Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Just posted in FS section, Touring Specific Audio system

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Orange County, CA
    Posts
    76
    My Cars
    03 540iT 89' e30 325i

    Just posted in FS section, Touring Specific Audio system


  2. #2
    geargrinder's Avatar
    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    AndoverRockport MA & Intl
    Posts
    14,856
    My Cars
    E46M3Cic E39.540iT E84X1
    All GAS PCN's should come with your choice of:

    - A big bag of high potency synthetic opiods to dull the agony of installation,
    or
    - A large caliber handgun to either shoot the thing or yourself when you snap and go clinically insane during the process...
    2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
    2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
    2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
    2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)

    Former:

    1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
    1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)


  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Location
    Orange County, CA
    Posts
    76
    My Cars
    03 540iT 89' e30 325i
    Having never installed it myself, I thought the beauty of the PCN is plug and play to get an upgraded amp??

    Please enlighten..

    Quote Originally Posted by geargrinder View Post
    All GAS PCN's should come with your choice of:

    - A big bag of high potency synthetic opiods to dull the agony of installation,
    or
    - A large caliber handgun to either shoot the thing or yourself when you snap and go clinically insane during the process...

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Charlotte, NC
    Posts
    9,266
    My Cars
    03 M5/05 RR/06 Cayman S
    Quote Originally Posted by ory69 View Post
    Having never installed it myself, I thought the beauty of the PCN is plug and play to get an upgraded amp??

    Please enlighten..
    Definitely not plug and play. It is also certainly not designed to work with BSW speakers, but can be made to sound pretty decent if your kit comes with the addon modules that fixed a massive issue with the original design. The wires still need to be spliced into the existing wires in the car as they don't come with connectors that match the old DSP or HiFi amps. There is no "plug and play" mounting system, so you'll have to custom make that as well. Also, don't expect any support from the company that made them as they are shut down and were quite annoyed with their customers getting frustrated with their PCNs. You're basically on your own, since most of the people that actually got them to work right are not super thrilled with all that was required to do it.

    Listen to GG's advice.

    -Paul
    2003 "M5" - Full M5 conversion, AMG C63S 6 piston front calipers, Porsche Panamera 4 piston rear calipers, GC Coilovers,
    Eibach ARBs, UUC Evo3/DSSR, Borla Exhaust w/Muffler Delete, BMW NBT with Carplay/Android Auto, Bi-Xenons, e38 Style 37 M-Pars, e60 Hubs 530i 6-speed swap build thread
    2005 Range Rover 4.6is (M62TU Powered) - 4.6is Engine Swap from X5, BMW NBT with Carplay/Android Auto
    2006 Porsche Cayman S - Soul Performance Competition Headers and Exhaust, H&R Coilovers, 718 Boxster Spyder wheels, Rennline 35mm rear spacers

  5. #5
    geargrinder's Avatar
    geargrinder is offline Having No Trouble Here BMW CCA Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Location
    AndoverRockport MA & Intl
    Posts
    14,856
    My Cars
    E46M3Cic E39.540iT E84X1
    Yep Paul nails it. Unless by some long shot you have one of the rare units that he was promising that he could build with salvaged OEM connectors torn out of a factory amp, so that it plugs into the car...

    BTW couple other things you have to do that are not mentioned - run new audio lines all the way from the head up front (unless its a NAV car I guess... in which case I don't know what you have to do... maybe thats easier...) to wherever the amps are going to be (under cargo for in a Touring normally), and, possibly insert a line-out-converter between those lines and your amp - depending on if your amp has speaker level ins (most do nowadays luckily) and if it does, if it can handle the electrical characteristics of the OE HU output... (some amps act weird w/ the factory HU output for complicated electrical reasons).

    The results range between "fair" and - purportedly for some people excellent. I thought mine - without the later added fix-kit, which was going to cost me MORE after I dumped him a bunch of money on a product that was supposed to be "not quite P&P but easy to install, tailored for E39 DSP!" - sounded decent but not mind-blowing. Personally for me not remotely worth the ridiculous effort and additional-costs I dumped into it (and to get it to work I tried multiple interface devices including LOC's and an AudioControl EQ/crossover device that was actually a sweet piece of gear but couldn't make up for the meh-ness of the system). I probably spent the equivalent of a couple full work-weeks making mounting plates, doing the wiring, re-doing the system 2,3,4 times (different LOC's and amps...) trying to get a good enough result. In the end I sold mine barely-used for errr something like $150 including one of the mounting boards I made for it, and went a massively different route. BTW another real problem I had with it was the stuipd PCN plate itself and components were massively unnecessarily oversized in form factor. There was no reason it had to be such a huge board and such huge components. It was designed I think for car-audio-show-off purposes... like putting it behind a glass panel with hidden colored LEDs lighting it up kind of crap. Made it way harder to fit in the back than it could have been. Just stupidly huge parts for phoney-baloney show-off audio-fool purposes. Very quickly while trying to make install brackets/plates that started to bug the crap out of me.

    But some guys did like the results they got. It was a bit of a mystery why some seemed to sound OK and others just meh.

    As I say, if yours has the OE connectors on it, if it really did just drop in... (errr plus running the audio wires from front to back still...) and if it was one of the setups that 'works' for whatever mystery reason that is... then it would be diffferent story...
    2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
    2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
    2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
    2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)

    Former:

    1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
    1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)


Similar Threads

  1. M Roadster Audio Upgrade - post in this section or the Audio section?
    By benjylafond in forum 1996 - 2002 Z3 (E36/7, E36/8)
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 11-29-2016, 11:44 AM
  2. FS: FREE BEEFY JL audio system (over $3600 value)
    By gripenM in forum Car Audio & Electronics
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 11-20-2008, 04:30 AM
  3. Some stuff FS here before I post them in the FS section
    By TouringDan in forum 1988 - 1996 (E34)
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 04-05-2007, 01:55 PM
  4. A FS section inside the Car Audio & Electronics thread.
    By Sephiroth619 in forum Forum Software Questions & Suggestions
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 03-06-2006, 02:18 AM
  5. Before I post up in the FS section... E36 M3 sways
    By GUINNESS in forum Middle Atlantic - US
    Replies: 7
    Last Post: 12-20-2005, 06:04 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •