[gerrg]

So I'm looking for a replacement for my HK amplifier that died a couple months ago so I'm on the search for a new one. Looking at RealOEM.com, it says that there are 10 possible parts for my car (all of which are discontinued except the last of course). So, If i'm able to find any of those 10 part numbers, they should work just fine in my car, right? I'm looking for a used amp right now by the way, and my car is a 2012 335i.

Also, if i get a part number different from what's in my car now, will my car need to be re-coded for the new amplifier? I've never tried to place an amp, so i'm not sure. Thanks for any tips!

Here's the list of parts that RealOEM is showing btw.

http://tinypic.com/r/2cztyrd/9

 

[Ziggy328xi]

if your replacing the amp why not upgrade it? the discontinued parts are probably outdated parts and only one it shows is newest part but thats just a guess. and im pretty sure it would be plug and play.

 

[gerrg]

I'm hoping it'll be plug and play, and as for upgrading, I'd be good for that... if it cost less money/was easier to find a replacement. Is that likely to be the case with an upgrade though?

 

[gerrg]

also, does any one know if i hifi amp would work as a replacement for the HK amp? i know those have been a lot easier to find, so was hoping that might work. it's a different option on the vin decoder, so would that mean it would need to be re-coded?

 

[Ziggy328xi]

I'm hoping it'll be plug and play, and as for upgrading, I'd be good for that... if it cost less money/was easier to find a replacement. Is that likely to be the case with an upgrade though?

all the updates i found are plug and play for my e90 w/ hifi system.

matchup7 makes an amp as well as bavsound and i think a one more that i cant remember atm.

i wouldnt downgrade your amp tho, as the amp is already the weak point in these cars.

 

[[email protected]_Audio]

also, does any one know if i hifi amp would work as a replacement for the HK amp?

HIFI amp will definitely not work. Wrong number of channels, different connectors and signal input (MOST POF vs analog), and severe mismatch to the speakers.

all the updates i found are plug and play for my e90 w/ hifi system.

No one currently makes an upgrade for h/k equipped vehicles - those are all for HIFI. Our upcoming SoundstageDSP™ will work for h/k equipped vehicles, but it will still require a functioning h/k amp, so that won't help you unfortunately.

The h/k amp is annoyingly pricey unless you get lucky in the used market. You are not paying for a quality component, you are paying because it's BMW...

There are other options - you could, for example, recode the vehicle to HIFI and upgrade to our regular Soundstage™ for not much more than you'll pay for the h/k amp, BUT that wouldn't be plug-n-play - you'd need to do some wiring work. Our regular Soundstage™ makes the h/k sound like a Victrola, but the question is how much are you willing to do work-wise?

 

[gerrg]

yeah, that's what it seems like that the HK amp is so expensive just because it's BMW. I was hopeful that there would be an alternative for this amp that's plug-n-play, but no luck so far. As for finding a used part, the only place i've been able to find any is on ebay, and they're all around $800

I would be interested in getting a different amp even if it involves some re-wiring. would that just be wiring everything up for hifi, and then using a soundstage amp? I'd love to get away from this HK amp if i can help it just because of the price and availability

 

[[email protected]_Audio]

Several options, would require thinking through them. Not something we'd typically do but I love a good challenge, happy to lend input and help you work through it if you want.

First thing to keep in mind is that our Soundstage™ systems replace and amplify the front speakers only (underseat, midrange, and tweeter). This is an overview of why (https://integralaudio.com/other_files/The%20Evils%20of%20Rear%20Speakers.pdf, but the short version is they should be doing 90+% of the work, and focusing your $$ there gives you the biggest improvement in sound quality. In general, for a particular amp topology, power density is relatively constant so for a given footprint you're looking at the same total output regardless of the number of channels you're diving that power over. You get much more benefit throwing that power where it is needed - front mid/tweet/underseat and true subwoofer - and utilizing the existing factory amplification in places where you don't need more power anyway - center and rears.

All that's a long way of saying you'd need to power the center and rears from somewhere because our Soundstage™ doesn't. Well, you don't HAVE to. If I had a choice between any factory or other aftermarket system with center/rears and our Soundstage™ without, I'd chose the Soundstage™ every time, though I'd still prefer to have them if I could. A lot of purists purposely go only 2-ch. Depends on how much cost/effort you'd want to go thru to keep them.

One possible scenario would be to recode the HU to HIFI so that you've got analog output from the HU, and run that back to the amp from the HU. Use our regular analog Soundstage™ and buy a used HIFI amp. You'd need to make manual connections between the Soundstage HIFI harness and your factory HK loom for speaker outputs. I could source the connectors and terminals for you so that you wouldn't need to cut wire in your factory loom. Our regular Soundstage™ would have all the hardware you'd need, including our relo bracket for the HIFI amp. If I'm thinking about this correctly, you'd to run those 8 analog input wires from the HU back to the Soundstage™ harness, and then 8 output wires into the HK factory loom (via splice or via T-Harness).