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      11-25-2012, 08:56 PM   #34
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Drives: 2015 Alpina B6; 430i; X5 40e
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Orange County, CA

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Grovsnus View Post
Don't. Disconnecting the center speaker is just going to make things worse; it won't turn your system into a stereo system.

When the surround module detects that the audio is the same on both front channels and in phase, it sends it to the center channel and attenuates the left and right speaker signals to compensate. However, if you disconnect the speaker, it doesn't stop it from doing this - there is no speaker detection that feeds information back to the decoder to make it send the sound to the left/right speakers instead.
The net result is that any sound that's normally in the middle will be strongly attenuated, much like "karaoke mode" on cheap boom boxes.

You need to disable the surround decoder (in the iDrive if it lets you, otherwise through surgery beyond just disconnecting a speaker). Leaving the speaker connected is fine, as long as no sound goes to it.
Take a look at this thread: F30 audio analysis

Thanks for the assist Bill B.
Appreciate 0