BMW stereo problem any advice?
 

My wifes 325i has developed an occasional left door tweeter and main speaker crackling. At first I thought the speaker was going bad, but I can turn the balance and fader completely away from front left and turn the volume all the way down when the crackling occurs and it makes absolutely no difference!

It has the stock BMW amp allthough a few years back, I replaced the stock Alpine stereo with a Blaupunkt. This has been happening for about 2 months now and wifey is getting p!ssed!

It only does it intermittingly but is sometimes very loud. I am thinking maybe the amp is causing this?

Any suggestions on what to check?

Sounds like a loose wire.

Is it a crackle or the rattle of a loose speaker. I've got a 99 328 with a rattle. I've heard that the foam inside the door around the speakers dries out over time, speaker gets loose and rattles.
I've not yet checked this out, I'm all little concerned with removing the door panel with the side airbag.

Jay

It is an awful crackle popping noise. The fact that it does this irregardless of volume setting or balance/fade just makes no sense to me. Somehow some sort of current is being sent thru the speaker wires even though the volume is all the way down and/or the left speaker is faded/balanced out of the equation. When I installed the stereo a few years back, I carefully and professionally soldered all the connections, so I doubt a bad connection there. Maybe the factory wiring to the factory amp is bad? Or maybe the amp is bad? It seems like if no signal is being sent on a speaker channel by the stereo unit, then maybe the amp is leaking something out to it. It only happens on the front left circuit and it might go on for 10 seconds or 10 minutes.

Frustrating!!!

bypass the factory amp. Simply take it out of the equation. Wire the radio to the output side of the amplifer and disconnect the input side -

2nd way is to replace the factory amp with another junkyard piece- can't cost that much..

rjp

THe BMW amp is ****, realy. Your alpine is probably putting out more power than the amp. I'd throw the stock amp away, personally.

Oh, and re-wire all the speakers so they dont have that stupid "common ground" thing

The Blaupunkt stereo along with the stock amp worked fine for years and my wife and I were more than satisfied by the sound.

IOW, I just want to fix the popping/crackling with a minimum of effort. It sounds like maybe the "easiest" thing to do would be to
dis-able the amp? (I know, I know, I am a lazy @ss when it comes to working on my wife's 260,000 mile daily driver!)

I have completely rewired cars in the past in regards to speakers/stereo/amps, I just do not have the desire to screw with this one (my wife is happy if the CD player works and clear sound comes out at 10% volume level).

do the junkyard amp thing - every BMW has one, and it's about .0002 seconds to swap it out... Should be drivers rear (?) of car? Maybe what, $5.00?

rjp

I will check into that Randy, unfortunately the only junkyard in the area that deals in german imports is way overpriced and about an hours drive. I will need to figure out what years were the same as my '92 E36 was the first year for that body style and over the years the sound systems improved.

Ebay baby.. or check out some of the e36 BBS sites.

Somewhere out there, a kid has hacked about his e36 and has that sitting in the garage...

rjp

here's a cool site for PN's - www.realoem.com

Thanks Randy

the bmw's factory amp has the crossovers built in the amp, if you bypass the amp you will need to add a passive crossover (a simple cap....about 2.2mfd-3.3mfd) for the tweeters or you'll destroy them.
you can run the mids full range and it won't hurt them, the alpine will not be as loud as the factory bmw amp is, i would check the availability of a replacement factory amp, but be aware the 5 series amps are coded to the particular car, the 3 series may be the same....i think this started in the mid 90's.

it definately sounds like a preamp problem inside the amp, i've come across this many times.

Thanks Bell, I may e-mail you later if I need some more info!

I like BMW, but they lack sound system. The optional Harman Kardon system isn't anything worth paying extra for. Keep the new tuner/head unit and change out everything else and you'll be happy.

the bmw's are one of the few decent factory systems you can easilly add an aftermarket cd player to with minimal problems....noise and such.

Actually, I am happy with the factory BMW cd changer. It's the radio with so much AM static that it's almost unusable and generally bland overall stereo sound.

The E46 forums are full of factory systems for sale. :)