James Reeve owns a BMW 1-series. Anyone who has ever driven one of these fantastic machines knows that the only thing it lacks is decent sound. The factory sound is dull, lifeless and unfocussed. From the start, James was determined to improve the situation and set about finding his own way around the barely navigable world of aftermarket car audio.
Whilst still emersed in this project, James caught up with Driving Sounds at Chatsworth House in 2017. He was inspired by a demonstration and as a result, changed direction somewhat. Currently, he is using some very good French speakers in the front positions and not so good ones under the front seats. He is running these from an Audison 8.9 bit amplifier. He chose this due to its physical size, as well as the on board processor that he felt would allow him to squeeze the most out of any speakers connected to it. However, the serial upgrader in him is not quite satisfied and is toying with the idea of replacing the front speakers with Audison Voce. He finds his current arrangement a little harsh in the upper mids and treble reaches. He would also like to upgrade the underseats to Audison Prima plug and play replacements and upgrade the amplifier to the brand new Forza edition that outputs more power.
James enjoys Hi res music streamed by TIDAL and on noticing the optical input on the 8.9 bit amplifier though it might be worth exploring hi res streaming in the car. A little research lead him to an accessory produced by connectivity specialists, CYP. The AU-D6-192 converts a digital output from a USB port to 24 bit, 192HZ digital audio and outputs to a standard TOSLINK optical connection. To make it compatible with his iPhone he also required an Apple Lightening to USB 3 Camera Adaptor. One would expect that it would be necessary to call in help to get this all working, but James tells us that he plugged it all in and it just worked straight our of the box! He now enjoys hi res music in his car from his phone, played through his Audison bit Amplifier - Genius!
