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Theater-Like Audio in a BMW X5

Because of its massive advertising campaign we have all come to know BMWs as ?The Ultimate Driving Machine.? Alpine Electronics, makers of car audio-video products, has turned that concept on its ear. They have been using a BMW X5 as the platform to showcase its ultimate car audio products known as the AlpineF#1Status? DVD-Audio System. You might say the transition has created the ?Ultimate Listening Machine.?

The AlpineF#1 Status products are designed to deliver the absolute best sound quality and has a number of features meant to overcome the unique problems a car offers to sound reproduction. The products use digital technology, precise acoustical corrections, real-time digital equalization to *** a theater-like quality to the audio.

The BMW X5 was modified to provide a feast for the eyes and the proper interior layout for a theater-like audio system. Elements of the car were re-constructed and the audio system was designed and installed by Steve Brown and Mike Vu, Alpine?s Advanced Application Research and Development Team. The project took a total of six months.

Commonly known as a four-door, the BMW X5 was converted into a two door vehicle. The factory doors were molded together, then re-made into two custom doors. The doors do not swing out. Instead, each door *** is motorized and slides out horizontally from each side of the vehicle. A remote controlled motor slides the left door out to the left
and the right door out to the right a distance of about 27-inches from the vehicle. In addition, the rear door has been removed and replaced with a clear acrylic panel and sealed shut. The acrylic window lets people see inside the car while keeping the vehicle interior sealed for maximum sonic effect.

The exterior of the car was given additional sizzle with a custom fabricated wide body kit and a laser cut Alpine logo, back-lit in white, is molded into the front bumper. Laser cut AlpineF#1 Status logos are molded into the two side sills and are backlit by LCD monitors
which play graphical screen saver designs. The exhaust system was rerouted to hand-made exhaust tips which are built into the side sills. The stock wheels have been exchanged for 26-inch KMC custom-machined wheels and a Brembo Gran Turismo brake kit replaced the stock brakes.

To serve as additional eye candy, the exterior serves as a canvas for a custom airbrush design depicting musical icons of the last century. The artwork is by Noah. Virtus brand clear coat and primer supplied by Coast Airbrush was used to prepare the surface for the artwork and Meguiar?s provided color sanding, buffing and polishing for the paint job.

The interior of the vehicle was gutted and converted to center drive by moving the steering column and the seats to the center of the vehicle. This configuration creates the optimal setting for listening to a multichannel sound system.

When the doors are open there is one seat each on the bed of the motorized door *** When the doors are closed, the seats are positioned in the center with the seat on the right door lined up directly behind the seat on the left door, similar to the cockpit on a two-seater fighter plane. To create the environment for a true multichannel experience, the second seat
is positioned several inches higher than the first seat to resemble theater seating. The stock seats have been replaced by custom seats from Versus which have been customized with suede and leather upholstery by Motostyle.

The source unit for the system is an Alpine DVI-9990 DVD-Audio/CD tuner which has been placed into the custom made steering wheel.

The dash contains mids and low speakers as well as a ?Heads Up Display? Defi gauge. The woofer from an Alpine SPX-Z18T three-way component speaker set provides the midbass. One of a pair of SPX-Z15M two-way single channel component speaker set provides the center channel and there are two SWX-1042D 10-inch subwoofers. The tweeter and midbass from the SPX-Z18T set have been installed into a custom made enclosure which is molded onto each door. The Defi gauge is in the dashboard facing the windshield and uses
a reflector to display speedometer data directly onto the windshield.

An overhead console holds two TME-M770 6.5-inch touch screen monitors and a Defi Link Display gauge. The gauge offers readouts for the temperature, oil pressure, tachometer, and speedometer.

The rear of the vehicle serves as the storage area for the components that make the sound system theater-like in quality. There are two PXI-H990 Multimedia Manager? digital processors, six MRV-F900 four-channel amplifiers, the KCI-500B IONBUS to Ai-NET bus connector, and the SIR-ALP1 Sirius Satellite Radio tuner box which is integrated into
the system through the Ai-NET bus connector. Another pair of SPX-Z15M speakers are installed in the rear left and right pillars and one half of a SPX-Z15M has been set up as a unique rear center channel. This speaker is attached to a curved arm which is attached to the acrylic window and extends over the amplifiers and processors.

The PXI-H990 Multimedia Manager digital processor is compatible with DTS-ES, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic II, and Neo 6 processors. It features a 24-bit/8fs digital filter, GIC lowpass filter, 32/64 Bit Floating Point Aureus Digital Signal Processor, 31-band graphic equalizer (subwoofer 10 band)/10-band parametric EQ (subwoofer 2 band/8
channel variable digital crossover/digital time correction/Road EQ/MediaXpander, 175 band 1/3 octave digital equalizer, maximum 16-channel system, DVD Audio Link, IONBUS Interface.

Monster Cable supplied all the wiring. Total cost of the audio system alone is $40,500.00. No doubt the priciest theater seat in town.  

Wow 40k... that is a car within a car.