[Spyro235]

Nick-
I've read through this, and if I understand correctly- since I have the CD changer option on my screen already, I can go ahead and run through this install without any coding at all? It's essentially install the box, and have Bluetooth streaming with steering wheel controls?
I'm a 2007 e90 without idrive, with the HK Logic 7 professional head unit. The ebay link declares idrive.

I'm also wondering why you're so inclined to install idrive in your car. Any idrive car I've ever been in is so outdated, that I'm glad my car is a non idrive. I personally prefer the classic simple dash of BMW's though.

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by michaiel

my car is prewired for the microphone above my head with the interior lights...can the factory mic 84 31 6 938 762 be added and implemented with dip switch 4?
Am I understanding that correctly?
If not can some upload some pics of how they discretely added the included mic with the box?

thanks

If you have Bluetooth calling in your car already you can connect to both the Bluetooth box and the factory Bluetooth calling. If you just have the mic you can custom make a cable and retain the factory mic.

Originally Posted by Spyro235

Nick-
I've read through this, and if I understand correctly- since I have the CD changer option on my screen already, I can go ahead and run through this install without any coding at all? It's essentially install the box, and have Bluetooth streaming with steering wheel controls?
I'm a 2007 e90 without idrive, with the HK Logic 7 professional head unit. The ebay link declares idrive.

I'm also wondering why you're so inclined to install idrive in your car. Any idrive car I've ever been in is so outdated, that I'm glad my car is a non idrive. I personally prefer the classic simple dash of BMW's though.

You will not have to do any coding if you have the CDC option on your radio.

My iDrive retrofit was under $450 and iDrive cars hold a 1k premium over non iDrive cars. At that price why not and I can make my money back selling the old parts.

[jacie6056]

Originally Posted by Nickco43

If you have Bluetooth calling in your car already you can connect to both the Bluetooth box and the factory Bluetooth calling. If you just have the mic you can custom make a cable and retain the factory mic.



You will not have to do any coding if you have the CDC option on your radio.

My iDrive retrofit was under $450 and iDrive cars hold a 1k premium over non iDrive cars. At that price why not and I can make my money back selling the old parts.

How does this sound quality compare to MULF2 usb through Y cable to phone?

[bluewater328]

Originally Posted by jacie6056

How does this sound quality compare to MULF2 usb through Y cable to phone?

should be an improvement as the Y-wire compromises a good DAC and then a secondary ADC/DAC conversion at the headunit.

This device leaves a single DAC process at the deck (or MOST system).

Already a better potential. Whether you can notice the difference is what’s debatable and personal.

[ctuna]

Y cable uses the aux for the actual audio .
We know the aux is crap.

Might be closer to a usb stick played directly through the
usb port.

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by jacie6056

How does this sound quality compare to MULF2 usb through Y cable to phone?

I never had factory USB in my car and could not tell you.

[6ixSpd]

If you have 6FL or even AUX and a cigarette port in your armrest, this is all you need:

https://www.amazon.com/FIREFLY-Small.../dp/B01HDO66NK

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by 6ixSpd

If you have 6FL or even AUX and a cigarette port in your armrest, this is all you need:

https://www.amazon.com/FIREFLY-Small.../dp/B01HDO66NK

I hated the tuni's audio quality and lack of steering wheel controls.

[08TUNDRA]

Anyone know another person who sells this box. This seller has been away and when he comes back I bought the box and he disappeared again? He womt take payments and I'm getting payment past due notices from Ebay-_-. Wanna follow the OP and just do.an idrive retrofit.

[michaiel]

I successfully added this to my 2006 BMW 325i.
The only thing I cant seem to get to work is activating Siri with the steering wheel button (face).
I can hang up the phone with the steering wheel "phone" button though.

Am I missing something?

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by michaiel

I successfully added this to my 2006 BMW 325i.
The only thing I cant seem to get to work is activating Siri with the steering wheel button (face).
I can hang up the phone with the steering wheel "phone" button though.

Am I missing something?

I am not sure if the box supports that.

