My 2005 X5 Aftermarket Radio Install Thread

[upallnight]

Originally Posted by Crowz

A bit.....

-2F already??? That can't be right

[Crowz]

Originally Posted by upallnight

-2F already??? That can't be right

Notice 3:43am January 30th

I was pointing out it does get cold here.

[upallnight]

Originally Posted by Crowz

Notice 3:43am January 30th

I was pointing out it does get cold here.

That probably occurred during the polar vortex.

[kmm111]

While I still haven’t wired in my I-bus module yet, I have had a few days to play with this head unit. Since I have an iPhone I can’t just plug it into the USB port & play my music that way (well not without an adapter). I’ve been playing my songs through Bluetooth, which sounds 100% better then the mediabridge I had previous to this new head unit. I did however notice a slight brashness/crackling from the front tweeters with the volume up high, & I do mean high! I just thought I needed to move up to the JL speakers soon. However my SD card arrived last night so I threw some music on it & took off this morning for work. Holy shit balls this thing sounds flapping amazing! Way better then the stock unit & omg do the door speakers handle so much more bass than they ever did with the stock unit. I’m not saying your gonna win at a stereo competition, but I never envisioned they could sound that good. The tweeters sound perfect so I’m gonna say that’s just distortion from the Bluetooth transfer. Does anyone have a favorite music app for Android? The stock one doesn’t show my albums or songs. Just all the songs in order that you have to seek through. I downloaded PI music player & while it works great, the next & back track steering wheel buttons don’t work with it, although the volume does. My X did have navigation but not DSP so while I can’t speak for DSP owners, if you just have Navigation this will be a huge sound upgrade alone. My installation notes would be:
I choose to “test” the unit all right in the back, which is easily done.
You have to run a separate wire to connect the 2 blue wires for “amp turn on” between the 2 supplied wiring harness. I think it’s stupid they didn’t include this wire, but it’s not a deal breaker. I made my wire longer then needed & once I had it & the stereo loom routed up through the dash via the path Crowz outlined in his DIY you can then use that extra wire to send cables up & down through the dash as needed later. Cables like the antenna, usb, video feed, rear camera, gps antenna, I-bus wires, etc. Otherwise I pretty much followed Crowz path & was up & running in under 2 hours

[Crowz]

The stock app shows a list of songs. When the music app is showing swipe from the left to the right to add music to play.

Swipe from the right to the left to see a list of songs in the playlist you made by picking with the earlier swipe (best I remember, its freezing cold outside and raining so I'm not going to double check this right now ).

The only thing that bugs me with android players in general is the way it handles random song playing. When set to random going up or down track wise does send you to a random song but you cant go back to the last song. Its a new random song no matter what. VERY annoying. I haven't had time to find a solution to that yet.

Sound quality with the sd card like you mentioned is awesome. It was like installing another amp and speakers compared to the stock setup. Its the first time in hundreds of radios I haven't changed the eq, bass, treble, or anything on from out of the box. It just sounded great.

It does seem to filter certain bass notes in a way that makes me think its being redirected to the sub woofer output. Its a clean cut out of that sound range. I cant wait to install the jl audio sub to find out of that is what is happening. If it is this is going to make a great SQ level sound system.

[kmm111]

It’s funny you write that about the bass. I have the opposite experience. I feel the stock setup inhibited the bass. But will agree 100% it’s like getting new speakers & an amp!

[Crowz]

Originally Posted by kmm111

It’s funny you write that about the bass. I have the opposite experience. I feel the stock setup inhibited the bass. But will agree 100% it’s like getting new speakers & an amp!

That's the thing though without having played the music on a very good home stereo you wont notice the frequency is missing. The thing hits hard down to that certain point. So it sounds great compared to the stock setup. The cut off I am sure is helping the factory speakers do so well by keeping them from distorting with frequencies they cant reproduce anyway.

