200W OEM stereo?

[cmoore]

Purchased car yesterday. After getting broken glovebox door open, i found the original window sticker. It claims to have a 200w factory stereo. The OEM unit is either crap, or it is partially broken, or it has been partially removed. Someone replaced the 2 door speakers with a single 6" polk speaker, but its tinny and poor sounding. Several questions before i rip apart the dash. (and i looked at diagrams on RealOEM but didn't help because i wasn't sure which stereo i had - (i don't have a cd changer)
I assume the 200w is an OEM amp, is it behind the dash or is it the trunk somewhere?
I think i also read somewhere about 10 speakers? assuming the 4 in the front doors and there appear to be 2 on the rear on each side - but thats all i can find? Where are the other two?
I primarily listen to the radio so having a cassette player (who owns tapes) isn't a problem as i don't listen to CD's, but is/was the OEM stereo pretty good? (assuming it could be repaired or otherwise made to work like new)
OR is a $199 new head unit going to far exceed the 15yr old OEM stereo?
Thanks in advance for answering what probably is a stupid question.

[Uber E30]

So the 10 speakers are 2 at the front feet, 4 in the door, and 4 in the rear. The rears look like one because the tweeters sit in the triangle that has the wire mesh part while the mids sit under them where it has the cloth/plastic slats. The stock amp sits behind the carpet under the radio antenna location.

You say that you usually listen to the radio, do you mean talk radio or music? If you mean music I would suggest a new HU that has HD radio, it makes a world of difference.

[cmoore]

What ever amp should have been there is gone. a bunch of capped wires remain. Was the OEM stuff notorious for failing? (granted a 15yr old electronic product probably exceeded its useful lifespan) But is trying to get a used part to replace it a waste of time, as it may fail in short order anyway.

[Uber E30]

Well, most new HU's are going to be more powerful than the stock HU+stock amp these days anyway.

[hotmilk400]

you do not need to remove the entire dash???

You do not need to remove anything.. you can just slip the radio out of the car. if you HAVE to you can just remove the plastic piece around the HU, but you really do not have to do that even, and doing that risk wrecking it. you also have to be careful with the clock and other things around the radio. disconnecting the clock could mean that you need to reprogram it with factory codes.

And if the factory amp is missing, you must not have the factory HU. i am sure that the head units are not powered, so the amp will be needed in the trunk. the amp sent power to all 10 speakers. you must just have an old HU that looks like it would match the car or something (i could be wrong).

since the factory amp was removed and all of the wires were re-wired, you should be able to just remove the old hu and replace it with a new one.

it sounds like you want to tear up your car by replacing the headunit. the headunit is easy to swap out and doesn't require you to remove the dash or anything.

[cmoore]

so yes, this is part of the issue. the lcd radio itself is real dim. i have read posts about this that indicate that you need a new radio, BUT my odometer and all the things in that small cluster are real dim as well. All the other lights in the gauges appear to be functional. AND my OBC doesn't work. i checked fuses (only visually so far - had the car barely 24hrs) So whether it is the original factory radio or an OEM mismatched replacement, something is amiss. is it in part due to someone monkeying with whats behind the dash causing a partial short/ground.....or what is not clear. The PO also replaced the 2 tweeters in the doors with a single speaker (multiple cones?) did doing this mess with something? And why is the amp in the trunk gone. And why does my stereo have very little volume. You can hear it, but you could close all the windows and crank it all the way up and it would be bearable, unlike the OEM radio in any other vehicle i have had. (i.e. something about how the new speakers or radio or the amp unwiring is messed up)

So thats what i am up against. Given a lot of variables on multiple fronts, i have always been one to attempt to put everything back to OEM first and then get that to work before i consider trying to upgrade or alter it.

And not that it should/could be related, but PO also did a bit of a homeowner HID installation (only one light of which works) so who knows how many problems there are and could be interrelated.

thanks again for the responses.

[hotmilk400]

sounds like a real nightmare.

If everything is dim, i assume a bad ground. that could also explain why the radio is not loud (could be splitting the power with the lights/radio) not really sure.

i would focus on the light issue because i am sure the radio will work fine once you fix the dim light problem.

hopefully someone else chimes in with more possible solutions. i know one of the part cars i had had a lose ground. the ground was located behind the dash on the side where the glovebox was. it made all of the dash lights very dim and the car would not turn off (even if you removed the key and walked away with it. everything would just continue to run, the fuel pump didn't even shut off due to a lack of key)

anyway, if i had to guess, i would check that ground. i had all of the grounds removed on that side (about 3 of them) one might be for the lights on the dash. just an idea of where to start.

The grounds are bolted to the supports for the frame (i think). like i said, hopefully someone else chimes in with more ideas.

