anothadave

ive managed to put an amp and sub into the boot (trunk to you americans lol) and its an improvement over the bog standard sound already. i tapped the rear speakers for the input and while it sounds ok its obvious that the very low end is missing. i have the standard uk 6 speaker setup so not a good start really. i decided to look for an amp and fit some decent speakers and do it all properly but as a short time measure i decided to put in some Alpine 1025s in the rear. i didnt want to risk anything more powerful as i wasnt sure the headunit could handle it. i picked up a set from halfords cheap (£22!) and while i was there i started chatting to the car audio guy about my dissapointment over not being able to install my own headunit. he checked his system and up came a listing for an E60 fascia adapter. i was under the impression that noone made a fascia adapter for the E60 so i was a bit surprised. they want £50 for it which seems very steep but if its genuine it might be worth a shot. it would make life much easier to fit my existing aftermarket headunit and then use the rca outputs, plus my headunit is powerfull enough to run decent speakers without another amp.

so does anyone know if an E60 fascia adapter really exists? ive not seen anyone on any of the forums with one. i have a 2004 525i with just the standard cd player, no cd changer, amp or navigation. he also found a suitable iso adapter too. they wanted £20 but the same one is on ebay for £2 lol. its an Autoleads PC2-75-4 im sure its the same one that was in my E46..

oh, the alpine 1025s are very nice and a cheap alternative to L7 tweeters.

Bimmerstyle

In the past I've seen only one E60 with a single din radio in it and to be honest it looked like crap. :thumbsdown:

I don't know if the guy who installed it used a facia that can be bought or if he modified things himself. Since the whole car had a ricer look to it I'm guessing he made something himself.

The E60/61 simply isn't made to put an aftermarket radio in it. It messes up the look of the dashboard completely. Functionality of the OEM screen will be limited if not completely disabled. The very convenient iDrive-knob will be rendered useless...

It is possible however to do it. The Business radio is single din and the Pro is double din so they can be replaced by aftermarket radio's but it simply doesn't look and work very nice...

However, the standard radio can be upgraded any way you want it to. First off, the subs in the trunk should be connected to the front speakers or subs. They only have a full-range signal on them. The rears are filtered High-pass in the head-unit so connecting subs on them wouldn't work. The low frequencies needed to drive a sub are not on that signal.

You can add a simple High-Low converter to the head-unit outputs and add a decent amp and speakers on that. This will improve sound quality a lot. If you want to go further you can add a processor instead of the High-Low converter that will give you te possibilities of tuning the sound way better than most aftermarket radio's will be able to. You can add a USB-iPod interface to play other things than only cd's. You can add bluetooth functionality, video functionality, and many more...

All these things are available aftermarker to upgrade and improve the functionality and quality of your standard radio without messing up the look of the dashboard and keeping the OEM controls.

I would concider these things instead of replacing the head-unit. They are more expensive than simply swapping head-units but the end result is so much nicer and quality looking.

Just my 2 cents...