The E39 Euro Professional CD Radio - a Comparo Breakdown

[geargrinder]

Hey dorks. More E39 obscurata for y'all.

For a long time I've sorta wanted to get my hands on the mythical, mysterious, whispered about in dark corners by E39 freaks and weirdos, CD54 "BMW Professional CD" that was an option in Europe but never seen in the USofAMurica#1HELLYEAHFerrinersarePOOOSAYSamirightG odBless. I became aware of thse after seeing one in another guys Touring... This is a unit offered on Euro cars as an alternative upgrade over the CD53 "BMW Business CD", but one that USA never saw. I think I understand why now but more on that later.

The Pro unit in RealOEM by the way:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=65_1060

So I started keeping my eye out for 'em, and found sure, indeed they will rarely crop up on Euro for sale listings, but they were always at just stupid prices - or at least stupid for a research/gamble project... From what I can tell the "Take Rate" on the Pro was pretty low over there too cuz all the rads that pop up are mostly Biz or Nav. I suspect most consumers thought "if I'm spending extra for a radio I'm going for the NAV dammit". By the way, the NAV - which has an outboard radio in the cargo area by the amp well - ALSO had a "Pro" upgrade option, my guess is that unit is even MORE hard to find than the dash-radio Pro...

But well sure enough after a couple years of keepin the eyes peeled, finally a few months ago I snagged on for a good price delivered to my USA#1 doorstep, and I've been running it for a little over a month and pretty much ready to report back on the lowy-low....

So lets just jump right in on some pixorz.

Here's what the thing looks like installed.




Here's the label & PN... BMW Professional CD54



Vs the Business CD...



Yo baby take yer top off!!! Yeah that's the good stuff.

Professional:



Vs Business:



Undercarriage shots... Professional:



Business:



Now some interesting details. This is down here where you can't really see is where the amp-heat-sink stuff is on the Professional:





Where as this is the Business, with a big metal heat sink for the power amp that exposes at the top of the case.
Looks much more robust actually - and it may be, but I think there's an explanation for that...



Initial inspection thoughts:

• From the front / installed, barely distinguishable from the CD53 Biz. Slightly different Tone/Eject buttons and CD slot surround, but even an E39 veteran could be excused for not noticing the difference.
• Professional is made by Becker, Business is made by Alpine. I'd known that already but its clearly indicated on both units.
• Professional weighs a handful of grams more than the Business. I lost my notes on that but there was a difference. I assume some indication of 'more content' somehow... but its not a huge difference either.
• CD transport is obviously very different. I'm guessing this is in operation inconsequential.
• Aforementioned power-amp heat sink is much bigger on the Business, making it look more substantial from the top. This is probably explained by the fact that the Business got used in amp-less basic cars, and therefore actually needed some power to drive 4 corners of speakers on its own. Whereas the Pro was likely only offered in conjunction with the full factory rear amp and therefore was a "line level output" amp really.
• This was hard/impossible to photograph but the tuner-unit inside the Pro does look a bit more substantial than the Biz. In both units its pretty easy to identify - a thin flat rectangle metal shielded can. I can see more alignment controls on the Becker unit. If I had 2 of them, and, if I had the tech docs explaining what is what, I would LOVE to do an FM alignment on the Becker and see if I can improve the reception over factory. I have all the gear to do FM tuner alignments and that would be fun but it'd take a fair bit of work and would have to pull the CD transport out and then power it up on the bench etc. etc. and I'm not gonna do that with my only one. Getting the docs might be hard but on other hand the tuner is 99% likely to be a "module" so I may be able to get the details on what is what from some retail Becker tuner (or very possibly another brand that sourced the same tuner module...) of the same or slightly older era.
• Installs exactly same, connector socket exactly the same.

So I got it installed, plug and play, although I had one mis-fire where the connector didn't lock in and nothing made noise, I was about to figure I'd been ripped off for about 5 minutes... but derpderp fumblefinger mistake.

With no further ado, here's my... take after running it for a month plus including a couple big roadtrips...

