I'm going NUTS with the stereo system...

[ttsalo]

I'm trying to install a conventional head unit in place of the "BMW Bavaria C Professional RDS" player I had. But there's a slight problem...

http://www.ttsalo.iki.fi/~ttsalo/harness.jpg

The image shows what is available in the car. The big connector in the car is missing all the eight speaker wires! Has anyone seen anything like this before? The audio system did work with the BMW radio.

The thick black cable is the CD changer cable and it has a 10-pin socket on the other side of the connector.

Also there is no antenna cable to be seen, nor is there an antenna socket in the radio. (Reception was quite bad...)

I have understood that both the setups, with or without an OEM amplifier, use the standard speaker outputs in the big 17-pin stereo connector... And I'm not even supposed to have an amplifier since I have the setup with only 6 speakers. What on earth is going on here?

[Incantation]

not sure man.. all i can tell you is if you're going to do anything with the stereo.. do everything or don't bother touching it. if you get a new deck you will need a new amp and then you will need new speakers too..

i have set up a few e34s (including mine running about 2000 watts RMS cumulative) .. i can help you with whatever u need if u wanna re-do the whole thing

[Phatty5BMW]

Im going to re-do the whole thing soon, just dreading it, big time :( lol

[kev535i]

i think you will find that you will have a positive rear left, positive rear right, positive front left and positive front right wires and common negative for all plus the usual power wires in that plug. the front splits on the 6 speaker set up are done at the kick panel speakers xover. have a good look for the antenna connecter it should be a seperate plug and is usually only just long enough to poke out of dash

[grave77]

in the pic the power cables are only showing ... the thick one is the antenna. note that u have few wires to connect for the antenna and amp to work ... also u have the ilumination wires for the night backlights. I'm sure that the speakers ( inputs of the OEM amp ) is down in the dash somewere ... take a peek in.

if u want to know the identity of each wire click here (http://http://www.bmwe34.net/e34main/upgrade/Stereo_wiring.htm)

[Bill R.]

bit different, you're looking at the controller , the receiver and amp are in the back... http://www.bimmer.info/%7Ebill/bavariac.jpg




I'm trying to install a conventional head unit in place of the "BMW Bavaria C Professional RDS" player I had. But there's a slight problem...

http://www.ttsalo.iki.fi/%7Ettsalo/harness.jpg

The image shows what is available in the car. The big connector in the car is missing all the eight speaker wires! Has anyone seen anything like this before? The audio system did work with the BMW radio.

The thick black cable is the CD changer cable and it has a 10-pin socket on the other side of the connector.

Also there is no antenna cable to be seen, nor is there an antenna socket in the radio. (Reception was quite bad...)

I have understood that both the setups, with or without an OEM amplifier, use the standard speaker outputs in the big 17-pin stereo connector... And I'm not even supposed to have an amplifier since I have the setup with only 6 speakers. What on earth is going on here?

[Exact-Oh]

When I first purchased my '95 540i, I wanted to save cash and did a complete wiring diagram for the f*cked up stereo system these have in them, so I could just replace a few components. It worked for awhile. To get the best sound, I ended up removing the entire interior and all factory components, and replacing them all with Boston Acoustics speakers, ADS amps, and Alpine receiver and equalizer... along with all new wiring of coarse.

The factory systems in these are wired with all positive and negative speaker wiring broken out into sub, mid, and tweeter. So you have an average of four wires running to each speaker (not including the phone wiring)! I would suggest putting a passive head unit in, or you may damage the factory amp.

[ttsalo]

bit different, you're looking at the controller , the receiver and amp are in the back...

Thanks, the picture makes things quite a bit clearer!

My new head unit has line out connections so I hope I can keep the factory amp (receiver) and drive it with my non-BMW head unit using line-level signals - if I only could figure out how to connect it.

I made an adapter using the pinout on this page (http://www.bmw-540i.com/1995-540i-cd-changer/index.php) (connected the pins D, E, I and J to the line out connectors in the head unit) but no luck. Probably the receiver in the back (which I haven't seen yet) needs something more. Maybe it's just the "enable" pin? Or perhaps something more complicated...

[grave77]

well u missed the enable pin B, this enables the preamp of the CD connector to work, also the digital inputs you didnt use will not show the CD counter clock ( data, reset ... ), thats if I understood that u used the connector only can you describe more what you've done?

