E34 sound system upgrade whilst retaining factory head unit

Hi All

Hoping someone with experience can give me a little guidance.

I have a '95 525i (E34) which came with the factory head unit and 6 disc stacker in the boot.

I removed the factory deck and put an aftermarket head unit in - but I hate how it looks.

I want to put the original head unit back in, but I'm wondering what I can do to the factory setup to improve the sound quality? I'm happy just using the disc stacker and tape deck, but I want the sound produced from the factory head unit to be as good as it can get.

I've read some stuff about replacing the amplifier in the boot of the car, but don't know if this is worth it?

Does anyone have any ideas / pointers? Or am I stuck with factory sound if I keep the factory head unit?

Thanks in advance!!

Steve

Try adding a Sub woofer, the highs and mid range sound of the E34 are good, just the lows leave a bit to be desired.

Sony has a head unit that matches the color of the dash display rather nicely. I have one in each of my E34s but at the time they did not have the display color to mach but I think they still look good in the car. All that is missing for me is a sub-woofer. Do not go cheap or it will be a waist of time :o((

I will get the model of the Sony just in case you would like to look into that. It is not a "Space-age" (Ugly design). It has an aux jack, USB port and an Ipod direct connect. The unit is about $150 USD online and pushes about 200 watts.

I will take a pic of mine and post it later. But do get a sub and you will be happy...

Replace all the speakers and tweeters, they're poor quality. An amp and a sub would be good too. I'm wiring up a 2000W sub right now but that's more "king kong in the trunk" status. You'd be content with 500 or less

Thanks for that info. I've noticed a few articles online about adding a sub...

So my educated guess is i'll need to tap into the existing wiring before it enters the factory amplifier and add another amplifier to power the sub?

And yeh any info on the aftermarket sony would be great!

thanks again

thanks 95 E34
so you've bypassed the factory amp completely then?

duplicate post..

Steve, I must ask, what is "factory sound" to you?

So long as you're not trying to impress the car next to you, an 8" sealed sub running off a 100 watt amp fed from one of the rear speakers and bass-blocking caps on the speakers is plenty, and would sound great.