Good on ya moit! Make that ol' bugger sing!
Here are some pics of the two I have; I did swap the Loewe like you have out for the older one I had here, but it sounds identical.
First two pics are of the later Loewe amp, the last two the old one. Both of these work- and neither have the corrosion you described. I've found that the sound volume is low probably because the FM front end of the radio is low or its simply not very powerful. Probably better with CD. Maybe I should hook that up to see.
I can send you my old amp (for free) if it helps- shipping from Australia for 2-3lbs won't exactly be cheap though.
Note, the older amp fitted to M50/M60 '10 speaker Hi-Fi sound' option models are mounted on a heavier bracket. The newer one they put a hole in the middle just to save mass (see the first pic). Nice. Still, if it were Japanese, it'd be 1/10th the weight of the light one.. probably just tin straps.
For everyone other than Jeff, this is the insides of the Loewe amp/what he is working on. Note these two models we're discussing are both booster amps, and that they lack the high power crossover first used in the previous e32/e34 (M20/M30/M70 powered) cars. The old ones were far better as you can remove the crap bit (namely the power amp) as one module. The ones we're discussing in this thread got rid of the high power crossovers. It would be good to know if it is still possible to wire in the 4 outputs of an aftermarket power amp with these. By today's standards these amps just sound crap no matter what you drive them with.
Apart from BMW cheaping out on the first this new design, they obviously didn't feel they'd cheaped out enough. Looks like they gave the 'still expensive' Nokia ones to Loewe and said 'make a cheaper one', (Toyota style).
I looked at retrofitting the oldest style amp (the one with the high level crossovers), however the plugs are different so it's not exactly easy to do. Maybe there is a possible mod for these new ones, so we can (somehow) use them in a similar way, ie add external amps and still use the crossovers by simply splicing into the speaker connector or the main board. Better late than never, after all...
2 pics of the later Loewe version like Jeff's in pieces:
Next two pic are the inside of the older Nokia model, I think this was used in most production 1993-94. It is blacker, squarer, meaner... but sounds just as bad
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