[cmoore]

i have begun to isolate problems and narrow focus on the remainder of them. As far as the radio, i locally bought a used c33 radio and HK amp for $75. The radio went in fine and works such that i can see the LCD readout. Thrilled by that. Now, i really wasn't looking to get the amp, but a guy who had totalled his M3 was selling the radio and amp as a package.
Additionally i have further taken stuff apart to figure out what i have.
Currently OEM C33 is running only 4 of the original 10 speakers.
pioneer ts-g1042r (2 way 4" 120w) in the rear mounted to a piece of sheet steel to fit in stock location
and
polk db's 4" (probably 401) in the door. (without pulling door panel off, cannot tell exactly which model as they are also jury rigged with a piece of steel spanning both door speaker openings)
And from what i can tell, the old tweets in the rear and kickpanel in the doors still appear to be wired at the speaker, but must be dissconnected when they spliced the amp out of the wiring harness.

my question now remains; i have this extra amp which seems to range significantly on ebay for pricing. Not worth so much that i could sell it and buy some great amp, but its far better than throwing on a shelf forever. So the HK amp originally powered 8 speakers (the 6 in the front) and the 2 larger in the rear. And from what i understand the hk amp pushes 320watts (though thru the 8 speakers) But one also would assume that most of those watts went to the rear speakers, then to the next largest speaker in the kickpanel before just a few Watts to the door midrange and tweets. Assuming for the moment that i don't want to bother with restoring the front speakers to the original 6 running through the standard crossovers (and also assuming the wiring harness would work), at a minimum, i could wire (unbypass) the wiring harness to have the HK run the rear speakers only, but at least throw a few decent watts into some decent rear speakers. And probably for the cost of some marginal speakers have something at least close to the decent OEM system. (Also noting that the amps internal crossovers for the intended rear speakers were for a 2-way speaker so that the correct sound would be going to them)

And at a later date, in theory if i got silly, i could also pull my front door speakers back out, and get the correct speakers back into the door and kickpanel - the HK version of what would be there?

While having the OEM headunit is important, and the amp hidden in the trunk also makes me much happier, am i wasting a lot of time, as a $99 amp from big box store would produce much better sound anyway.

[RedTRex]

Your OBC and ODO being dim is due to burned out lightbulbs.

For the money aftermarket is the way to go given the current shape of Das auto. If you want to remain factory looking a CD43 sounds increadibly better than the C33. Going all Bose on top of that makes a nice sound system but you would be looking at 400 to 500 bucks for 10-15 year old stuff.

[RaymondRoy]

Originally Posted by cmoore

Purchased car yesterday. After getting broken glovebox door open, i found the original window sticker. It claims to have a 200w factory stereo. The hid xenon kits either crap, or it is partially broken, or it has been partially removed. Someone replaced the 2 door speakers with a single 6" polk speaker, but its tinny and poor sounding. Several questions before i rip apart the dash. (and i looked at diagrams on RealOEM but didn't help because i wasn't sure which stereo i had - (i don't have a cd changer)
I assume the 200w is an OEM amp, is it behind the dash or is it the trunk somewhere?
I think i also read somewhere about 10 speakers? assuming the 4 in the front doors and there appear to be 2 on the rear on each side - but thats all i can find? Where are the other two?
I primarily listen to the radio so having a cassette player (who owns tapes) isn't a problem as i don't listen to CD's, but is/was the OEM stereo pretty good? (assuming it could be repaired or otherwise made to work like new)
OR is a $199 new head unit going to far exceed the 15yr old OEM stereo?
Thanks in advance for answering what probably is a stupid question.

Hello friend I have heard a lot about OEM stereo and looking to get one very soon.. But can you share your experience and provide a small review.. It will surely help me a lot...

[cmoore]

if i did it again, i would have never gone back to the OEM. The stereo the car came with was OEM, but it was missing the amp, and therfore the 10 speakers had been jury-rigged and spliced just to four. i undid all that, replaced all the speakers with the HK versions of the same size (from other e36) and still have yet to finalize the wiring from the 300w amp from the other e36. (because it has a "hifi" switch). the reason i wanted to go that route was to maintain a relatively normal OEM appearance. but given the time and $ spent even on used parts way outweighed the value/performance of the system. depending on your budget, putting in a decent head unit and (4) speakers using the rear speaker locations (though upgrading to larger size rears - with a plug-n-play bracket on ebay) and and the footwell locations in front would be the cheapest way to go and probably have better results. replacing the existing speakers with the OEM unit is a waste because due to the factory amp, the sizes are odd 4" in rear, and OHM ratings a bit odd, you have to spend a lot to get something close. And if the headunit doesn't have enough amps, adding a trunk mounted amp/subwoofer, etc is easy enough at a later date. if you have any specific questions, i can probably answer them as i have looked at the system a lot of different ways.