Pros:

• FM radio reception is indeed better. I live on a granite rock sticking into the ocean and when youre driving around the backside of the rock, reception goes to hell, so its a pretty good testing ground, I can tune some known stations and drive around a couple spots and immediately see differences. For sure I get better signal with the Pro, along one rocky curve I can actually continue to hear voices/music as the sound degrades in places where the Biz would drop in and out completely.
• Audio HIGHS are better. Its almost as if my tweeters came alive. In fact, with my custom hipster setup, I now probably have just a little bit too much in the high-highs, which was compensating perhaps for the Biz rolling off. This was pretty expected, as high end rolloff is a frequent casualty of compromises.
• Audio LOWS are better. Actually the whole bottom end from before and the down right into the subwoofer is bigger and smoother and clearer. This is a little more surprise but is prob same effect as above, better design and components allowing better lows to come through.
• The text display with the "CD" input using an aftermarket device (Mediabridge) seems to work / scroll better. Can't explain that one but I get better info whereas with the Biz it would seem to freeze or not show everything. Now I get a nice scroll of anything I play on the phone connected via USB (via Mediabridge that is).
• AF works well - this is Alternative Frequency which means stations that simulcast on 2 frequencies, and the radio will auto-switch from one to the other seamlessly as it detects bad reception. I have a great station and location for this and the Pro does it pretty well. By the way, the Biz also can do this although its coded off by BMW by default and most people are driving around not knowing they can have this, but it can be switched on in coding. It works pretty well although the Pro seems to switch faster and more seamlessly.
• GALA (increase volume with roadspeed) seems smoother to me. Maybe my imagination, but seems like it to me.
• Direct Tuning - Hit the 'm' button and you can directly enter the frequency number via the input buttons, i.e. "1" + "0" + "1" + "7" = 101.7 This is kinda cool.
• * REG / RDS / PTY function control - with a long-press on the FM button, you can turn these various functions on/off without going into service mode or using a coding tool. Mmmmmm except the first and last don't really.... see below...
• *Station preset buttons - OK this gets the asterisk as its gonna be a "only sorta". There are 8 presets across the top instead of 6 because you lose the "RDS" and "Scan" buttons. However its a red herring 'plus'... see below...
• * Has "PS" - preset function - another asteroidrisk. The idea here is, you short-press the "FM" button a 2nd time (while in FM already) and the preset numbers get replaced with "PS" - "program service name" text that it has scanned from stations in the area. This means in theory, you hit that button, then it would, hypothetically shows you - lets say, something like "WMVY" and "WBUR" etc. and you would go straight to those stations. But it doesnt work in USA. More in a minute.
• * "TP" - traffic priority... ie. when there's a traffic announcement automatically switch to that station and give me the broadcast - something Euros have had for ages and use all the time. The TP button short-press turns this feature on/off as you drive, but a long-press allows you to either turn automatic TP on/off, or, designate the station that you prefer for TP information monitoring. But... doesn't work right in USA
• * Maybe on good days (nights / weather) you can get Shortwave broadcasts! More on this below.

Cons:

