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Converting UK Standard Hi-Fi to US Standard Hi-Fi

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Old 11-10-2005, 09:15 AM
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My Ride: BMW E60 520d SE Saloon M47 2.0dTitanium Grey II, Grey−Dakota Leather, Visibility Package, Media Package, Through Load System, Lumbar support − fr seats, Automatic Air Conditioning−Advanced, High beam assistant, Hi−Fi Loudspeak
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I'm new to the forum but have been reading this for a while now. I'd like to know if the following was possible.

The US standard Hi-Fi differs from the UK standard Hi-Fi in that is has an additional amp and two woofers below the seats. However this amp gets its inputs from the main head unit. So in the UK if I ordered a standard Hi-Fi would I be able to connect an after market amp and run two sub-woofers from the head unit. i.e. does any one know if the head unit in the UK standard model has output for running it into an amp.
Old 11-17-2005, 11:26 AM
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So do I take it nobody has attempted this before or nobody listens to the new kid on the block. Looking at the diagrams I found on this site I could see that the difference between the base US and the base UK sound system is the extra amp and 2 sub-woofers below the front seats.
So the question is has anyone in the UK attempted to connect an aftermarket amp and install the speakers themselves. Surely all the space must still be there just the parts missing. Or is the head unit too different between the models.
Old 11-17-2005, 03:04 PM
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Aftermarket is a better approach. I would mess with i-Drive.
Old 11-18-2005, 02:23 AM
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Originally Posted by my530i' post='199734' date='Nov 18 2005, 12:04 AM
Aftermarket is a better approach. I would mess with i-Drive.
How would adding the missing amp and speaker mess with i-Drive. i-Drive will anyway be configured to manage the head unit and since we are not changing that it should make no difference, right?
Old 01-07-2006, 01:28 AM
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The difference is the speakers and the amp. There are no tweeters on the euro standard audio. Just adding these (as I did) makes a LOT of difference.
If you wanted to swap out the subs and add an amp for these, the poblem is that euro hifi runs the door and sub speakers in parallel. So you would need to run new wires for the subs. There is a seperate line out for sub signals on the head unit that you would use for the amp, then run wires to the subs.
US standard (or professional as it is called in europe) has different part numbers for all speakers. Dont know what the real difference is...but adding tweeters and an amp for the subs would porbably get you close to the performance.

Atta
Old 12-10-2007, 11:06 AM
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Way back two year ago this was before I even bought my car, I asked my 1st question. I got no good replies then so I thought I'd tell all people in Europe or anywhere else who opt for the Hi-Fi sound option to save their money and choose aftermarket products.

The procedure is very simple too and all you need to do is tap the line level outputs from the HeadUnit - this is probably the toughest job of all. But once you have that you can feed this to a good quality amplifier, swap the subs out of the floor with earthquake SWS-8 ones and you should be done. You will need to send the wires from the amp to the sub-woofers but its not that tough at all. The wires do not go under the floor or anything, they simply follow the trim at the corners then drop into the enclosures from the top just under the carpet. You can go further too and add good quality tweaters in the parcel shelf and some mids too. The key information that no one in BMW will tell you is that the Head Units for all the sound options are the same. The difference is in the other options that go with it that give you Hi-Fi, Logic 7 and Individual sound.

Read http://forums.e60.net/index.php?showtopic=47747 for how I did it.
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