Stereo compatibility check please, W124 200E

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Cleggmeister

Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2011
Messages
32
Location
East Kilbride
Car
1990 W124 200E
Hi folks, belated happy new year to you,

My Blaupunkt Cambridge cassette radio is not really providing me with the features I require so I've been looking for a suitable replacement.

The best I can find for the money are as follows:

JVC KD-X250BT Bluetooth Media Receiver | Car Audio Direct

Sony DSX-A60BT - USB Car Stereo with Bluetooth | Car Audio Direct

Alpine UTE-72BT Media Receiver | Car Audio Direct

Since my car is from 1990 and is wired for the incumbent Blaupunkt I reckon it might be a bit of a faff connecting a new unit, hence my post here for advice.

Any thoughts and support gratefully received!

Thanks in advance.

Cleggy.
 
The plug on the back of the Blaupunkt may fit one of the replacement radios, if not, there are adaptors available to make the connections, basically two plugs, one for the new radio and the other to plug into the old plug
 
Thanks indeed for that. I ordered the Alpine unit in the end, simply because it's the least bling looking. The features of all units are pretty similar, with phone, USB and android/iOS compatibility.

For the wiring I've ordered a cheap ISO to bare wire block, which was about £3 from Amazon or CPC. I'll solder the bare ends to the existing wiring in the car and all should be groovy.

Will post back here once complete with my thoughts on the install and the results.

Cleggy.
 
You should not have too much difficulty with the swap. Some of the german units - Becker for sure and possibly Blaupunkt - have the switched and permanent live the opposite way round to normal. Took me a while to work that out when I fitted the Becker in our 124.
 
You should not have too much difficulty with the swap. Some of the german units - Becker for sure and possibly Blaupunkt - have the switched and permanent live the opposite way round to normal. Took me a while to work that out when I fitted the Becker in our 124.

Exactly what he said. Just fitted a Becker with ISO to my 1990 190, slow but no real difficulty.
 
OK, all sorted!





Once I'd sussed brown was earth it was a simple, methodical job:

Snipped the ISO blocks off the cable that came with the head unit and soldered the dimmer, 12v, ignition, aerial and earth. I crimped the speaker cables as I'll be replacing the speakers and cable next. To locate the speakers I used a 1.5v battery across each to make a "pop".

I thought fitting the aerial would be a nightmare since my cable was fitted with a 90 degree terminator which would not locate in the Alpine. In removing it, expecting to need soldering, it turned out just to be an adaptor.

Fitting the mic was fine - removed the glovebox, pushed the cable through taped to a coathanger, then ran it up the A frame and under the moulding. I've attached the mic to the passenger side as it saved more work with the coathanger. If it's no good I'll do it properly next weekend, though my "test call" to the misssus seemed fine.

And that's that. No CD's or tapes to worry about, a USB drive holds all my music, and if someone's in the car with an Android or iPhone they can Bluetooth their tunes in if they fancy.

I just need to copy come music now, all my stuff is in FLAC and the Alpine says no. 320k mp3 will suffice.

Sound quality is fine, no better than the Blaupunkt but no worse, and if I choose I can spend a week faffing with EQ parameters. Just left it on "defeat" for now.

Phone integration is great - it reads the phonebook from the paired mobile, gives caller ID and everything else the phone is capable of. Control is intuitive, my only reservation is that it's a bit shiny and modern looking, and that the dimmer hardly makes a difference.

Next job new speakers and cable. Any idea whether I can "pull" the new cable via the existing ones, or will they be snagged under carpets and round sharp things, etc...?

Over and out for now!

Cleggy.
 
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