Blaupunkt BPA-HX80DSP Amplifier Review

[Frenchy]

I understand this is in my 2012 Frontier, but if not mistaken I believe the Lariats have a similar system from the factory and may have interest in this. That said I understand it may get moved to another section and that's ok.

So for my 2012 Frontier I replaced my Factory Head Unit with a newer Nav unit so I could have an actual Sirius XM Radio(yes there is a difference). After that I have always considered the idea of changing the Amplifier and Speakers to improve on the sound a bit. The problem I was running into was the fact my vehicle uses a 8 channel 10 speaker system. That system consists of the following: 2 channels for the dash speakers at 4 ohms, 2 channels for the front door speakers at 2 ohms, 2 channels for the rear doors with lower door speakers at 2 ohms and upper tweeters at 4 ohms and 2 channels for the subwoofers at 4 ohms each.

Now because of that system I was having a hard time finding a amplifier I was comfortable running as I didn't want to cheap out, but then again I didn't want to break the bank either. I also didn't like the idea of running more than 1 amplifier. I ended up getting down to a JBL or the Blaupunkt Amplifier. Eventually I caved and went with the Blaupunkt as the application for tuning seems like the right choice.

I found the Amplifier on Amazon for roughly $600 back in November and got it fairly quick. I also order a plug and play harness to make installation much easier. Unfortunately things got delayed and the install did not happen right away.

Finally New Year's came around and I made the plan for the install with my dad. We took about a day to do the install and I'd say that was the right amount of time esp for the tuning aspect. With my dad being a 40+ year industrial/commercial Electrician, he took pride in cleaning up the wire for the Amp.

After the install was completed and everything was put back together, we got to the fun of tuning it. The first thing that was done was making sure the head unit was set to neutral. I didn't want the Treble, Bass, Fade and Balance to be messed with if I didn't have to and I felt the amplifier should be more than capable of doing just that.

Once that was done it was time to open the program on the laptop. With the truck powered on and the laptop connected, everything went to life. The amp was set to 80% on the Master Volume. To say the least I turned it down to 1% as this Amplifier is extremely powerful and required such so I could use the volume on the Head Unit as intended. While figuring out the best setting for the Master Volume, my dad was having fun as a Sound Engineer messing with all 32 adjustments in each channel(yes there are that many adjustments available). This was before we figured out how to set each channel to a specific location with speaker type. Because of that I may need retune this again.

Once all of this was done I was very happy to say the least. The sound quality certainly improved to a level that almost makes you feel like you are in the concert halls while driving down the road! To say the least I found this to be a nice upgrade to say the least.

Put simple if you are considering an upgrade to the Factory Sound System, I would definitely look at replacing the Factory Amplifier with a good DSP Amplifier like the Blaupunkt BPA-HX80DSP. It is well worth the money and effort!

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[Grandaccess]

a long time ago Alpine, but alpine got cheap and Nakamichi used to make good ones, I always wanted a Nakamichi .003 distortion
the biggest issue now days is other things are integrated into our radio like HVAC so I havent looked into a replacement since I got the Ranger

 

[Frenchy]

a long time ago Alpine, but alpine got cheap and Nakamichi used to make good ones, I always wanted a Nakamichi .003 distortion
the biggest issue now days is other things are integrated into our radio like HVAC so I havent looked into a replacement since I got the Ranger

And that sir is why I like the basics of the frontier. Yes it has some nice Comfort features, but it's still pretty basic when you think about

 

[Frenchy]

Small update on the Amplifier.

So I have had this for a while now. During that time I was never 100% satisfied with the end results. Part of this I suspected was due to the speakers. At the same time I felt that there was something with the tuning. Well today I replaced all the door and dash speakers with Audio Control Speakers from Z1 who happened to make a nice plug and Play kit. After I did that I did notice a bit better sound quality. While hooking up the laptop I decided to play with the equalizer a bit and look around the tool.

First I decided to match the left and right speakers to each other on the frequencies. For example the front doors had a left and right, but they were a little bit off on the frequencies between each other and therefore I would choose the one I liked and matched the other too it.

After that was all done I looked at the Mixer Tap up top. I don't have a picture right off, but it was a simple input 1-4 on the left and channels 1-8 on the bottom with stuff in-between to select what input each channel is using. Well the default from the Factory was 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 in that order when going through channels 1-8. This might not sound bad until you realize inputs 1 and 2 are front and 3 and 4 are rear where outputs are 1-4 front and 5 and 6 are rear with 7 and 8 being the sub in the back. Because of that I corrected the input to channels and that made a HUGE Difference!

With that all said and done I can say that I'm pretty happy, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little more adjustments that could be done by a sound engineer that specializes in this kind of stuff. Regardless I can still recommend the Blaupunkt Amplifier!

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