Non-premium sound wiring

[Beej '86 325es]

Hey guys,

My car is almost finished and I still haven't decided if I'm going to run a stereo or remove it. I think the deciding factor may be this:

Do E30s with the non-premium stero system utilize an amplifier?

My old 325es had premium sound and I basically had to wire the head unit from scratch. If it's going to be that much trouble again, I'll just leave the headunit and speakers out.

Part 2: Does anyone here sell those blanking plates for the dash? I seem to remember someone here selling them.

Thanks!

[bernzpeed]

non premium speakers does not have amplifiers. i am in the middle of retrofitting my 89 325i with non-premium sound system for a premium sound system from my 87 325i.
wiring is a little tricky. i intend to use all the stock premium sound system and stock wiring.

if you are good with wiring, you can refer to ETM for the wiring. look for stereoinstaller1, he's the master of the audio install here.

[StereoInstaller1]

Your ES very likely had an amp.

However, in your cars case it is as simple as using the 4 signal wires from the deck to the amp and "re-purposing" them as rear speaker wires and running new wires to the fronts only

OR

You could just wire whatever deck you have to the stock amp and use it...that takes a total of 10 connections.

The only reason your last install was such a clusterfuck is you had no clue what you were doing. It ain't that bad, and R3V is here to help. Plus, you already learned a bunch, right?

[Beej '86 325es]

Ha - well, to be honest, it's been about 13 years since I wired it up from scratch. I think I was 19 when I did it. I've recently swapped shells to an '86 325 that was rust-free, so my new shell shouldn't have an amp I guess.

That should make wiring pretty simple then.
I suppose I'll run the front 5 1/4", retrofitting the tweeters and just run my 6 1/2" midbass speakers off of my rear outputs (I'll suppose should try and find a passive low-pass filter for those).