Phatbox installed and it is great!!! - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

burkey · 15th February 2002, 16:28

Hello all,

I just wanted to post a quick message regarding my purchase and installation of a Phatbox (http://www.phatnoise.com). This is a digital music player with a 30G removable hard drive that is controlled through the BMW headunit, which is really a necessity in a modern BMW since replacement of the headunit is a difficult task at best.

Since I have the M-Audio upgrade, I was a little concerned about the sound quality due to the conversion digital to analog and back to digital (the Phatbox has analog outputs but the DSP has only a digital input so an A/D converter needs to be added). The sound quality is great, though, with all my music ripped into WMA at 192k/s. I have also replaced the front speakers with Rainbox Professionals to clean up the mid bass and highs.

The interaction uaing the 6 disc buttons on the head unit is surprisingly effective. You can browse, or randomly play, by artist, album, genre, etc. with generated speech speaking the titles and artists. I used the "Mike" voice from AT&T's Natural Voices (http://www.naturalvoices.com) product and it matches nearly perfectly with the other Phatbox prompts.

The downside is that the Phatbox LE are sold out. A rep from Phatnoise has stated that there is a deal in the works that should make another BMW compatible unit available soon. I have also heard that BMW has signed a deal with them for future installed systems. I was really hoping that all that extra space in the CD display that appeared after the v18 upgrade was going to be filled with the text from the music tags, but this wasn't the case.

Oh well, I am still loving driving about with the about 420 CDs worth of music

Chad

TommyGun · 15th February 2002, 17:01

Chad, thanks for the info. I have been looking for a good MP3 install option for my car. I like what I have heard and read about the PhatNoise. Of couse you know I have to ask...can you post pics? I am most interested in understanding/seeing what the display looks like when you use the 1-6 buttons to interact with the MP3 player. Also, does this eliminate the ability to use the CD-Changer?

Thanks for info!

NO-MERCY · 15th February 2002, 17:54

This is exactly what I have been looking for, THANKS!!

burkey · 15th February 2002, 18:08

Hi Tommy,

The display looks no different than when you are using the CD changer. It is just that disc 1 is for "Track Mode", disc 2 is for another mode, disc 3 is for "Artist Mode" and so on. When you are in Artist mode and hit the track advance button the Phatbox will speak the name of the next artist in the list. Track numbers go up or down as you browse through them, but they are pretty meaningless. If you hold down either track buttons it will just speak the first letter of the Artist's name. For instance, say I wanted to listen to "Lover's Rock" by Sade. I would first hit 3 and the Phatbox would say "Now browsing artist list. The current artist is Jeff Buckley. Next I would hold down the track advance button (I use the steering wheel one) and the Phatbox would start listing the letters of the alphabet starting from "J" (I didn't bother putting my artists in proper last name, first name format. Once it said "S", I would release the button and the Phatbox would then speak the name of the first artist in the "S" category. Next keep pressing the track advance button until you hear it say "Sade". Then press 4 to switch to album mode and press track advance until it said "Lover's Rock". Listen.

It sounds much more complicated than it really is. You can also listen to normal or randomized songs from a particular genre, artist, or album. v.cool

As for the changer, I think it does disable the trunk one since it uses that communication channel, but I believe you can still opt for a glove box changer. I worried about this initially and then quickly forgot about it sunk in just how much music I would have with me.

Chad

Micsor/DK · 15th February 2002, 18:13

Thanks for the great information....

Mike-S.

SouthshoreM6 · 15th February 2002, 22:05

Can you tell me a little more about the speakers? Do they fit in stock location? Price?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

MarkM5Lauderdale · 15th February 2002, 22:37

Great! Just when I think I have all the gadgets I need someone comes up with another one!

burkey · 16th February 2002, 00:05

Quote:

Originally posted by SouthshoreM5
Can you tell me a little more about the speakers? Do they fit in stock location? Price?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

Hi Bill,

The speakers I bought are Rainbow CS 230 P3s (http://www.rainbow-car-audio.com/spe....php?AN=231496). When I finally picked up my car last August, I was extremely disappointed in the sound quality of the supposedly upgraded stereo. The upper mid bass and highs were very muffled. Listening to music which normally brings out these tonal qualities sounded like I had pillows held to my ears. I wanted to improve this without resorting to changing the amp and losing functionality. I thought that I would try changing the front speakers as an inexpensive first shot.

The speakers in the front doors are as follows...
- mirror triangle area: tiny (nickel-sized), crappy little tweeter
- door latch area: empty
- door kick-panel: 5.25" coaxial speakers (these are identical to the two on the back parcel shelf)

My plan was to replace these with two-way speakers (separate tweeter and woofer) placing the tweeter in the mirror triangle, leaving the door latch spot empty, and placing the woofer in the door kick-panel. Even though most two-way speaker sets come with their own crossovers, I wasn't planning to use them. Now I just had to figure out what speakers to put in there.

After listening to a large variety of speakers I came to two conclusions: (1) I have very sensitive ears, and (2) metal domed tweeters make my ears sad. I know that others on this board have sung the praises of MB Quart speakers, but their metal domed tweeters were way too harsh for me. I then focused on soft (fabric) domed tweeters and found them to be much smoother and more fluid. Keep in mind that these are my opions only!

I found the A/D/S speakers to be quite nice and they were my runner up. I had heard some great comments on the Rainbow speakers and once I tracked down a dealer and heard them my decision was made. There is one online dealer for Rainbows and his prices were dramatically better

After reading on the net about how to remove the door panels, I swapped the speakers out in about two hours total. The plastic molding on the inside of the door did require a little dremeling so that the braces on the Raindow woofers would slide in. Other than that there were no other modifications necessary.

The result: much better sound quality in exactly the areas I was hoping to improve. The highs are so much clearer even though there are two less tweeters up front. Eventually I think I will replace the back ones too, but how often am I really back there?

Chad

Teutonaddict · 16th February 2002, 00:23

Chad-

Thanks for the detailed write-up. You've really piqued my interest. Looks like it's time for some Google work....

-Dave

SouthshoreM6 · 16th February 2002, 00:27

Hey Chad - thank you for all the detail! I'll check these out. Frankly, I'm excited, like you, I found the M audio to be very disappointing. This may be the fix I was hoping for!

Regards,
Bill