• Ok here's the big one. Apparently you can't recode the radio for USA FM standards. This is either because or why (cause or effect) we never got it here. I've tried a ALL the coding tools including NavCoder, NCSExpert, and PASoft, as well as the in-radio "Service Mode" and NONE of them can get the radio to take the "USA" region setting. I believe this radio is hard-coded to Europe and does not have the software capability to handle USA broadcasts, period. This results in several knock-on problems...
• In Europe FM radio tunes to the .1 Mhz level. Meaning 93.1, 93.2, 93.3, 93.4 etc. are all possible stations. In NorAmurca#1butnotthecanukzormexis, the FM broadcast spec doesn't include the odd-decimals. So .0, .2, .4, .6, .8 are all "no existe" here. Now my old graymarket Merc also had a Euro Becker radio... and it mostly was fine, so this isn't a complete show stopper, its just an inconvenience. The main frequency problem means that quite often if you scan for frequencies, the tuner gets confused and stops on an even-numbered station before the 'real' station because it hits a big sloppy sideways part of the farting extra signal, and thinks its a station. Usually it means if you hit a station on .4 its really on .5 for instance. This is more likely on scanning "up" by the way, on the way down it tends to work better (for technical sideband and superheterodyne decoding reasons I expect that could be assplained by a real radidio eggspurt), but regardless, its a slight inconvenience when trying to scan for stations. No problem with presets, or manually tuning, just with scanning.
• Unfortunately tho', the region problem extends to the "PS" field. So the PS feature doesn't work. Turns out the USA#1 radio guys kinda bastardized the use of the PS field to create scrolling RDS text by constantly changing the 8chars that it broadcasts. That's why the RDS shows one block of chars, then another block of chars, then another block of chars, etc. to give you the whole Station+Artist+Song bullcrap. But in Euro they apparently have a different standard so the radio expects it to be one broadcast with the station identification on it. Problem then here is, when you try to use the PS preset function, for active RDS stations, the radio just captures some random current set of the characters, which becomes totally un-helpful in knowing what the station is. For example you scan past a country radio station while its playing Taylor Swift, and so today that stations button then appears as "TAYL" whereas tomorrow it happens to catch the same station playing as the RDS is broadcasting a song name "Motorboatin" and so it shows up as "MOTO". Etc. In theory - like with a Biz CD - you recode the radio so it knows its not Euro standard broadcasts and reads the info better (or maybe doesn't read the info...) but in this case, can't do that, so - the PS feature is more or less totally broken.
• No preset-banks. So you get 8 FM and 8 AM total presets. Instead of FM1, FM2, FMA with the Biz = 18 presets. Unless there's a magic key press I haven't found yet, and I done a lotta finger pokin, you just got them 8.
• TP appears like it works, and some stations show up with "TP" in the display, and you can assign them as your preferred "TP" station, so theoretically its working, but I suspect it isn't in reality. Very well could be that's another Euro FM standard difference thing, haven't researched it but in meantime I"ve yet to see it work properly. I've gotten alerts that flip to the TP station for a few seconds but I just get a few seconds of a song then it flips back so I expect there's an RDS flag thats being misinterpreted and the standards are incompatible.
• RDS-off - I discovered indeed the secret button press (long-hold on the FM button) to turn this on/off as you drive but its still a bit of a long process if you want a quick check on the frequency.
• PTY is completely broken for USA. While you can turn on "Program Type" and it WILL work and report the program type it thinks is being broadcast (this is that feature that shows category of station, like "NEWS" or "CLS_ROCK" etc.) however it uses the European lookup tables, which, are super irritatingly almost completely differently than the USA ones. So ROCK stations will appear as EDUCATE, and CLS_ROCK will show up as DRAMA, etc. etc. Nice job stupid broadcast industry.
• AM Radio is pretty borked - I almost forgot about this because, really, not many people use FM radio anymore let alone AM! But it has similar problems with "Area" as FM, perhaps more. Bands and tuning are different, so Euro AM radios generally have 3 bands called LW/MW/SW. In LW there will be zero USA broadcasts so that doesn't work at all. MW is roughly equivalent to USA AM, and it works sometimes on some stations but not others depending on if the frequency aligns well to a Euro spacing. On the other hand due to the nature of AM radio if it is urgent, you can probably hear SOMETHING even if you're tuned off by some small amount. Euro band range doesn't match exactly so you might not be able to tune in to super high frequency AM stations. For SW, hey yeah maybe you can tune in some shortwave broadcasts when the weather is good or a pirate is broadcasting! Mostly I have gotten nothing there on my 2 Euro radio experiences but once in a while something turns up... often in Chinese it seems...
• Radio power - this one is interesting and not an issue for most people but... when the radio is turned off on the panel (via the MID knob) it turns off power to the amps via the remote power up line. With the Biz this is 100% not true, with the radio off, the amps are still powered until the ignition is switched off. This is not a huge problem for most people but in a case like mine my amps and aftermarket DSP take a few seconds to boot up so, with the Biz CD if I turn the radio off/on it comes back on instantly, but with the Pro, I'm into a reboot-cycle and have to wait for the amps to wake up again.

Bottom line:

I'm glad to have it and enjoy the better sound for sure. For most people the availability/going-price alone make it a non-option. But I think beyond that even the hassles of being non-recodable probably make it a net-net negative for a lotta people. If your #1 thing is radio sound quality and reception, AND you can live with only 8 presets, then its great. Otherwise, kinda hasslish. The amp-power thing won't bother most people since the factory amps insta-boot pretty much but for aftermarket ampers that might be a downsider too. ME? Super glad to have it and fun to have a rarity like that but not gonna exactly recommend it to friends and families.

An so endeth more than anybody ever wanted to know about CD54 Pro CD's in USA cars... .

[effduration]

Hey dorks. More E39 obscurata for y'all.

For a long time I've sorta wanted to get my hands on the mythical, mysterious, whispered about in dark corners by E39 freaks and weirdos, CD54 "BMW Professional CD" that was an option in Europe but never seen in the USofAMurica#1HELLYEAHFerrinersarePOOOSAYSamirightG odBless. I became aware of thse after seeing one in another guys Touring... This is a unit offered on Euro cars as an alternative upgrade over the CD53 "BMW Business CD", but one that USA never saw. I think I understand why now but more on that later.

The Pro unit in RealOEM by the way:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=65_1060

You actually used PA Soft ? What did Hell freeze over?

This is damn interdasting stuff...Thanks for exploring.

Do you know whether the Pro CD plays MP3's? As you note, there are other +/-'s with the Pro version, but in the unlikely event it DID play Mp3, that might be a plus.

