HELP! Wired problem with sound system

[Tamer]

What's up X5 fans?

I'm writing because i'm looking for help regarding a strange issue I have with the BMW Business CD that my car is equiped with. Sound quality varies incredibly from one start cicle to another. It's hard to explain but my car seems to have 3 ways of playing my music back:1)Horrible sound quality.Speakers rattle, volume is low, no kick from the bass; 2)Decent quality. Vocals are distorted, volume is close to good and the bass is nice to; 3)Incredible sound quality. Incredible sound, the mirrors move when the bass drops and volume is amazingly high without any noticable distortion.

I can change from type 1 to type 2 by simply restarting the radio.It seems that it's periodic or something. Bad,Good,bad.... you get the drill.
Type 3 comes rarely usually when I expect it least.It's more closely related to starting the engine. Today i was driving with my girlfriend and she asked me if I changed the speakers on the car. The sound was that good.

What is faulty? The Mp3 CDs are properly burned(Heck i only have one cd in the car)and the speakers seem ok. I took the stereo out and unpluged the cables and then put them back in but still no luck.

I plan on upgrading the sound system but if i can get it to stay at the increbile sound quality phase i might reconsider.

[bcredliner]

FYI--the factory sound system may sound incredible to you it is a long way from the quality you can have with a reasonable investment.

That said, are you experiencing 1-2 and 3 regardless of how you are using the radio? Do you have DSP? Is the engine restart the only way to change how it is operating or does it just change on it's own sometimes?

[TerminatorX5]

since you have the "phase" 3, it means that some of your hardware is good, such as speakers... however, your symptoms look like you may have loose connector, somewhere in the vicinity of the amplifier or the DSP unit, or, the unit itself is faulty and the fault is manifesting itself when the conditions are "right"... say, when the it is cold outside... or, when it is hot outside... or humid... or no apparent reason... i strongly suspect a cold soldering point somewhere on the amp or radio or DSP motherboard but you might want to start with checking the connections, the wires around the amp plug, to eliminate something obvious, like a short, or a chaffed wire... once you come to conclusion that wiggling the wires does not change the "phases" of playback, i would recommend start searching on google for a guy named "Baris" or "Boris", he is somewhere in UK and he is worldwide known for fixing problem BMW and Range Rover radios... his website link was posted several times somewhere on this forum, try searching for his name... once you find him, email him with your symptoms and the troubleshooting that you will have done by then, and see what he will suggest...

[Tamer]

I went to a specialized shop in my city and they discovered the problem. A few wires went bad and had to be replaced.Good as new now. Thanks for the help. While there I was amased on how cheap speaker upgrades were so I went ahead and bought a set consisting of 2 speakers and 2 tweeters for a resonable 100 dollars including labour(searched online and they are very well rated)

I had a really umpleasent surprise! BMW e53 owners take note! The car has no tweeters!!

This stupid peace of foam is what the technician found when he dismantled the car.

[TerminatorX5]

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65138379370

the sound system has couple trim levels, yours probably did not include the tweeters...

I am glad you got the wiring issue resolved...

[e30cabrio]

Mine has tweeters.

Glad you got it sorted.

[bcredliner]

That was an easy fix compared to what it could have been--nice to be lucky!