05-12-2018, 04:56 PM | #1 |
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DIY: Focal ISC 100 in F22 Front & Rear
Hi,
First post, but felt after reading through all the useful information I should pay back! Background: Fairly competent DIYer, normally service my own car. Difficulty: 3-4/10 (easy, the nerves of pulling off the door card are the worst, the rest is very basic and not much can go wrong). Total cost: £194 for all 4 speakers. £14 OEM speaker wire adaptors, £20 spacers, £160 for 4 Focal ISC 100 speakers. This is my wife's F22 218d. She came from a ford fiesta and we were both shocked at the quality of sound. After searching this forum and reading every thread about speakers (yes, every thread and every post!) - I decided on Focal ISC 100 front and rear, and to disable the centre speaker. I am from the UK so had difficulty finding spacers/adaptors for the speakers, in the end I bit the bullet and bought this metal ones: I can confirm this fit. I bought 4 of these adaptor leads in total: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/41-022-BM...MAAOSwy~BZ5dpK Soldering the rears would be a pain, there isn't much room and I would end up burning things. Focal ISC 100s on Amazon or eBay. Reason I went for them was because the IFBMC were almost 3x the cost. DIY: 1) Open windows and open door, using plastic trim tools from eBay we are going to pry some parts of the trim off to reveal screws holding the door card. Plastic trim tools are a must, anything else will damage your trim. Alternatively a screwdriver with a cloth around it *can* work if you are careful. Two trim pieces need coming off as labelled on the diagram below. 2) Using trim tools gently pry these off, the door handle (labelled 1), comes off very easily 3) 2nd one, the glossy one comes off fine, recommended to pry off from the bottom as there is a slither of a gap BMW have left for you to get your trim tool in. Might take more force to pop these trim piece out. 4) There is one torx screw behind the small door handle, and 2 for the bigger glossy trim (one at the top and one at the bottom). 5) Two more torx screws at the bottom of the door card (no trim removal needed, just get down on your knees and you will see them) Picture showing both screw locations: 6) Keep all those bits safe, now time for the more difficult part as not many people like popping off door cards - always feels like you're breaking something! I managed to do it without snapping any of the clips that hold the door card in even though I had to use A LOT of force. The trim tools weren't strong enough to pop out the door card clips, so I used a large flat head screwdriver with the tip wrapped up in a cloth to prevent any scratches or damage. A lot of force/lever action was needed. I started on the inside edge (towards the hinge of the door). Once you get one clip popped out, the rest are much easier. I haven't got a picture of this part as it was quite hard to do it and use the camera. 7) Once the door card pops off, make sure not to let go, as it is connected by a wire. I laid a towel on the floor outside and then was able to rest the door card on it whilst the wire was still connected. I couldn't actually undo the wire connect to free the door card fully, so the rest of the DIY I did with it attached. Ideally have a second person, so one can hold the door card and the other attempt to undo the wire. You also undo the door lock mechanism very easily by pulling the door lock cable down and freeing it, gives you more room to swing the door card out of the way. Close up of the wire I couldn't undo, so instead i undid the door lock cable which gave the door card enough slack to rest on the floor. 8) This is the Focal ISC 100 speaker with the spacer ready to go in. Speaker held onto the spacer by 4 bolts with nuts. 9) Unplug connection to speaker and the BMW speaker is held to the door with 3 torx screws (smaller than the ones for door card). Undo the 3 screws and pop in the new speaker and re-screw. 10) OEM speaker adaptor cables I purchased made it a breeze, saved time stripping and soldering wire. Plugs into the BMW speaker harness and then the 2 ends fit onto your Focal ISC 100. Make sure red goes to red and black goes to black, same for both sides of the car, don't reverse polarity. Make sure to tuck the wire away somewhere safe because the holes for the door trim are nearby - don't want the wire getting caught when you put the door card back in. 11) To finish, reverse of the above, door card does need a good whack to get each clip back in so don't be afraid. Overall: Sound quality VASTLY improved, could not believe myself by how much, if they used to be 2/10 they are now about a 9/10. I am not an audiophile per se although I do own some Naim HiFi equipment in my house. But I think almost everyone will be blown away by the difference. Things i've noticed now: Have to put the volume louder than it used to be Had to increase treble and bass Moved fader more to rear. |
05-16-2018, 08:33 AM | #3 |
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Nice DIY! Hell of a first post.
Thanks!
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05-16-2018, 08:53 AM | #4 |
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Nice post - only thing I'd add is while the door cards are off may as well do some sound deadening. Cheap and why not.
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05-22-2018, 07:04 PM | #5 |
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Yep looking back I agree. Was just too excited to get the speakers in that I couldn't wait 3 days for the sound deadening to arrive
No doubt will be adding that later on. For now I'm working on an ML 2006 dashboard replacement! |
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07-05-2018, 10:49 AM | #7 |
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Whoops forgot the link in the post.
Here you go: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?m...2F200962278812 |
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07-05-2018, 05:52 PM | #8 |
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Wow, great post man.
Hearing that at £194 it makes for such a vast improvement makes me want to bite the bullet and give it a crack. I've ready many posts and threads myself and most of them require an investment of at least double that. It seems the stock amp is still powerful enough to produce decent quality sound? |
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07-18-2018, 09:50 AM | #10 |
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I installed 4 ISC 100's. Huge improvement over the HiFi (misnomer) speakers. Clearer, louder and more accurate sound. The quality has gone from not so good to pretty good. Prior to the swap out I had removed the center speaker. Tonight I'm installing the TechnicsPNP ASD harness. The stock amp is not so powerful, that is next on the list. Every so often the ever present amp hiss gets annoying.
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07-18-2018, 05:10 PM | #11 | |
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Would love to hear how it sounds after the install of an amp. I'm wondering whether if i upgrade the amp, would it be worth spending extra on speakers to make the best use of the additional oomph? |
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07-19-2018, 09:20 AM | #12 | ||
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Quote:
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07-19-2018, 09:49 AM | #13 |
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Installed the ASD harness yesterday. Now I think the piped in engine noise is there to mask the hiss. It's better this way but now the amp deficiency is more obvious.
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07-20-2018, 11:14 AM | #14 |
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Amps w/o better speakers is just going to be the same crap sound but louder (or you'll overpower the stock speakers and they'll get worse) - you'll certainly get more of your money's worth out of the amp if you also do speakers.
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09-05-2018, 08:28 AM | #15 |
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I am curious as to the best orientation for the tweeter? For the front, did you go straight up (12 o'clock) or something in between 12 and 3? For the rear, did you aim straight forward or slightly inward?
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09-20-2018, 06:31 AM | #16 |
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Hi ..
Has anyone done this install on a basic system and not the hifi system. I don't have a centre speaker or tweeters so was wondering if my system had the power to improve with these focal isc100 speakers..Thanks Pally |
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10-19-2018, 11:59 PM | #17 |
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Hi Pally, I did replace the four stock speakers in the basic system with these focal ISC-100s and so far the sound has been greatly improved even with the standard amp. You won't get body pounding bass out of these little speakers, but even with the stock sub-woofers, the overall dynamic range of the sound is much better than it was.
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