95 525i radio

[Ferrett 1962]

Hi again while still waiting for the cash to turn up so I can get the car I have been looking at new head units to put a cd in the car do I need to bypass the amp in the boot when I change to a more powerful radio 45w x4 as I have read the standard unit only puts out 5w to the amp which is boosted to only 20w in the amp. I still want to run all the speakers maby upgrade later. I am getting older and do not need to go for ear busting sound levels.

[John in CT]

Stock radio/CD player in my '95 is best system I have ever had. Can't imagine why you would want to upgrade. Factory CD players are around on bay of E all the time.

Curious,

John

[Tiger]

I installed aftermarket head unit into 1994 540i... direct into factory wiring harness using the BMW wire harness adapter... zero problem.

My head unit is a Sanyo hD Radio... floating ground... with 45w per channel. I did not alter factory amp in any way.

The system plays perfectly.

[Ferrett 1962]

Thanks for that I wasn't sure how the amp would take th extra input
John I have played with the standard system and thats why I wanted to use the original speakers but I burn my own mix disks or convert to mp3 and put on an sd card to save having cd's in the car so I wanted to install a head unit that will be able to do all this plus bluetooth for my phone GPS and all. I don't have any tapes left after all these years so the player is useless anyway ( might put it on ebay as someone might want to keep their car all original)
If the amp does not work properly I might just pull it out and replace it with a crossover box in the same place and won't have to change any of the wiring

[Russell]

Stock radio/CD player in my '95 is best system I have ever had. Can't imagine why you would want to upgrade. Factory CD players are around on bay of E all the time.

Curious,

John

Mine seems fine as well. No real reason to change except to get Ipod or simar connections. Even so, you can have the radio modified for ipod.

[Ferrett 1962]

I am still thinking if I will change the unit, sorry but I just refuse to buy an ipod and it sort of bugs me they are trying to get everyone to get one by putting ipod conector in all new systems. My phone has 16 gb of storage which I can listen to through bluetooth if I get a head unit to do it (I love gedgets) plus it makes sense these days to transfer original music to a replacable medium like recording albums to tape in the old days to put the original away to copy if something goes wrong or some lowlife breaks in to the car.

[BMWDriver]

I have put in a new head unit a few years ago, and I added a subwoofer since to add a bit more bass; nothing gigantic. I was quite happy without the subwoofer before, but I am happier with it. That being said, your plan to replace the amp with a crossover would be a great idea. With the stock amplifier, I had too much power going to the speakers, so I got distortion out of it if I pushed the volume too high.

For my part, I was able to take the amplifier apart and reuse the passive crossover inside of it by taking its parts out and rebuilding everything on a board. Works out quite nicely, and it was a lot of fun! You probably would not be able to do the same with the 1995 amp. There were three generation of these amplifiers fitted to the e34, and the latest one is what I believe to be an active crossover, though I think my memory fails; from the pics I saw, it's fully electronic and does not have coils and capacitors for the crossover part. There are threads in this forum that you could search for, but it would certainly be easiest to add your own crossover to the system.

It's a great project. I see a lot of head units that support USB out of the box, and also iPhones, and today I even saw a Kenwood unit that lets you plug in whatever you want to it as a source of music (analog input), plus it supports Bluetooth.
This is what I was looking at :
KENWOOD | KIV DIGITAL MEDIA RECEIVER OVERVIEW (http://www.kenwood.ca/UserFiles/Media/Common/2010-KIV/us/index.html)

There's more to be looked at, but you can see the technology is there. Some head units support streaming media coming through Bluetooth also.

[Ferrett 1962]

If thi works this is what I was looking at putting in [URL="http://cgi.ebay.com.au/7-Touch-Screen-Car-DVD-Player-Bluetooth-ipod-SD-USB-/160571824229?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2562d39865"] just copy that and you will see what I mean. The main display is small and understated so I think it would look ok in the bma's dash but it has all the bits with it.

[Ferrett 1962]

This link should work just copy and paste into the add bar 7 (http://cgi.ebay.com.au/7-Touch-Screen-Car-DVD-Player-Bluetooth-ipod-SD-USB-/160571824229?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item) 2562d39865 I hope this will go well in the car, good news the cash should be through this week and I will have some photo'sto put up[URL="http://cgi.ebay.com.au/7-Touch-Screen-Car-DVD-Player-Bluetooth-ipod-SD-USB-/160571824229?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item 2562d39865 http://cgi.ebay.com.au/7-Touch-Screen-Car-DVD-Player-Bluetooth-ipod-SD-USB-/160571824229?pt=AU_Car_Parts_Accessories&hash=item 2562d39865

[Ferrett 1962]

I have spent the day revewing old posts, it seems from some people that running a higher power h/u could cause problems with the amp and using the rca outs from the h/u does not power the input enough so I might look into running the rca out through a preamp and into the standard wires to the amp at the right power. I don't know if this will work but I have used a preamp from a turntable to an amp and was happy with the result but if someone knows different could you let me know but I hope this will avoid having to change the amp and wiring too much.

[Tiger]

Just try it before you buy all other stuff and extenal amp. What do you got to lose?

[tim eh?]

I have an aftermarket stereo and have had it running through the amp as well as doing the bypass. The radio will work fine running through the amp and have plenty of power. However, the sound will be greatly improved after doing the amp bypass. It kind of depends on how much of an audiophile you are, I would suggest you do as Tiger says and try just the adapter and if you feel there is room for improvement then do the bypass. EXCEPT what BMWDriver says is true, it would be difficult on the '95 amp, maybe you can find an old one from ascrapyard and use that. The one thing I have noticed is that many cars I have seen with aftermarket heads running through the factory amp also have the rear woofers detatch from their mounts (ie 'blow') but maybe that is a coincidence. I would suggest that you probably don't need an external amp unless you have a line-out only head and that if you are thinking about getting crossovers you might as well just do the bypass it's pretty much the same amount of work. Hope this helps.

[Ferrett 1962]

Still waiting for the insurance to come through so I have to wait to get a good look at the sound system but the car yard is still holding the car. I am surprised they havn't just put it back in the yard since I keep putting them off and telling them the cash is coming ( bloody insurance company they they have to pay the money but are holding it for as long as possible). They say used car dealers can't be trusted but I think insurance companies are a lower form of life alltogether, I hope I can post some pics soon

I want my bimmer:(

[Ferrett 1962]

Just a quick update still waiting for cash almost 7 weeks now


I want my bimmer:(