AchtungE60

Seeking knowledgeable advice and/or opinions!

I am posting to get positive/contructive feedbackon a current project. I?ve searched and search the web and this forum and itappears no one had successfully tackled it with the DSP option so this is alearning post and an information post.

2003 Z4 3.0i E85 (with a few upgrades) garage queen. Hasn?t hadmuch daily action.

While my E60 takes up most of my time and experienceI also own an E46 and have owned about 4 other E46's.

I have all the engineering and dealer tools toProgram/Retrofit/Individualize a BMW. I?m familiar with many control units andmodules in the newer cars but not really the older. This E85 has DSP withDigital output unlike newer Z?s with Analog. This is the same technology usedin the older 5ers and 7ers.

I have extensive knowledge of BMW's overall andhad some stereo experience but not so much with sophisticated electronics. Thisis where I am hoping to get some advice.

First I have a DSP Top HiFi sound system in theZ4. Sounds great. I made an AUX cable some time ago using the schema from TISutilizing 2) .22uf caps & 1)300ohm resistor plugged into pin 3,4,10 on the back of the radio and workedgreat no issues. A friend decided he wanted to do the same so I decided to givehim mine and just bought one from my BMW dealer for $28. I recall that If I didnot install the caps and the resistor it would not have worked because I triedthat first so I decided to just go the easy route and buy one.

So now I?ve decided to use both this Z4 and myGSXR as my daily drivers and get rid of my E60(maybe). Recently my wife and Idecided to drive to far places and get lost and visit little hole in the wallplaces. We love it. However, sometimes I need a way out lol. And I?ve been meaning to do this project for a long time butthings come up here and there. So I have a double-din navi and have a lot ofexperience updating the HDD in this unit and so forth. I have several of theseunits. So I?ve decided to do a retrofit as I did with the E46. However we knowthat the E46 doesn?t have DSP.

So I installed everything in the Z4 to test. Everythingworks great. I updated the harddrive onthe unit. I just do not get sound! As some of you may know the DSP amp in theboot doesn?t get any signal coming from the head unit. I don?t think its powerrelated. I think it has to do with the input coming from the stereo. I havetested the stereo with other speakers and the channels work fine.

This is what I can tell you about the wiringharness for the original unit. Thefollowing wires are present in addition to the European style fakra connectorfor the FM stereo

FR+/FR-

FL+/FL-

12v Contant

12v ACC

12V Antenna

Ground

Illumination

I-Bus

Phone Mute/Speed Signal

I know there is are several Digital DSP convertersavailable but I?m not sure if I want to go this route or if it would even work .Ihave plenty of pre-amps on the navigation unit so I decided to cut some RCAjacks up plug them into the pre-amps and then wire them to the harness. Thisdidn?t work either. Therefore using any RCA pre-amp (front output/subwooferoutput) or Front/Rear speaker leads did not work.

I see all kinds of talk/rumors that with DSP in order to play iPod etc you needa DSP converter such as a DICE. While I know this is not true at all. If we goback to the AUX connection we only needed 2 capacitors and one resistor to make the radio recognize AUX itdid not need any ?Digital Converter? etc etc as so many claim. Basically a R+& L+ bridged together and a ground right?

Ok so now on the WDS schema I see 0.75 on each ofthe leads coming from the radio which are for FR+/FR-

FL+/FL-

http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/en/svg...16.svg?m=e8385(if you need to enlarge/reduce it CNTRL+ -)

The reason I am not so convinced it is power ishere: http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/en/zin...B002651201.htm

With DSP a lot of the stuff takes place at theamp. So I am wondering if these are something on the radio going to the ampfirst to let the amp know to accept the signal just as the AUX cable does. If Ihave to solder something inline to the harness I will do that just not so sureon what exactly I have to solder first.

So when I see something like for example on F50here

http://wds.spaghetticoder.org/en/zin...B002651201.htm

30<50

2.5

RT/GE

I know the RT/GE is the color code of the wire butwhat are the other numbers? Are they max loads? Fused? Am I confused because oflack of knowledge in the ?electrical? world?

I know Icould just extend all the cables and stack my original radio with theaftermarket to keep the DSP brain in-tact but I really do not feel like doingthat.

On the back of my radio I have the little Fakrawhich I believe from all my other Bimmers and experience is the antenna.However, on the amp I have the coaxial connector which I believe is where myproblem comes in. That?s why I?m thinking something like the DICE, Blitzsafe orsome other DSP adapter would be doable. I just want to be able to get thedigital signals to my amp because I know it powers all speakers and I can useeither the pre-amps or speaker leads from my navigation unit.

Any comments advice or suggestions?

Sorry for the long post but I think most of it isessential for you to understand and make guesses or draw conclusions. I refuseto be beat at this. LOL