcasts has been ever so not fun lol.

But overall i still love the car. Wish i had put more thought into the stereo tho, if i kent all this id have just stuck with the phone and saved for a really decent setup. That android unit was the arse end of after postage

 

These android ones can have funky menus.

So for this, I would set all these to off, including the high Freq, that's one of the cut offs

 

Please post half of @legoman's beer to me.

 

Finders fee?

I know with my android one I had to faff around to get it sounding right, turned off all the DSP stuff but I have external amps. But yeah turning all of he options off gives you a baseline, I would certainly keep the Loudness and freq set to off.
Loudness can sound good but you don't want to use it too heavily so low/mid. Voice basically turn that off its annoying messing a lot with the actual sound. That alone may be the cause of the muddy sound. Not sure what the top left an bottom left ones relate to though.

 

So our playing with it the now. On the sound menu don't get an off option but I do get pass which I assume is passive mode. Ive set them all the pass except Trimbre which I only get sharp roll off or short delay slow off, turned the bass boost to off on 0, and have played with the loud on low but still pretty bad.

So I dunno it's like, piercing if that makes sense, so the missus was going through music trying everything with me, and like rap sounds okish, mainly NF ATM, but rock (fob and p.o.d etc still really muddy,), county pop like tswift is like proper like ..... Screechy for lack of a better word. Like cannot listen to that load at all with all defaults essentially.

I'm not smart enough to know if that's a high or low frequency, the DSP starts at 20 and goes up to 18k ?

 

Deleted

 

the 20-18k is basically frequency low to high, is there an off option for it?

Sounds almost like theres an EQ running, worth a nose in the menus see if it can be fully removed, I'll grab a video of mine an turning off/on things how it affects sound tomorrow for you see if theres anything we can fathom.

As an idea, this is my headunit

https://www.eonon.co.uk/Android-Car...uto-9-Inch-IPS-Display-Android-Car-Radio.html

An this is my amp setup

 

:-o Oh wow thats a cool amp and .............. silver shiney thing . (i have no clue with this stuff)

But yeah so there is like 5 menu options in this DPS app ( didnt see any others but ill take a gander)
-Eq = which has those ranges from 20 to 18k and the options are to change manually or pick a preset like rock or jazz etc
-surround sound - where i can pick the placement of speakers, and change who its points at and location of the sound
-Sound - where i have the high freq, voice, ludeness etc, which are now all set at pass (and Trimbre which is on short delay slow)
-bass filter - which has 2 sliders, i presume amount of bass on all speakers, and then a center one i think


and a 5th option which i cant mind. I was gonna buy the Eonon as well but was just to dear. Now i might have regret that choice

 

Sorry for the delay, not sure if these will be of any help?

 

Sweet buddy, cars been in the garage the last few days, ill give these a whirl tomorrow when i get it back, looks different from mine but i imagine some will be similar or the same

Fingers crossed

 

Thanks for those buddy, checking mine it seems quite different from the menus on the one you have. Im gonna get some time tomorrow playing with it, spoke to a frew friends who have aftermarket stuff in their cars as well, all have told me different things, so heres hoping one works.

Im quite intrigued with this smiley face technique my mate has told me about, says on the eq its the middle frequencies that are the ones you really hear, so make a smiley face with it so there the lowest essentially and it should sound more like it used to and less balanced which it is when ive touched nothing .So we shall see

 

I completely missed you'd replied, sorry.

That graphic EQ (if I'm reading it right) is insane,there's 24 bands there and you've not even got to 1K.
Don't suppose you've ever down south, looks like it'd be easier to do whilst in front on it

 

You got tweeters in the door by the wing mirror? I bought an E92 with a base stereo and that was all I needed to add for me to be satisfied with the sound. I believe you get a small sub under the seat so it was really just the top end that was lacking for me. Tweeters can be had on AliExpress and eBay. Realoem.com is your friend for part numbers.

 

That might be important.
If you do have an OEM fitted sub and are feeding it high level (speaker) outputs it may be throwing a hissy fit, you may need to feed it low level (RCA) inputs.