[dohalloran]

Great write-up GG ! Very interesting. I'm still plundering along with my stock non-DSP system with a GROM unit and satellite radio.
Looks I will wait until spring to put in my Infinity Kappas and Second Skin on the inner doors.

Any hint as to roughly what that good price might be ?!?

[geargrinder]

Dayum. Yer not gonna make me burn an MP3 CD are ya!? Oh damn.

[JimLev]

Dorky right back at ya. Good info. Does that box get the weather?
When you wake up from listening to WBUR you can burn a few MP3's to disc and let us know.
Can you really get WMVY from your 20?

[TerraPhantm]

Can it be set to the US region using the hidden menu like the business CD? I think that’s where some of the differences come from (TP function for example)

[geargrinder]

MP3 on data CDs are a no go. Thanks EFFDUR fer costin me a blank CD... EFFDUR , more like EFFYU amirite!?!???

[osc911]

Reach out to Revtor and see if it is possible via NCS Dummy recoding and adding more than factory coding options, you will need to go deep.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[JimLev]

MP3 on data CDs are a no go. Thanks EFFDUR fer costin me a blank CD... EFFDUR , more like EFFYU amirite!?!???

LOL, we'll set up a go fund me page so you can recoup your 50 cents.

[shwy]

This stuff is why I love the E39 community. I have had my 540i for about 5 years now and I'm always blown away by how much information you and people like you discover and share for fueling the habits of the nerdy and obsessed (people like me for example).

Incredible bunch. Hopefully I can add to the tree of knowledge some day.

Thanks all!

[RosieE39]

The Pro has twin tuners - that’s how TP works - but totally useless in the USofA (and DownUnder) because there is no TP broadcast.

[geargrinder]

Can it be set to the US region using the hidden menu like the business CD? I think that’s where some of the differences come from (TP function for example)

Great suggestion M. Spun through all the menu options there, was very interesting, but basically I could only code the same things that I could do via NavCoder/etc/etc.

However I did also try some other long presses and found some other decent behavior. I might add to the OP when I have time - running to a meeting now...

Reach out to Revtor and see if it is possible via NCS Dummy recoding and adding more than factory coding options, you will need to go deep.

No need. If it was about adding or trying additional parameters in NCSExpert, I'd be more than able to handle that, but what it does is reject the coding instruction for region (or "Area") at any rate. I have tried all defined areas, all are rejected. I suppose there's a theory that says there's a secret value that would 'take' but I doubt it. The fact that it behaves exactly same way with 2 other coding software apps leaves me pretty sure this unit refuses any and all attempts to code an alternate "area".

BTW, if there was a way by the way to hacketyhack it, it'd probably be with an EEPROM read and write like you can get via PASoft (which I know with some other modules lets you force values in that are not 'official'), however I'm inclined to believe that's unlikely to do anything but possibly brick it.

[geargrinder]

The Pro has twin tuners - that’s how TP works - but totally useless in the USofA (and DownUnder) because there is no TP broadcast.

That makes sense. It would explain exactly how the "AF" works too, however it'd imply the Biz has 2 tuners too since it has that capability and as I kinda bury the lede above, it works fine.

And... it does seem like TP can actually work, at least theoretically. I have at least one local station that shows the "TP" flag set on their broadcast when you scan past them, and today - derp of course after I posted this big post - I was whaddafrucknknow - TP-switched to their broadcast for a second! It seems to have been a glitch (some engineer spilled coffee on the TP button in the booth?) cuz I got like 5 seconds of a song, but it does suggest it works.

That said I think you're right from what I understand the vast majority USA / NorAm broadcasters don't actually support it and set the flag when they are broadcasting traffic updates.

[philly98540]

Deep dive in the pool there JC! Nice report. Radio reception is pretty good here and the plethora of streaming options keeps me satisfied for now.

Impressed by your skills in this area nontheless.

[RosieE39]

That makes sense. It would explain exactly how the "AF" works too, however it'd imply the Biz has 2 tuners too since it has that capability and as I kinda bury the lede above, it works fine.

AF uses RDS to determine and then switch to the stronger signal so works on a single tuner radio (which is what Business tuners are) but that’s why it works nicer on the Pro tuner.

As an aside, I’ve been playing with the OBM tuners and found one out of much newer I-Bus models that have better sound and extra displays.



Next stage will be to get the CD drive that was in that tuner working in behind the OBM screen where the now useless cassette player is.

[balidawg]

Very entertaining write-up, GG. Had me chuckling at every nerdy turn.

