Nice way to keep the factory hu.. And play good quality music files

[bradnic]

OEM/stock look is definitely worth it to some folks - me included. I need decent sound out of my system, not perfect. I've got other cars for perfect.

So there are three things I would love to see for E30s (the luke box we already have as an option):

1) an adapted OEM CM5908 head unit (premium slider radio) with aux-in and BT audio (could be a retrofit/mod service)
2) a bypass harness for the premium amp in the trunk
3) some way to slap in a modern amp in the same location

CM5908 SLIDER WITH AUX IN AND BT
you're right Luke the only thing you really need out of the OEM head unit nowadays are the audio controls (slider yeah!), radio (with the weather band yo!), preamp outs and an aux input. adding a blueooth/a2dp dongle is easy too as long as you have the aux input. Go ahead and lock that tape door shut. If someone modded the CM5908 to do this I'd buy it.

Gonna have to do it myself once I get a clean working unit - I have 4 of them and another inbound. none of them work right :-)

The radio shouldn't be hard to repair btw. the unit is modular. you should be able to swap out the amp section, main board etc. at some point it's not worth fixing, but you should def be able to get the controls radio section aux in and pre outs functioning.

AMP BYPASS HARNESS
The other ask is a cleaner solution for the factory amp bypass. I'd pay for an adapter harness that would preserve the trunk harness connector. I friggin hate cutting wires in these cars. Once they're cut it's an absolute biatch to bring them back. I want to pull the connector off the amp, plug in the bypass harness and be done. I understand there are multiple configs (6 wire, 8 wire etc). There's probably some way to deal with that in the trunk using only 1 harness adapter. Worst case you need a couple of adapter types.

PLUG-IN AMP REPLACEMENT
I'm ok with in place speaker upgrades, but definitely with Luke on keeping stock wiring. If you got the pre-out thing sorted on the OEM HU then is there a way to cleanly swap out the OEM premium amp?

Some of this may have been covered elsewhere. If so sorry for dup posts. But I've never seen it consolidated in one place.

[StereoInstaller1]

OEM/stock look is definitely worth it to some folks - me included. I need decent sound out of my system, not perfect. I've got other cars for perfect.

So there are three things I would love to see for E30s (the luke box we already have as an option):

1) an adapted OEM CM5908 head unit (premium slider radio) with aux-in and BT audio (could be a retrofit/mod service)
2) a bypass harness for the premium amp in the trunk
3) some way to slap in a modern amp in the same location

CM5908 SLIDER WITH AUX IN AND BT
you're right Luke the only thing you really need out of the OEM head unit nowadays are the audio controls (slider yeah!), radio (with the weather band yo!), preamp outs and an aux input. adding a blueooth/a2dp dongle is easy too as long as you have the aux input. Go ahead and lock that tape door shut. If someone modded the CM5908 to do this I'd buy it.

Gonna have to do it myself once I get a clean working unit - I have 4 of them and another inbound. none of them work right :-)

The radio shouldn't be hard to repair btw. the unit is modular. you should be able to swap out the amp section, main board etc. at some point it's not worth fixing, but you should def be able to get the controls radio section aux in and pre outs functioning.

AMP BYPASS HARNESS
The other ask is a cleaner solution for the factory amp bypass. I'd pay for an adapter harness that would preserve the trunk harness connector. I friggin hate cutting wires in these cars. Once they're cut it's an absolute biatch to bring them back. I want to pull the connector off the amp, plug in the bypass harness and be done. I understand there are multiple configs (6 wire, 8 wire etc). There's probably some way to deal with that in the trunk using only 1 harness adapter. Worst case you need a couple of adapter types.

PLUG-IN AMP REPLACEMENT
I'm ok with in place speaker upgrades, but definitely with Luke on keeping stock wiring. If you got the pre-out thing sorted on the OEM HU then is there a way to cleanly swap out the OEM premium amp?

Some of this may have been covered elsewhere. If so sorry for dup posts. But I've never seen it consolidated in one place.

Oddly enough, I too have a stash of Sliders....

So we are OK to add new wires but no cutting of plugs, correct?

I have several E30 amps and plugs around, no worries from the harness, all have 8 speaker wires. They changed the wiring, but not to any great extent.

From what I remember, hacking the stock amp to get to the plug is more hassle than it seems. Now I need that same trick for E39DSP amps...LOL.

I have been looking for a few years at a method to make the changer port "light up" so I can feed an AUX signal to it, but have not found anything yet.

[bradnic]

Thanks Luke. Yeah adding wires is no problem. Just don't want to hack the car harness. I did end up doing the amp bypass because I kept my aftermarket Jensen VM9215BT for now.

Really hurt to cut those wires back there! I did it by the rear seat instead of the trunk though so it will be easy to repair again if I ever get my preferred OEM setup going:

-- stock radio+amp harness
-- custom amp harness adapter (use connector from old oem amp)
-- aftermarket amp
-- stock CM5908 slider HU with aux-in, line outs and BT music

Key to that is the modded slider. Somebody must have a schematic to those radios!

So anyway, without the premium amp it sounded ok indoors, but the HU doesn't have enough juice for a vert - you can't hear the radio with the top down! So no choice but to get a replacement amp.

I ended up finding a class D compact clarion head unit amp on amazon for $85. It connects directly to the head unit and the car speaker wiring, so no harness mods needed. It's small enough to fit between the cluster and radio. We'll see how it goes. If we ever get pre-outs out of the OEM radio we could use something like this with it too. If you can get the amp bypass harness done then no cutting needed at all - just splice into the speaker wiring in front.

[bradnic]

Resurrecting

Hey Luke did you ever mod a stock E30 head unit (CM5908!) for pre-outs?

[StereoInstaller1]

Not yet, hoping someone else will so we don't have to... Lol