February 6, 2005:

Making Harman Kardon sound better!

When I bought GBMINI#2 I spec’ed the Harman Kardon upgrade and was disappointed … but I was much more disappointed by the terrible job that Tweeter did, and eventually developed the HKenabler so I could run the Harman Kardon amplifier with an aftermarket head unit.

Recently I received this link from Paul who also wanted better sound from the HK system, but did an upgrade himself!
Paul now has a system where all the HK speaker outputs are fed into additional amplifiers and sent to better quality aftermarket speakers, as well as to a subwoofer in the trunk!

(finished boot with subwoofer)

(new amps on underside of false boot floor)

(rear speaker install)

(front door install)

So basically the HK amp only now provides the “sound shaping” features (MINI H/K, SPATIAL, etc). This is a major upgrade and I imagine it sounds excellent.
It is also a huge amount of work, complicated by starting from a system with the HK amp - this is why GBMINI#3 will not have the HK system.
Well done Paul; and thanks for the great documentation.

UPDATE: I have mirrored Pauls write-up and pics here.