[ryan stewart]

Just installed one of these in my car (with some help from Nickco43 on the coding). Id say the audio quality is the same if you have a GOOD aux connection. I had to replace my jack once already because the pins were worn and Id lose a channel from time to time. I checked the bitrate and codecs using a bluetooth sniffing app and its not supporting any other codecs so the quality is going to be limited. Just open SBC.

If anyone sees one that supports aptx (or aptxHD even better) or LDAC lemme know. I looked at all of the more expensive versions that came up and nobody really mentions that. Not a shocker though, it requires a license fee to support the codec.

Honestly bluetooth itself is the limitation, but it was $150 to gain steering wheel controls, see the song on the radio screen and to get around the Android "absolute volume" bug that seems to be an issue with all of the chipsets these amazon bluetooth receivers use.

The only caveat of this box so far that has me side eyeing it is its sleeping. It seems to go to sleep when I lock the car but I havent figured out how long until it shuts off bluetooth when the car is just off.

Originally Posted by Nickco43

I am not sure if the box supports that.

If its anything like android over a dumb bluetooth interface (which is what this is, nothing proprietary) then its a long press on the play button. So there the limitation would be something translating the voice dial button to a long press, which I doubt BMW even cared enough to send that information to the radio.

[ctuna]

but it does have usb and sd card playback which is totally
dependent on what kind of files you put on those.
Radio or idrive power should make it switch off the same time
those do.
regular bluetooth should be better than aux because the
aux in a BMW really trashes the signal from phones.

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Just installed one of these in my car (with some help from Nickco43 on the coding). Id say the audio quality is the same if you have a GOOD aux connection. I had to replace my jack once already because the pins were worn and Id lose a channel from time to time. I checked the bitrate and codecs using a bluetooth sniffing app and its not supporting any other codecs so the quality is going to be limited. Just open SBC.

If anyone sees one that supports aptx (or aptxHD even better) or LDAC lemme know. I looked at all of the more expensive versions that came up and nobody really mentions that. Not a shocker though, it requires a license fee to support the codec.

Honestly bluetooth itself is the limitation, but it was $150 to gain steering wheel controls, see the song on the radio screen and to get around the Android "absolute volume" bug that seems to be an issue with all of the chipsets these amazon bluetooth receivers use.

The only caveat of this box so far that has me side eyeing it is its sleeping. It seems to go to sleep when I lock the car but I havent figured out how long until it shuts off bluetooth when the car is just off.



If its anything like android over a dumb bluetooth interface (which is what this is, nothing proprietary) then its a long press on the play button. So there the limitation would be something translating the voice dial button to a long press, which I doubt BMW even cared enough to send that information to the radio.

I can't tell the difference between this box and my combox.

[bluewater328]

Originally Posted by ryan stewart

Just installed one of these in my car (with some help from Nickco43 on the coding). Id say the audio quality is the same if you have a GOOD aux connection. I had to replace my jack once already because the pins were worn and Id lose a channel from time to time. I checked the bitrate and codecs using a bluetooth sniffing app and its not supporting any other codecs so the quality is going to be limited. Just open SBC.

If anyone sees one that supports aptx (or aptxHD even better) or LDAC lemme know. I looked at all of the more expensive versions that came up and nobody really mentions that. Not a shocker though, it requires a license fee to support the codec.

Honestly bluetooth itself is the limitation, but it was $150 to gain steering wheel controls, see the song on the radio screen and to get around the Android "absolute volume" bug that seems to be an issue with all of the chipsets these amazon bluetooth receivers use.

The only caveat of this box so far that has me side eyeing it is its sleeping. It seems to go to sleep when I lock the car but I havent figured out how long until it shuts off bluetooth when the car is just off.



If its anything like android over a dumb bluetooth interface (which is what this is, nothing proprietary) then its a long press on the play button. So there the limitation would be something translating the voice dial button to a long press, which I doubt BMW even cared enough to send that information to the radio.

