The BMW 'business' cd..fm-am radio is not stellar! Is there an aftermarket that fits?

[Eaglesail]

Harman Kardon Beker, as I understand may have been optional for my 03 three. My question, is there an after market high-end cd-am-fm available that will properly fit my dash console?. Also in question are the many speakers, now aged and may too why the less than stellar sound produced.

[MarcoZandrini]

The head unit isn't typically the problem when the sound isn't up to snuff. Start with the speakers. BMW didn't install the best speakers in the E46 regardless of system. Yes, HK speakers are better than the "non-HK" speakers but the HK speakers aren't great IMHO. Is the car a sedan or a coupe? It matters as the the coupe doors have:
- 6.25" woofer (6.5" woofer fits)
- 2" midrange
- ~1" tweeter

The sedan has 5.25" woofers.

The rear of the coupe has a pair of tweeters (in panels next to the rear seat) and a pair 0f 6.5" woofers on the package shelf. The sedan has speakers in each door, and on the rear package shelf.

Go to www.crutchfield.com and see the specific sizes. Then, develop a budget, spending about 50% of the budget on speakers.

Be advised, the interface between the oem head unit and the oem amplifier in the left side of the trunk is "balanced differential." That's different than both line level (aka "RCA"), and speaker level signals. Also, the oem amp has built-in crossovers. That means that if you replace the amp you'll need to buy 4 crossovers:
- front - 3 channel
- rear - 2 channel

[TonyAngel]

I replaced the speakers in my E46 and it sounds ok to my ears. Of course this is subjective. I have a really nice setup in my truck and that is what I'm used to. If you go with an after market head unit, just about any single DIN unit will physically fit and it's pretty easy to get to. The hard part is the wiring. The whole car audio system is designed and installed to work as a unit. The head unit is wired to an amp in the truck which is wired to cross-overs going to the speakers. The easiest way around all of it is to get the components that you want and have the whole car re-wired. It's not that big of a deal, if you're comfortable pulling the interior of your car apart.

There are also drop in replacement options like those from bavsound, but they are stupid expensive. I got a set of their speakers for my son's E46 and wasn't impressed. As I said above, they sound ok, but for what was supposed to be a "drop in" option, the installation involved the use of (the included) cheap little sheet metal brackets for the tweeters and GLUE for the mid ranges. The connectors also left a lot of be desired. They kept coming off while trying to reinstall the door panels. I wound up using crimp on butt connectors. For around $500 for the set, I was disappointed. I would have returned it, but my son was excited to be getting some music in his car, so I went ahead and installed the stuff.

For the money, I'd bit the bullet and buy a nice Alpine or Pioneer head unit, Polk speakers and four channel amp and dedicate a day to running the wiring. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

[Eaglesail]

I hear YOU...thanks....I can live with this less than steller sound system..a BMW 'business' system....It does suck! If the stock BMW 'business' head unit can deliver a better quality for better installed speakers...I'm in! ....I put 4 'Boston' speakers in my 190e, 20 years ago..connected to it's German 'Becker' and it was way better....In the 87 300D, (2004) I installed a Harmon Kardan 'traffic pro' that fit. It had GPS and read-out...primitive by today standards. I never got the GPS to work...but when you turned the volume control to max...without a sound track playing, there was absolutely no amp sound...dead quite...until the first loud drum beat...very impressive!

[MIKYZZ4]

I replaced the speakers in my E46 and it sounds ok to my ears. Of course this is subjective. I have a really nice setup in my truck and that is what I'm used to. If you go with an after market head unit, just about any single DIN unit will physically fit and it's pretty easy to get to. The hard part is the wiring. The whole car audio system is designed and installed to work as a unit. The head unit is wired to an amp in the truck which is wired to cross-overs going to the speakers. The easiest way around all of it is to get the components that you want and have the whole car re-wired. It's not that big of a deal, if you're comfortable pulling the interior of your car apart.

There are also drop in replacement options like those from bavsound, but they are stupid expensive. I got a set of their speakers for my son's E46 and wasn't impressed. As I said above, they sound ok, but for what was supposed to be a "drop in" option, the installation involved the use of (the included) cheap little sheet metal brackets for the tweeters and GLUE for the mid ranges. The connectors also left a lot of be desired. They kept coming off while trying to reinstall the door panels. I wound up using crimp on butt connectors. For around $500 for the set, I was disappointed. I would have returned it, but my son was excited to be getting some music in his car, so I went ahead and installed the stuff.

For the money, I'd bit the bullet and buy a nice Alpine or Pioneer head unit, Polk speakers and four channel amp and dedicate a day to running the wiring. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

Excellent advice!

[TonyAngel]

Eaglesail, going with after market speakers will get you better sound, I'd just get a set of separates and do some research and see if you can get more specifics on the existing cross overs, otherwise, you might wind up with some holes in the frequency range. So...you can't just get coaxials and throw them into the back. If I remember right, the rear deck speakers are crossed over for bass only. What I'd do, is find a set of woofers for the back deck (which should be easy enough and lots of adapters out there), but before you buy speakers for the doors, pull the door panels and eyeball how much room you have and see how creative you can get with what will fit in there. The factory setup for the way the mid ranges are held into the doors does leave a lot of room for improvisation.

Just so you you know, when you get the door panel off and try to get the mount for the mid range out of the door to work with it, that big collar around the mount holding the midrange unscrews. It is not clipped on. My son almost broke one of his because he thought it clipped in and was trying to pry it out with a screw driver. I only stopped him because it just seemed to me that BMW would have done it better, considering the engineering that went into the rest of the car with regard to the way everything fits.