[effduration]

MP3 on data CDs are a no go. Thanks EFFDUR fer costin me a blank CD... EFFDUR , more like EFFYU amirite!?!???

Ha! Good Stuff...Thanks for checking...Yeah I'll send you a blank...I have a few collecting dust..

[geargrinder]

Terra's suggestion got me to go check the service menu as well as to brainstorm more secret-button-press functions... Did find a few new things like how to flip RDS on/off on the fly. OP updated accordingly, I put the new edits in italics mostly (might be a few legacy italics up there too but you'll get the gist) so those who are in the thread already can scan to 'em quickly. Thanks for the suggesto, M.

But. Basically you can't change anything in the service menu that you can't change w/ coding tools. Things like "Area" appear (EUROPE) but it can't be changed or edited. Things you can change in the coding tools you can change in the Service Mode. So... nice that service mode works but seems to confirm the radio is hard-coded to EUROLAND.

[geargrinder]

AF uses RDS to determine and then switch to the stronger signal so works on a single tuner radio (which is what Business tuners are) but that’s why it works nicer on the Pro tuner.

Yeah sure it gets the "hey is there an AF for this station" from the RDS info stream, but, it still would need to be able to pre-tune to the other station and see if it is stronger or weaker as the signal drops out. Otherwise it'd just flip back and forth between weak stations, and thats not what it does...

Do you have any tech doc that says the Biz is 1-tuner vs the Pro is 2?

As an aside, I’ve been playing with the OBM tuners and found one out of much newer I-Bus models that have better sound and extra displays..

Make no mistake I'm not trying to promote this guy as an alternative to later radios or aftermarkets even. This was just a drop-in that keeps the clean slim MID-style hidden-CD radio look of the factory which I kinda like for some reason... There's a whole crew of guys on E38/39 in USA BTW that have done retrofit NBT radios . There's even joints offering retrofit kits these days...

[BimmerBreaker]

See another come up for sale without breaking the bank, let me know

[geargrinder]

Will do. This one took a long time I have to say. Even the overpriced ones are rare. Tips for searching are that they also came on some E53's that had the same MID/Radio setup that we have, so your search terms on eBay 'worldwide' should be something like:
(E39, E53) (Professional, CD54, C54) (CD, radio)...

Also, here's the BMW training docs on the "NG" radios that came out around Y2K. Interesting although not as much tech specs as I'd like to have...
https://share.qclt.com/bmw%E8%B5%84%...g_radio-en.pdf

[BimmrMeUpSnotty]

Cool project JC, have them doods from ‘old Europe, like the guy that sells all them armrests and interior trim from Lithuania dig that rare crap up, bet those things are just tossed aside out there.

[TerraPhantm]

So regarding the even vs odd FM stuff, it isn't so much that the US spec doesn't include the even numbers - it's that US broadcasts are higher bandwidth. That's also probably why the scan mode gets tripped up - it is detecting a broadcast on the even frequencies, because the station is... modulating its frequency over 200KHz window rather than 100KHz like in the rest of the world. In theory that means our FM quality is somewhat better.

I think you'll also find AM is pretty much broken. Per WikiPedia "For Europe the MW band ranges from 526.5 kHz to 1606.5 kHz,[1] using channels spaced every 9 kHz, and in North America an extended MW broadcast band ranges from 525 kHz to 1705 kHz,[2] using 10 kHz spaced channels." - you're missing about 100KHz when using a European radio, and the increments are 9KHz instead of 10, so you'll never tune into anything perfectly.

Out of curiosity did you have Aux input before and does that still work?

Seems to be even rarer, but you might be interested in the CD54 for your E46. Has a much nicer display than the CD53 in the E46's case. I ended up going aftermarket (Avin) in my E46, otherwise I was on the hunt for one of those for years. May still try to find one for my 330i if I don't get rid of it soon

[pleiades]

See another come up for sale without breaking the bank, let me know

UK seller on ebay, but is it complete?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/BMW-E39-E53...2/283285334072

[RosieE39]

Do you have any tech doc that says the Biz is 1-tuner vs the Pro is 2?

There’s not much out there on the inter webs and all my old training material is at the back of the attic.
But I did find this:-
http://www.ge39.com/radio.htm
(Translate from Slovenian)
And I did ask back in the day why only Europe had the Professional Radio as an option and I was told it was because TP wasn’t available elsewhere.

There's a whole crew of guys on E38/39 in USA BTW that have done retrofit NBT radios . There's even joints offering retrofit kits these days...

And in Germany, and in England - but that’s a $1500+ upgrade whilst upgrading the receiver was $150.