I'm sure they'll up that unit to have AtpX, it's not a far leap. But, if you really need AptX HD now and are willing to control via your phone instead (with direct input into amp):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/True-HiFi-B...5.c10#viTabs_0

I do something similar (well similar in that it goes direct to the amp) for a Hiby R3 device that I have. Powered via USB-C to USB-A that plugs into 12V usb adapter in center console. Run that along side my Tune2Air. So device up front and powered, but RCA lines run to the back (could run optical, etc as well, just like the device above). Control via iPhone (Hiby has an app that lets you browse and control playback on the R3 remotely). So if I want to go pure HIFI utilizing the SABRE DAC in the R3 straight to analog, I control it that way. I have it set off an DRC-100 to swap input presets. You lose steering control while in that mode, but you can software control the R3 for volume (or set gains where you want it via the amp).

[ctuna]

Trouble is all the other solutions go through the AUX which is
the bottle neck for fidelity. There was a big thread in which the final
analysis was DAC plus aux still not as good as USB direct.

[ryan stewart]

Originally Posted by Nickco43

I can't tell the difference between this box and my combox.

Id say you are right. I doubt the combox is using any advanced coding either, just SBC like everyone else, which is the weak point for bluetooth. APTx gets you to CD quality, then there are a couple others that can beat it a bit.

Not knocking the box, just clarifying for those who might be considering this that its, unfortunately, not going to provide true CD quality audio but its going to be likely as good as a "good" AUX connection AND give you bluetooth controls.

I think a box like this WITH one of the other codecs would be awesome, but not even the $300+ options mentions it and if you paid for the license you are definitely putting that all over your marketing material.

Originally Posted by ctuna

Trouble is all the other solutions go through the AUX which is
the bottle neck for fidelity. There was a big thread in which the final
analysis was DAC plus aux still not as good as USB direct.

Yeah I had an aptx compatible receiver plugged into the aux and it sounded fine but wasnt better, over time the headphone jack would become unreliable and I didnt get the wheel controls or readout of the song.

Anyone experimented with how many songs you can have in a folder on the SD card? I see it sees each folder as a CD but can it have a 45 track CD? If so I might just load it up as a backup option as well, which each "CD" being a playlist.

[ryan stewart]

Couple more follow ups:

1. I confirmed, NOBODY is using anything but SBC for bluetooth audio. Not Grom, m2, whatever. So no point in spending $300-500 for the same audio quality (they advertise all of these DACs but it wont matter in this scenario) since the audio encoding of bluetooth is the weak point.

2. You can put a TON of songs in a folder and it will just cycle through them as a virtual CD. 6 folders and 60 songs worked easy on mine.

2b. the catch being this box doesnt go to the last selected source, it goes to whichever source is gonna feed it when it starts up. Since the SD card reads immediately and bluetooth takes a second it means its going to default to the SD card and start playing and you have to SWITCH it to the bluetooth. I just wanted the SD card as a backup so I just removed it and it went back to bluetooth as the initial starting source.

Wishing I had done this years ago.

[drawz]

Is the new bluetooth box only active when the CDC input is selected? The reason I ask is that otherwise you risk "losing" your audio into an inactive bluetooth "blackhole" if you're on another input, but your phone is connected to bluetooth. Happens to me all the time with my aux bluetooth input. It's a pain to connect and disconnect all the time.

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by drawz

Is the new bluetooth box only active when the CDC input is selected? The reason I ask is that otherwise you risk "losing" your audio into an inactive bluetooth "blackhole" if you're on another input, but your phone is connected to bluetooth. Happens to me all the time with my aux bluetooth input. It's a pain to connect and disconnect all the time.

It is always connected to your phone and will only play audio when on cdc.

[drawz]

Originally Posted by Nickco43

It is always connected to your phone and will only play audio when on cdc.

Ok, so just like the aux adapter.

Any thoughts on connecting this somewhere more accessible so SD cards can be swapped easily? Maybe the glovebox or the trunk? For that matter, is there a MOST connection in the trunk for the CD changer that could be hijacked?

Routing the USB cable to an accessible location accomplishes sort of the same thing I suppose.

[Nickco43]

Originally Posted by drawz

Ok, so just like the aux adapter.

Any thoughts on connecting this somewhere more accessible so SD cards can be swapped easily? Maybe the glovebox or the trunk? For that matter, is there a MOST connection in the trunk for the CD changer that could be hijacked?

Routing the USB cable to an accessible location accomplishes sort of the same thing I suppose.

You can activate the most lines for the cd changer in the rear if you are pre wired.