Harness or RCA's ?????

Do I use a harness or the rca connectors to connect an aftermarket headunit to the factory amp?

If the answer is harness, won't the 45watts x 4 from my headunit distort the sound quality?

I put a powered headunit in and left the exisiting amp/speakers and i used the harness, not the RCA plugs. it sounded fine.. it just might take alittle work getting your headunit to turn the amp on. you could try the RCAs.. but i mean.. heh.. the factory amp is so awful that i'd hardly make a difference. whats the factory amp put out? like 20watts/max per channel? i forget, it might be less than that. but anyway, just try it both ways. buy a harness adapter for the e34, wire it to your headunit's harness, plug it and see how it sounds.. then either get lazy and leave it (my vote). or disconnect JUST the speaker wires from the harness and splice them to the RCAs.

Great, I will do that thanks
What kind of headunit did you get?
Did it improve the sound quality at all?

I used the Sony headunit from my old car. i don't think there was much of a noticable increase in sound quality, although not having to stop the car, get out, pop the turnk, and load the changer just to put in a cd was nice. If your headunit is of good quality you might consider by-passing the amp and letting the headunit power the speakers. You have to remmber though, the factory speakers aren't great and no matter what you do with them they'll never sound real great. I was thinking of replacing them on a short term basis with something simple and cheap from a place like bestbuy.. i figure anything, with a good headunit, is probably an imporvement over stock.


i've since gone back to a factory headunit i got off ebay, it was only $30, sounds nice, and the station/CD information is displayed in my instrument cluster.

I plan on purchasing a Nacamichi headunit and some component speakers in the distant future, once i acutally fix all my mechcanical problems.