Were talking sub 60 hz or so. I have some song that hit low frequency wise and that sound is just cut off completely. Normal rock music sounds perfect its just the songs that have a really low resonating type bass to them. If I hadn't heard them on the home stereo I have I wouldn't even know they were missing. Should do awesome when I hook up the dedicated sub in it.

[Crowz]

Oh something I forgot to mention. The ibus app popped up that it has an update available. I told it to go ahead and update but it kept doing the update and then asking me if I wanted to update. Over and over and over.

I finally gave up and went driving. Later when it hooked back to the wifi it never asked again so maybe it just needed to reload the app fully after the update?

I haven't bothered looking yet to see if I can tell what changed. The site mentioned "many new settings". That's about it

I can't find a change log so no idea what changed. I think it added more things you can code from reading the forums. But again I haven't had time to investigate to be sure. Still runs fine !

Also I still love the radio. Zero problems. I haven't had to adjust anything, find work arounds for anything, etc. That to me in itself is amazing considering the hoops I have had to jump thru with other android radios to get them like I wanted them.

The only gripe is the random play setting not allowing you to go back to a previous song and that isn't just android. Anything I use on any of my other radios do the same thing if I don't use an ipod. Play off the sd causes the same weird random play issue.

Trust me when I get time I WILL fix that one and it will be a fix across all my radios.

[CrazyOneToo]

Originally Posted by Crowz

Figured I'd start a thread for it as I just ordered it.

I paid extra for the 3 to 5 days shipping from china or wherever its coming from.

I'll post more info once it arrives. If its a lemon out of the box I'm not giving this company any advertising. This is a new one I have never had before so trying something new. Not going to lead someone down a crappy path if it turns out bad on the order.

How does this mount into the vehicle? The stock unit (no navigation) has hooks that pop out to grab the dash bracket.

[SEVEN40iL]

Originally Posted by kmm111

While I still haven’t wired in my I-bus module yet, I have had a few days to play with this head unit. Since I have an iPhone I can’t just plug it into the USB port & play my music that way (well not without an adapter). I’ve been playing my songs through Bluetooth, which sounds 100% better then the mediabridge I had previous to this new head unit. I did however notice a slight brashness/crackling from the front tweeters with the volume up high, & I do mean high! I just thought I needed to move up to the JL speakers soon. However my SD card arrived last night so I threw some music on it & took off this morning for work. Holy shit balls this thing sounds flapping amazing! Way better then the stock unit & omg do the door speakers handle so much more bass than they ever did with the stock unit. I’m not saying your gonna win at a stereo competition, but I never envisioned they could sound that good. The tweeters sound perfect so I’m gonna say that’s just distortion from the Bluetooth transfer. Does anyone have a favorite music app for Android? The stock one doesn’t show my albums or songs. Just all the songs in order that you have to seek through. I downloaded PI music player & while it works great, the next & back track steering wheel buttons don’t work with it, although the volume does. My X did have navigation but not DSP so while I can’t speak for DSP owners, if you just have Navigation this will be a huge sound upgrade alone. My installation notes would be:
I choose to “test” the unit all right in the back, which is easily done.
You have to run a separate wire to connect the 2 blue wires for “amp turn on” between the 2 supplied wiring harness. I think it’s stupid they didn’t include this wire, but it’s not a deal breaker. I made my wire longer then needed & once I had it & the stereo loom routed up through the dash via the path Crowz outlined in his DIY you can then use that extra wire to send cables up & down through the dash as needed later. Cables like the antenna, usb, video feed, rear camera, gps antenna, I-bus wires, etc. Otherwise I pretty much followed Crowz path & was up & running in under 2 hours

Man, now I just feel lazy compared to you guys!

I'm gonna try and get to installing mine sometime this week, figured I'd wait for the iBus connection to show up first and install altogether... But hearing from you guys all the fun you're having with the unit and the apps is giving me this itch!

Also, could you guys post up some links of preferred backup cameras that I can start looking into in the meantime? Thanks!