I have a 1995 BMW 840 (e31) with the the standard audio set up from that era: AM/FM Radio, Cassette Player, Trunk CD Changer and AMP. Tried some upgrades but did not mesh well with the old factory wiring. I decided to by-pass the factory wiring and put in a completely new system.
I replaced all speakers with Polk Audio and Polk AMPs, the head unit is a Becker Traffic Pro w/Navigation. Since the system is stand alone I've added the following:
PAC Audio AS21 Audio Switcher
Audiovox Commander MT Satellite Radio (model XM RVRFM002)
LumiDock iPOD Integration Device
Seems to be some problem getting this system to mesh.
Does seem like a good set up and does anybody have any better ideas?
I have a 95 m3 and I know how "great" the stock stereo in that was. Could you give some more details? What is your front speaker setup? (2way or 3way) Any rear speakers? What is the sound or meshing problem you are having? Why do you need that godawful PAC audio switcher? How is everything connected? Are you using active or passive xo's for the comps?(I'm assuming polk components)
The front speakers are two way with separate tweeters. The rear are three way. There is a boxed sub located in the pass thru from the trunk. The I used the used the PAC Audio as a bridge for the Lumidack iPOD and the XM Radio that is then connected to the Becker Traffic Pro. The iPOD does not seem to want to play thru the system. When I meant by mesh is this iPOD and XM thru the PAC Audio does not seem to work.
Overall the set up sounds superb.
You don't seem to care for the PAC Audio. What have you learned?
Cannot answer the active or passive question
Wow. I did some research on that hu. I'm not going to pretend I know how to hook anything to that. I didn't see any rca's on it though.(I guessed on the model though) How is the pac physically connected to the hu. Didn't mean anything bad about pac, I thought it was a line level converter at first. Try this though. Remove the pac and connect the ipod or sat radio to the hu to see if they work.
The Traffic Pro has a lowout put rca jack and one input so I cannot hook both the XM and iPOD simultaneously directly to the radio. Thats why I needed something like the PAC Audio Switcher. However there are problems there also because the PAC Audio is only designed for one item to operate thru it to the radio, i.e., either the iPOD holder thru the PAC Audio to the Becker radio or the XM radio thru the PAC Audio to the Becker radio. What I wanted was to connect the iPOD and XM to the PAC Audio siultaneously and then connect the PAC Audio to the Becker thru the Aux input using the PAC Audio Switcher to switch between the iPOD and XM as desired.
The Traffic Pro has a lowout put rca jack and one input so I cannot hook both the XM and iPOD simultaneously directly to the radio. Thats why I needed something like the PAC Audio Switcher. However there are problems there also because the PAC Audio is only designed for one item to operate thru it to the radio, i.e., either the iPOD holder thru the PAC Audio to the Becker radio or the XM radio thru the PAC Audio to the Becker radio. What I wanted was to connect the iPOD and XM to the PAC Audio siultaneously and then connect the PAC Audio to the Becker thru the Aux input using the PAC Audio Switcher to switch between the iPOD and XM as desired.
What I meant to say is to connect one or the other directly to the hu just to see if they work without the pac in the signal chain.
They are very well featured units, I was just setting one up for a customer with an E39 the other week. His was the 7922 (iirc) and had front/rear/sub outs along with phone input and aux.
If you have the phone input and aux on yours you can rig it to have the XM and the ipod in to it, you'll have to use the phone input for one of them and a switch to activate the mute wire on the back of the stereo to switch the "phone" input on.
Audio Upgrade for BMW 840 (e31)
Linear Mode
