Focal or Eton Speakers?

[rennwerkes]

I see that both Focal and Eton offer speakers that will fit 1 series perfectly. Was wondering if anyone has experience with these? And how do you like them? Thanks!

[zx10guy]

I've got the Focal BMW plug and play speakers in my car. I also have the Bimmertech amp too. I did the front speakers which were the tweeters, mid drivers in the doors, and the underseat subs.

The sound from the Focals without dialing them in is to me aggressive, forward, and a bit bright. I went with the Focals because GeoffS (a member here) did the hard work in getting a sound file created tailored to these speakers and the 1 series interior using the same Bimmertech amp. GeoffS went one step further than me by also replacing the rear deck speakers with Focals. He told me in his opinion, upgrading the rear decks didn't provide any significant improvements. And I concur as I don't notice anything missing or bad with having the stockers back there. They're just to provide some amount of fill sound.

The sound file he did took a lot of effort as he also had a custom A/V installer mic up and measure the test signals fed into the system to dial in the DSP settings. GeoffS has a thread he created talking about the initial process in the audio electronics sub forum here. He just did a revamp of the sound file with some improvements, and oh man, the new bass response is amazing. Deep and extended with lots of punch and no distortion.

If you really want the most out of upgrading the sound system in your car, you really need to do the whole thing.

Full disclosure, because of the time and money GeoffS spent in generating the sound file, I chipped in some money to help offset the cost to him for doing it.

[rennwerkes]

Thanks for the info.
At the moment I just wanted to try a speaker upgrade and not spend the $'s on a proper amp upgrade.
Maybe I'll give the Eton's a try and report back.
Seems as though they can be bought through Ebay for a fairly reasonable price.

[zx10guy]

It'll be interesting to hear the Etons. The Focals remind me a bit of my B&W Nautilus speakers I have in my home audio systems and the Canton 2 way separates I had in my past project cars. Too bad the Cantons don't fit the 1 series as I still have the speakers along with the McIntosh 6x9 coaxials.

If you want the Focals, you'll need probably be looking at buying them overseas...at least the under seat subs as I haven't seen any of the US shops carrying them. I ordered mine as a full set from an eBay seller based out of the UK. From what I can tell the last I looked around, the Focal plug and play speakers are starting to become a bit more scarce.

[rennwerkes]

Ooooh! Cantons!
I remember back in the day, B&W, Kef, and Canton all came out with some very nice systems for cars. I think Canton even came out with dedicated amps. The most I could ever afford then were the ADS speakers. Even today, the ADS Power Plates are still regarded well.
Back to the Etons, I'll give them a try and report back. Will probably just go with the mids and tweeters for now.
By the way, how do you tell if you have the sub's?
Thanks

[zx10guy]

As far as I know, all the different variations of the factory systems came with subs. The subs are under both front seats. You can easily see them by just looking under the seat. You'll see a perforated cover plate where the subs are. At first I thought it was going to be a pain to replace the subs but they're actually very easy. All I did was to unbolt the seats from the chassis/frame of the car and just tilt the entire seat backwards. This provides plenty of room to work on the subs without having to disconnect the wiring to the seats and lifting them out of the car.

Pulling the door cards/skins was a much more involved process. You'll definitely need to get some interior trim tools to pop the door cards/skins off. And with mine, the plastic pins/clips were in there pretty good. Many times I thought I was going to break the plastic pins/clips, the door card/skin, or the trim tool.

[zx10guy]

Oh and on the subject of different speakers, I miss those days you've mentioned. That was back in the day when many audio companies were independent companies and not part of some bigger collective. When many of the companies started to get swallowed up into a conglomerate, all the innovative and uniqueness of these companies just dissolved.

In addition, to the car speakers I've mentioned, I still have a JL Audio and PPI amp. The PPI amp has a dead channel(s) so only part of the amp is working. It was a great amp when it was working. The JL amp is also a very good amp. One of these days, I'll probably put up the working/left over equipment for sale.

[rennwerkes]

Yup, the old amps are still great for simple set ups. Like E30's.
I always liked the older Soundstream or ADS amps. Get some ADS 320is and 300i's in back and you're set!!!

[LeoBurr]

I can't speak for the Etons, as I haven't heard them, but The Focals do sound great once properly dialed-in for the 1-series. I'm sure the Etons would sound decent as well (almost anything does compared to the factory fronts) but you'd also need to find someone who really knows what they're doing to help calibrate them correctly with an AudioTech/Fischer amp, which provides the flexibility you'd need.

To zx10guy's point, even the Focals sounded bright, harsh, and treble-heavy from the factory without proper EQing. My first EQ was with my AVSForum calibrator of choice using a standard "theater" calibration. I had him over again, and I asked him to use a "car audio" EQ curve which beefs up the low-end while retaining the pleasant high-end to account for the engine/road noise, etc. and then we adjusted by ear based on some tracks and music styles I listen to. This is the latest map file that zx10guy has.

Also of note, I've dumped my Tune2Air and moved to a 2019 Stream2Air (https://bmwstream2air.com/products/2...iber_hash=w6e6) which gives me better quality bluetooth than the Tune2Air, IMO. The Tune2Air could distort at full volume from my phone. The Stream2Air does not, and seems to have more dynamic range because of it.