Does anyone know the frequency response and ohm rating of the woofers in the front doors of the 2010 XFR B&W system? Thinking about capping them at approx. 70 hz and wanted to know how low they are actually going down to so I can determine what I'd actually be giving up by doing so.

 

You need to measure nearfield frequency response of woofer. I will do this in summer when upgrade BW system to normal 2x12inch free air subwoofers +active digital amp 1200W) I may ad some corections in 300Hz as i feel slight tonal imbalance (but need to measure to be sure)

 

Hi 2010 Kyanite XFR

I am near completion of a sound upgrade in my 2011 XFS, going through final tweaks and tests.
A full write up will be posted when done.
It had the base audio system, where I have upgraded all door speakers to B&W types and added the missing mid-range drivers.
The Head unit is feeding 3 x Class D Alpine Amplifiers, which gives the system lots of head room and therefore very clean sound
What I measured in the door and with a reference mic a 3db drop at 40hz, so these small woofers do very well for the size and cavity available.
Importantly, when they are pushed they still sound good.
My approach was to add a small 10” sealed sub-woofer, which re-enforces the 20-100Hz band.
I wanted a very tight bass response that can cope with anything from Classical to Jazz and Heavy rock...
I have chosen not to cut the lower end of these woofers, and this has worked out very well, so far.
What are you hoping to achieve and what type of music do you listen to and how loud (SPL)?

 

this is PINK noise frequency response? Should be very bright system..

 

Yep, it is clean and crisp in the high end, whilst not being tiring after a while, so far anyway.
The B&W tweeters are so much better than than the base system tweeters in all aspects.
I found on-axis response is pretty close to a high-end Hifi speaker.

 

I suppose you know what is pink noise and that white noise is needed for frequency response measurements (unless some algorith shifts shelved octave back just like RIAA converters)


For measurements best use "real" measuring MLS hardware not averaged algorithm. even 1/6/oct smoothing will allow for exact nearfield responses.


We are high end speakers manufacturers and in the past ~2006 prepared some cars for competition(which won BTW ) I hope one day I will have time to investigate into Bower system. its quite decent on multichanel mode , except vibrations on higher SPL . at least thinking to inject 2x1200W digital amp in amp module and 2 10 inch shallow subs built in free air, near rear speakers. not optimal but no wasted space at least.

 

The "B&W" speakers from the 2008-2011 XF are some of the best ever used in a JLR vehicle, in my opinion anyhow, and i've done a lot of retrofits and listened to a lot of systems in XF's, XK's, XJ's, F-Types, Discovery's and Range Rovers.

I put the "B&W" in quotations because the speakers are not made by Bowers & Wilkins, they're made by PSS in China, the cones and tweeter domes are to B&W design though.

Not sure if you saw these pics from my other threads, but I find them interesting.


Standard tweeter on left, B&W tweeter on right



Standard XF 6.5" door bass speaker on left, B&W on right.



Freelander2 / LR2 bass speaker from "Alpine" system on left, XF B&W on right.
These speakers are all but identical apart from the cones.

The 6.5" B&W speakers are certainly my favourite, i've put them in Freelanders & Discoverys, one forum member also put them in his F-Type, they are far superior speakers to any of the other 6.5" in JLR vehicles.

 

I havemeasured one woofer for Thiele small - the key of B&W(I like to call them BW because kevklar is a key for them) pretty high Fs and low CMC Vas is low 22 which is very clever design for the car enviroment.


I think you also prefer kevlar because its "empty" paper, polypropylene- all add some siganture in car and always sound bass heavy. kevlar on the other hand sounds "empty" and "lightweight"
this means you can crank lower mids upper bass without owerblowing lower notes resolution.

 

Hi Cambo,
Yep, I realize that the B&W speakers are made in China, and have enjoyed reading your previous post.
Sadly, this is happening across the board.
At the end of the day, it is really about how the drivers perform, not where they are made.

Hi elviukai,
Given your statements I am curios.... What "HIgh end Speaker manufacturer" do you work for and what are your credentials in speaker design?

 

I didnt shared any statement, just provided som thouights about Bower wilkins sound systems in general . if this helps/means somewhat to you , I work at company named **** **** and they have speaker brand called ****** ****.

 

Thanks for the reply. I listen to a lot of R&B and Rap but almost all of my music has a lot of bass energy. The mids do a very good job keeping up most of the time and I actually don't want a sharp rolloff on them. I do want to lessen their load when I have very strong bass content music playing.

I also have a 12" Alpine Type R 12 in the spare tire well powered by a newly installed Ampere Audio 1200.1. The new amp provides better quality and louder bass than I had with my previous amp which I love. Just worried about the mids being overdriven keeping up.

By the way, do you know what ohm load the mids are? Will help me choose the best HP filter.

 

Hard to say exactly what the impedence is, I measured some of the 100mm midrange speakers a while ago with a multimeter and got 3.5ohm, so I guess 4ohm impedence?

I've measured other speakers from other JLR vehicles and they vary quite a bit.

 

Thanks for the reply. I listen to a lot of R&B and Rap but almost all of my music has a lot of bass energy. The mids do a very good job keeping up most of the time and I actually don't want a sharp rolloff on them. I do want to lessen their load when I have very strong bass content music playing.

I also have a 12" Alpine Type R 12 in the spare tire well powered by a newly installed Ampere Audio 1200.1. The new amp provides better quality and louder bass than I had with my previous amp which I love. Just worried about the mids being overdriven keeping up.

By the way, do you know what ohm load the mids are? Will help me choose the best HP filter.

 

what are the wattage on each channel? has anyone switched out the speakers on the factory amps, to say some Focal's?

 

Not sure about upgrading anything except the sub, which worked out great. The B&W system is quite good with reinforced bass of a well powered sub. Just worried about the lower frequencies on the woofers when pushed hard.

 

The wattage is BS.

The system in the XF is marketed as 440W total, that's going into 11 channels.

The sub is driven by two channels of the amp.

The same system in the LR2, same amp, same speaker/channel count is marketed as 480W.

In the dealers diagnostic it's called 5x 130W, which is 650W total.

Other Land Rovers from the period with a similar system are marketed as 550W.

Who knows what it really is...

 

i have measured front left channel- 19W@8ohms ,36W@4ohms it goes higher but discortion skyrocket near 10%


btw TA and TB head units a bit diferent sounding. hardware nearly the same except few regulators I prefer soundstage of older TA,but technicaly TB sound less grain. radio is better on TB.


I went for complete upgrade of caps( Elna Silmic and Panasonics FC around 20psc) and shunted most critical places in power suplies with vishay MKP caps.


after upgrade all blur uper bass tones is gone, timbre more neutral now I can enjoy clasicall works even more.

 

Very interesting!

Would you be interested in doing this work on other head units?

 

not sure. maybe one or two- it need some mechanical works(grind metal shield to fit those oversized audiophile caps) as well.
if its interesting ataching some photos.


next job is to replace all junk bipolar caps on tweeters with Black Gate AC or some small size audiophile MKP.
then i will deeper in power amps. in power amp I also want increase power of subwoofer sectionoutput at least 100% probbaly easiest way to double output devices (papralel them) this will not provide more power on 4 ohms but will nearly double it at 2ohms (I will run 2x 12 inch subs) better way is to use some high power digital amp to run from factory amp, but i want to keep everything as close as original as possible.

 

place is quite tight.