rogan

From my limited knowledge of the E39 audio system, the stacker is an Alpine model but with a different plug (Alpine is usually Ainet). If you're in Auckland, ring Top of the Range in Albany (415 8148) speak to Brett. They're a Land/Rangerover specialist and are wrecking a few; might have something that can fit and they're usually pretty good on pricing. Other thing to check is that the h/u has CD shuttle control (I presume it does but best be certain before shelling out any coin)

No but same, here's a pic of the actual car, has the cassette above the MID And one of the car itself

Ok, have bought car, now time to do more planning. Anyone know how to pull the MID and casette out (looks like a 1 piece unit to me). Remember reading somewhere that I pull the volume knob off and undo somethere there and the whole thing pops out ?? (edit: found it again http://www.bimmerwerkz.com/forum/5-series-...oval-38014.html ) Just want to temporarily pull it out and have a look at the space available for a h/u

Anyone got any front door cards for a e39, must be black leather to match the pic below. Want to keep my originals intact but need to butcher a pair for the front speakers to fit Also looking for a switch for the electric seats

Bridgeable 4 channel amplifier 4CH: 40 watts per channel into 4 ohms. 20-20kHz at no more than 0.8% THD (rear/front) 4, 3, or 2 channel operation Bridgeable RMS power of 130 watts 2 ohm stable (2-8 ohm allowable) I'm guessing it's only 2ohm stable in stereo operation, so will only suit a 4ohm svc or 2+2ohmdvc sub when 2 channels are bridged. Rare that amps are 2ohm stable bridged (Boston Acoustics are but can't think of any others off the top of my head)

Yep, we could end up having a huge debate here about car audio, and end up going completely off topic. Yep, I would have said one of those two things 'they'say, and the other with certain conditions. Oh and the back seat in my car sounds great. Time to agree to disagree or maybe start another thread.

sq derived from rear speakers, that's a bit of a novelty. They're only rear fill so as long as they sound reasonable they won't have much effect on the overall sound quality. For a speaker to work properly, the rear airspace needs to be sealed from the front airspace. Without getting too complicated, the type and volume of the rear enclosure assists the suspension of the speaker cone.

I think the biggest questions is what's your budget and second what do you want out of it pure sound quality ---------------vs-------------- sq not so important good volume bass ----------------vs-------------- ear bleeding bass

If you're wanting something cheap, try ringing Surplustronics at the top of Queen St. There might be a home speaker (8ohm) that can be used in car.

I happen to be selling some DLS iridium 3 way components, wanting $800. Not sure how you'd install them tho. They'd need a great amp to run them so probably well out of budget. On budget, Infinity Kappa fronts and then a sub/amp in the boot. If you can get over the North Shore, there's Image Dynamics subs on sale at Car Stereo Specialists (note I'm the importer so I'm probably a bit biased). You can't really buy any better bang for buck than the iD range (iD12 is $279) and the idmax subs are very well priced (starting at $589) but you want around 1000rms to get the most out of them. A few of us car stereo geeks had a good play with them on the weekend and more than happy with the results. ID site: http://www.imagedynamicsusa.com/index.php

Put them on TM and sell them. Not exactly sure on the E46 model OE mounting but the only place you could fit the would be on the real parcel tray and they'd be ugly as sin. So sell them, save the install costs and put that cash into some drop in replacements if needed.

5.25" component fronts. The OE speaker mounts is absolute garbage so don't spend too much up here unless you want to DIY front speaker pods in the doors, but then go 6.5"components instead. Don't go super budget, but have a good listen especially to the tweeters cos those are what you'll hear the mosts. Choice of the woofer isn't so important due to the rubbish mount. Don't touch the rears. The sub and amp for boot, size and power depends on your quality / boom boom bias and your wallet.

Right, forgot about that one. I was doing it to avoid having wiring running across the dash to the ciggie lighter, but yeah you could do it easily that way. The Belkin does have some sort of mini amp in it but if you kept it turned down on the volume control on the side of it I guess it wouldn't be a problem

Don't go for the Alpine type R, they're not that great for the money IMO. Personally I'd definitely consider Ray's Harmon Kardon set, not sure if you're all wired up for it but could actually be your easiest option. If you 're going for something different that the HK set up then probably just go 2 way front as the number of speakers in your car isn't really important. Manufacturers like to have huge numbers of speakers for their marketing department, I can point you to 5 speaker set ups that would sound heaps better than a 12 speaker set-up. At one stage i ran 13 speakers in my Alfa, it's now down to 11 and I'm seriously looking at just having 5 without sacrificing any sound quality or volume. If you're wanting a sub, there's a super special on Image Dynamics about to start at Car Stereo Specialists on the North Shore.

