BMW Bavaria C Professional- Anyone has this? Anyone replaced? - The Unofficial BMW M5 Messageboard (m5board.com)

stedes · 29th February 2008, 12:21

I have just received my 1992 E34 M5. It has the BMW Bavaria C Professional with the hifi package. I was wanting to replace the head unit with a Pioneer Bluetooth one but apparently my "car stereo guy" has said that I need to rewire the whole car. Has anyone done this before using the existing wiring? Any info appreciated, as I really do not want to take the whole car apart!!!!

Thanks.

erikm54life · 29th February 2008, 17:28

I know its possible cause I swapped the factory head unit on my 535i for a Sony with the existing wiring......well, actually my "car stereo guy" did !....unless, of course, the M5 is wired differently......which I doubt cause it has all the same speakers as my 535i.

Cheers

stedes · 29th February 2008, 17:38

Not sure how your car was but in mine the head unit is connected to a box in the left side of the boot with a large multi pin cable. The cable from the aerial also connects to this box and I have no idea how the speakers get the signal. So there's not direct connection between the head unit and the speakers and not even the aerial cable reaches the front of the car.

Any ideas?

erikm54life · 29th February 2008, 18:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by stedes

Not sure how your car was but in mine the head unit is connected to a box in the left side of the boot with a large multi pin cable. The cable from the aerial also connects to this box and I have no idea how the speakers get the signal. So there's not direct connection between the head unit and the speakers and not even the aerial cable reaches the front of the car.

Any ideas?

I'm due to see my guy tomorrow...will ask him about this and how he connected previous stereo......If anything comes up will let you know.

Cheers

Erik

raymondw · 29th February 2008, 21:14

Gents,

He mentiones that his car is equiped with the proffesional hifi system for which conversion to standard ISO radio connectors is not so straight forward. I haven't seen suitable adapter cables for such system. For all other E34's withput the proffesional system, suitable adapters are available and can be found at almost any car audio specialist.

@stedes,

The proffesional system is a very good head unit with a tonal purity and clarity that only the high end units from Becker can exceed, but certainly not the garden variety units of Alpine, Pioneer etc. For that reason, I would think twice about ditching it.

stedes · 1st March 2008, 09:58

Hey Raymond. Thanks for the reply. That was what was in the back of my mind as well. The only reason I wanted to ditch it was the bluetooth functionality but having driven the car for a few days now (my first M5) I don't think there's much time for talking on the phone!

All I need to find now is cartridges for the cd player (It's actually a blaupunkt, not a becker I think and it uses thin cartidges for putting your cds in).

Thanks guys.

raymondw · 1st March 2008, 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by stedes

The only reason I wanted to ditch it was the bluetooth functionality but having driven the car for a few days now (my first M5) I don't think there's much time for talking on the phone!

I use the bleutooth function very often during our annual Alps trips so I understand your thoughts very well. I have installed a Becker Cascade Pro 7941, not cheap, but very good and its design and appearance matches the E34's interior very well. Even the display can be set for the orange color. Not a 100% match, but very close. As my car only came with the radio preparation from the factory originality was not my problem.

Check out this thread for some pictures of the Cascade installation on my car.

stedes · 2nd March 2008, 12:05

Nice write-up Raymond! I have an E34 520i with wiring loom similar to yours so installing the Pioneer on that one is quite easy. The M5 has the HIFI proffesional option and I've not been able to find suitable adaptors for the Bavaria C head unit. It's the head unit which uses the cartridges and not the cds directly and fortunately i've been able to find the cartidges in realoem.com and my dealer can order them. I think i'll leave stock system for now on and later (much later) when the car comes up for a paint job consider rewiring. The Becker looks amazing and indeed i've not seen any other head unit fit so well with the E34s main console.

quattroboy · 26th April 2009, 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by stedes

I have just received my 1992 E34 M5. It has the BMW Bavaria C Professional with the hifi package. I was wanting to replace the head unit with a Pioneer Bluetooth one but apparently my "car stereo guy" has said that I need to rewire the whole car. Has anyone done this before using the existing wiring? Any info appreciated, as I really do not want to take the whole car apart!!!!

Thanks.

I see this post is over a year old, but I thought I would reply.

I have the BCP unit in my 1991 E34 Alpina BiTurbo and have been scratching my head on how it works. But I figured it out.

The stereo consists of 3 units, the head unit in the dash, a tuner-control unit in the right side of the trunk and an amplifier in the left side of the trunk. It is supposed to be a high quality system, but it sounds very poor in my opinion. Probably doesn't help that the speakers are 18 years old.

The signal is sent from the head unit to the tuner via a data cable with a DIN plug. From there it is sent to the amplifier as high level out, then to the speakers. The tuner-controller also allows the use of a CD changer via a DIN plug.

If you replace the head unit, you will need to run new high level out leads to the back and bypass the tuner, straight to the amplifier.

I'm in the process of installing a CD43, which uses the stock plug, but 8 of the positions are blank and I have bought new pins from the dealer. These 8 will send the high level out to the amplifier, bypassing the tuner.

Once I have this done, I will likely install new speakers as I understand BSW has a E34 package now.

After that I plan to use the DICE adapter to run an iPod from the CD controller in the CD43.

Cheers,

stedes · 26th April 2009, 19:40

Hey there quattroboy. The thread is indeed old but nice to hear someone else sharing my problem. Does your unit work? I found that after ordering the cartridges, the cd player in mine won't read cds. Listening to the radio it does sound decent enough for suck an old system but when you have 1400 cds then radio isn't really what i wanna be listening to!
I must say, I found the amp in the left trunk panel but was not aware there was yet another box in the trunk!
Let me know if yours works and how you go with the install.