Help with aftermarket audio / Shop recs in LA

[cornerbalanced]

Ever since purchasing my car, the audio system hasn’t ever worked quite right. When I move the fader all the way to the drivers side, no sound is played out of the speakers, while if I move the fader all the way to the passenger side, I have audio (only on the passenger side, obviously). When the fader is set to the middle position, quality isn’t great, and the audio favors the passenger side.

Today, the passenger side rear tweeter popped out, and it appears to have cut wires?

I honestly have no clue what I’m looking at, and have very little inclination to DIY anything relating to audio stuff. Anyone know any good shops (audio installation shops?) in the LA/SoCal area that could dig deeper into things for me? Hoping for a shop that is at least familiar with E46 M3s.

See pics attached for more info. I would really like to have a solid audio system in this car, but at this point I’m tempted to just delete everything and run a CSL radio delete panel. Hopefully I’m blowing the issue out of proportion and this is a relatively simple fix.

[Lee_Enfield]

You have an aftermarket amp that looks like they spliced into the original harness. One thing you can do it fade all the way to the drivers side and kinda play with the connections and see if sound comes back. Those splices are hit or miss and can get loose over time.

If the car has original speakers they could simply be toast. They had paper cones and on my 02 most of the front ones were torn, some completely. 20 years is a long time for speakers.

Did you pull the deck/receiver out and make sure the rca cables are still connected?

Your amp could also have a blown channel, so no sound out of one side.

The tweeter being cut is odd though. I'm wondering if they had aftermarket speakers back there and tore them out and just stuck the originals back? Do you have sound in all four channels? Like if you fade to the rear do they work?

One problem with aftermarket systems is they can be installed with better then OEM quality, or complete and utter garbage. Also what makes sense to the installer can be a complete mystery to another person.

[cornerbalanced]

You have an aftermarket amp that looks like they spliced into the original harness. One thing you can do it fade all the way to the drivers side and kinda play with the connections and see if sound comes back. Those splices are hit or miss and can get loose over time.

If the car has original speakers they could simply be toast. They had paper cones and on my 02 most of the front ones were torn, some completely. 20 years is a long time for speakers.

Did you pull the deck/receiver out and make sure the rca cables are still connected?

Your amp could also have a blown channel, so no sound out of one side.

The tweeter being cut is odd though. I'm wondering if they had aftermarket speakers back there and tore them out and just stuck the originals back? Do you have sound in all four channels? Like if you fade to the rear do they work?

One problem with aftermarket systems is they can be installed with better then OEM quality, or complete and utter garbage. Also what makes sense to the installer can be a complete mystery to another person.

Really appreciate the info, I’ll check if I have sound in all four channels tonight. I played around with things a bit more after posting, and discovered my drivers side tweeter does play audio, however the bigger speaker in the door card does nothing. Occam's razor, I just have some blown speakers…but discovering that rear tweeter had clipped wires really confused me. Perhaps it was spliced into some other connector and just fell apart when the speaker fell out.

Thanks again!

[maw1124]

Yeah, you hate it when that happens. If it was my car I’d start with one of the Dynavin dealer / installers within 20 miles of LA to at least get an idea of what my options are, and go from there. If I have to pay them a couple hours to diagnose, fine. If I like the experience and trust them to upgrade, even better. But at least you have reasonable confidence that they know the stereos in these cars. It’s also why I overpay for stereo installs, so I’m not stuck with someone’s hieroglyphs when I want someone else to touch it.

maw

EDIT … a lot of these shops have old amps, harnesses, etc., around that they can use to just fix your problem. I’ve had that before when shopping for a subwoofer… “we have this one we just pulled out of our show car that you can have for $75 if you want it.” Great subwoofer, BTW, job done.

[duracellttu]

It’s always a bummer to see the factory harness cut off like that. Another thing to keep in mind is that most aftermarket component speakers (separate woofers and tweeters) come with a passive crossover unit that filers highs from mids/lows to each speaker. There are several connections there that could be causing an issue. The cross over unit is likely mounted somewhere in the door.

It would be worth pulling the panels and just doing a quick check on the various connections before taking to a shop. Might be a quick or obvious fix. With the panels off and access to the amp wires and drivers side speakers, fade the audio completely to the drivers’s side and just start wiggling connections. If it’s loose you will hear it cut in and out. Recrimp and see if that solves the issue.

[Lee_Enfield]

On a related front, is there a source for some connectors that can directly plug into the factory harness in place of the amp? Could then just wire that into the amp/crossovers. Would eliminate a lot of the problems associated with those crappy splices as well as prevent cutting of the harness.

I wonder if you could make one with the connector from the amp itself? Would take some soldering and sacrifice the amp as well.

Not to try and hijack.