The signal you get from the 3.5mm jack on the ipod is post amp and the ipod amp isn't that flash. Basically the signal from the MP3 file goes into the pre amp and eq, gets munted a slight bit, then gets sent through the ipod amp where it gets even more munted. So to get the best signal, you feed from after the pre-amp ie at the dock. Ever wondered why they have docking stations for hooking up to home stereos and don't just do a 3.5 to rca lead. It's not all about selling another product, it's about getting the right signal. And don't splice up your existing lead, that probably won't have the colour codes above. I've pulled apart two of the Belkin leads to attach it to a Pioneer ipbus from Aux in on Pioneer h/u so I know the colour codes of that specific model of Belkin cable. But any other cable and the colours could be completely different.

Definitely buy this http://www.trademe.co.nz/Electronics-photo...7162187.htm?p=8 Auction ends tomorrow and it's $1 reserve. If you have to pay $20 it's still a bargain. Note the seller also has them for a $45 buy now on other listings. Don't bid till the very last second cos I'll bet my mother-in-law there'll be a phantom bidder if you bid too early. Once you bought it, you cut the cable near the ciggie plug in bit, and then solder rca plugs onto the wire. Small bit of soldering (or you can get a car audio shop to do it for you) and you've got power to the ipod for charging and also you're getting signal from the ipod pre-amp so it's way better than the signal you're getting from the 3.5mm headphone jack. Here's the how to: Strip the cable and the wire colours are the following: Outer sheath - ground black - ground red - +12v white - god knows but not needed there's 2 grey thicker wires, these contain the L & R audio chanels. Strip each grey wire and you'll find a sheath with a coloured wire on the inside (just like a miniature RCA). Yellow wire is right+ Sheath around yellow wire is right- Green is left+ Sheath around green wire is left- Once you've got this far Red wire through 3A fuse to ACC Black and outer sheath to car ground. Yellow & green & sheaths can then be attached to RCA plugs / 3.5mm jack Also remember your amp needs cooling. Putting a mat over it doesn't help. Bad cooling can result in amp overheating = bad. Put it in the boot, out of the way and bolted down, and buy some RCA extensions. Can I ask how you're switching the amp on? have you got the remote on hooked to the ignition or have you put an inline switch in?

No an Alpine H701, you can control this by a single din size faceplate and I've got an Alpine shuttle with optical out. Was hoping the BM stuff used ainet in which case I could have linked it all together, kept the original headunit but gained all the eq/time alignment and processing features mixed with the sq of the optical shuttle. Unfortunately the bm seller is messing me around so this may all be in vain

I really need to buy the car and have a good look at what the MID does first. If I get one, the MID would have to go in favour of my h/u but there may be another option, using a standalone processor and an optical shuttle. Jochen, any idea what the connection to the CD shuttle is?? Is it the standard Alpine ainet or something different? Thanks

Bit of a travel but probably a better car. More kms but it's NZ new so genuine. I don't trust jap import odo readings whatsoever. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.as...amp;key=1218025

Yep, that was one of my other trains of thought. Another option I've got in my head is to try and find one of those MIDs with the large centre screens and then butcher it and fit the double din h/u into the middle of it while maintaining the dash display functions. Don't think that would be as easy (although it would be very stealth) and probably hard to get one of those MIDs cheap enough to butcher it. Suppose I'd better buy the car and drive it for a week or two first.

Thanks Jochen.

Sorry, I'd be keeping all the bits so I could put it all back in if I ever sold it. Wiring the new unit up would be the easy bit, only need to source an ignition wire from the loom. Just really wanting to know what other functions of the car go through the h/u. Does the trip computer stuff display on the h/u Isn't the car I'm looking at but exact same h/u:

I'm considering buy an E39, am have a few questions about the h/u. From what I can see there's the amp, dsp and cd shuttle in the boot. I'd be wanting to pull the whole lot out and start the stereo from scratch. The factory h/u (which would be one of those ones with the hideaway cassete player) seems to do the carphone as well. No worries there, don't want the car phone anyway. Is there any other non-stereo functionality in the h/u that I need to consider? Thanks

Not sure about BM stereos but most used the handbrake as an actuator switch. When you put the handbrake on it earths a wire from the h/u and that tells the h/u that you can watch TV. So first thing is to find out what allows you to watch TV - is it having the handbrake on / having it in park or both. Then it's just a matter of finding the lead going to the switch and adding a manual switch earth onto it. That way you can switch it back to factory when going for wofs etc. At the end of the day, don't do it. There's enough happening on the other side of the windscreen without the distraction of a TV

All good. Big thanks to HELLBM for sorting me out with the seats and all the other misc bits I needed. Now to get that diff holder in and get the mega problem fixed