no sound with cd player in aftermarket HU

[bmwe36mike]

i have an apline stereo installed and it works properly all except for the cds, it will read and play cds, but i have no volume. the speakers work 100% with the radio, but cds have no sound. i do have a 6 disc changer in the trunk and i am thinking that is why it will not play? i have tried disconnecting it and see if that would make a difference but it had no affect. ive also tried everything to my knowledge within the HU itself.

i also tried a newer alpine similar to my model and it also didnt play cd volume, but both of my stereos work in my friends 88 crx. so the stereos are fine i just am not able to get sound through the cd player of my stereo, the radio is crystal clear tho. i did have a speaker shorting problem with the factory radio and i simply purchased a radio harness from best buy and now my speakers are not shorting or anything of that sort. are there any certain wires that may affect the cd changer. and does anyone know where i can find a bmw radio harness diagram?

please respond with any ideas, anything is better than nothing.

[AwesomeIsLuke]

There should be a coaxial cable going from the cd changer to the amp. That is the digital signal. Make sure that is connected securely.

[kendogg]

There should be a coaxial cable going from the cd changer to the amp. That is the digital signal. Make sure that is connected securely.

Not in an E36. Thats for the DSP amp on 5-7 series cars

What wire harness did you get, you should be using a BWH-470 harness adapter. The factory radio wiring is exactly the way it is on the harness adapter. FYI - stock CD changer will NOT work with an aftermarket CD changer, incase you are trying to do this. I couldn't tell from your posts. Good luck.

[RandallPhoto]

The problem is you hooked the blue wire in the harness from the radio to the blue in the car. This only comes on with the radio (not CD) so what needs to be done is to hook the blue/white wire from the radio to the blue on the car side harness. That will fix it.

[bmwe36mike]

ok, this worked and i really appreciate it. now the only problem is i hooked up 2 rockford fosgate 10" subs and a p250.2 amp and i had to hook the remote source wire to the white/blue wire from the HU harness and the blue wire from the car harness causing me to have a 3 way splice of those wires, in order for my amp to get power and my speakers to play with the cd as well. so my question is, what should i do about that 3 way connection because i am getting treble out of my sub and i think the amp is powering my speakers as well. i also have a factory amp for the speakers and im wondering if this will interfere. but anyway, my subs do not hit very hard and they are producing treble, so when i turn my volume my the speakers seem to be increasing in volume too much and i cant keep the bass at 0 or anything above, or it sounds my speakers are going to blow. is there an alternative way to hooking the source wire. if it helps i am using an apline aftermarket HU.

[ArizonaE36]

The turn on lead is fine for both the factory amp and the amp. If you are that worried about it install a relay. As far as treble coming from your subs, you need a crossover. I don't know anything about the amp you are using or the head unit, but you might have to play with settings on both. See if your amp has a crossover. If not, see if the headunit has a dedicated RCA sub output. If not, read the manual and see if you can make one of the RCA outputs a sub output (usually by holding the eject button for a coulpe of seconds or similar). If you can, you might have an adjustable crossover built into the headunit. Turn on the sub out, tune up the crossover, adjust your amp gain and your subs should be fine. If you cheaped out on the headunit and amp, you need an external sub crossover to keep just the low signals heading to your sub amp. When in doubt, RTFM.

[DrifterX27]

wrong power wiring, u used blue instead of blue white, it happened to me. just swap those wires and u'll be fine