[Strap]

Hey Bro,
in the trunk , left rear ,closest to the rear left tail lights, You will find the factory amp and antenna leads ( AM/Fm Diversity ) and all your speaker wires 6 sets. 2 sets for the front and 1set for the rear ( tie the 2 front sets together , front left tweeter and mid bass ) same with the rights and the rears are normal. you need a 12 foot antenna adaptor to run it to the new head unit. Ultimatly your by-passing the factory amp , and it will sound fine if you bought a good quality radio ( 45x4 or better ) and you will be fine. And remember when you doing the wireing the positives are all on the same side of the plug in the trunk ( positives on left of plug negatives on right or opposit ) brown stripes are negs. and remember to unplug the other harness on the factory amp so it doesnt turn on for nothing..
Good Luck

EDIT: Dont use the line levels with the factory amp unless you plan on scaring dogs with the very annoying high pitched whine your amp will give off when the volume is very low. you wont here it when you volume is up high but you will if its turned down.

[grave77]

u will need to add a capacitor on the tweeter line and midrange line too .. or they would blow and burn ur head unit. I have blown on tweeter when I first bought my car thinking that it already have it in its back. else as strap said it will go ok ... I personally like the OEM amp ... I just added my subs and tweeters in the back with standalone amps :)

[Incantation]

1.4Kw .. what amps do you have? and speakers

[grave77]

I have in 2 amps 4 X 250W RMS bridged for 2 + 2 subs to be 2 X 500W and 2X150W RMS bridged on one full range 18" speaker in the back seat. I have 2 12" squared speaker shape they are as big as a 15" normal subwoofer, those are on the back shelf and I have 2 12" normal subs in a box on the back seat. 2 pizo tweeters and 2 6" midranges. click on my car pics in my signiture to see them. by the way I have a Kenwood DSP on the head unit as I use Creative Nomad III player with FM remote.

[Incantation]

lmfao.. very creative use of the back seatbelts haha

what kind of amps are those? and subs..

[grave77]

well I dont use brand names as they cost a lot. I bought them after I saw the PWM-PSU ( Pulse Width Modulation - Power Supply Unit ) inside as this is the thing that matters for high power amplifires. both of the amps I got have dual PSU and minimum drop at high power delivery. I had Kenwood 2 channels 100W X 2 before and it wasn't enough to drive the 2 squared speakers. also the PSU drop was high ... as it was dropping down to +/- 36V !! that makes it +17 - 0 - -17 not more than 40 Watts RMS !! with hell of distortion. the 4 X 250 drops down at max output to 75V from 85V and the 2 X 150W drops down to 65 from 75V

if I used a 1F capacitor or 2F maybe I will minimize it more ... but thats alright for the time being. ;)

one of the amps is Classonic ( 2 channels ) and the other is something better than JEC ( 4 channels with Active crossover ).

[ttsalo]

well u missed the enable pin B, this enables the preamp of the CD connector to work, also the digital inputs you didnt use will not show the CD counter clock ( data, reset ... ), thats if I understood that u used the connector only can you describe more what you've done?
I tried connecting the enable pin B along with the audio signals, but there's still no sound. I'm now pretty sure that the back unit (it contains FM receiver along with an amp!) expects some sort of digital command from the head unit before it sends any sound to the loudspeakers. I heard a pop when connecting the enable pin, so I guess that the back unit turns itself on then, but it's not enough.

It probably would be possible to reverse-engineer the protocol between the head unit and the back unit, but that would be a pretty major project... Instead, I'll ditch the back unit along with the OEM head unit and replace it with a conventional amp. I can use the existing signal cable for the sound from the new head unit to the new amp and the speakers are wired as two pairs, so it should be just a fairly simple wiring job.

The only problem is the radio antenna, since the current antenna cable doesn't go to the dashboard, since the factory receiver is in the back... Why on earth did they do it this way, just to piss off the do-it-yourself stereo installers? :)

[grave77]

since u heared the pop sound or " A Dub sound " in the speakers that means that the rear amp is OK ... first u need to make sure that the signal from the line out is audiable u can use an ear phone or a high impeadance headphones ( 600 Ohms ) to hear it. once u made sure its there. u go to the next point of attaching it to the plug. until now I don't know what u have on ur dash. but I was looking at the first post with the picture in, it shows all the connections needed but nothing related to the speaker Input to the rear OEM amp. that's the major problem here.

you should have 6 wires ... left common and right common LR front and LR rear. if u dont have those wires u will not be able to feed the OEM amplifire.

if u cant really find them ... add me on ur msn and I would help u up...