Replacing Head Unit in E34

[bghjkl]

Hi everyone, this is my first post on this forum. After googling all my problems and landing here every time, I decided to make an account.

Since I bought my 93 530i, the stereo hasn't worked properly. The sound will randomly cut out while I'm listening. It sometimes fades to low volume before cutting out, sometimes it suddenly stops, sometimes it doesn't ever start. The car seems to think there is music playing because it advances the tracks etc as if it were, just completely silent speakers.

The first thing I did was replace the factory amp with an identical one. That didn't solve anything. My next guess is going to be the head unit. That's where I am now. I have an aftermarket Pioneer that I pulled out of my last car before scrapping it, I'd like to use it instead of purchasing a new factory hu.

I've done a lot of reading here about how to go about replacing a head unit on these with the 10 speakers and the factory amp. What it sounds like will work is to Wire all three Front Right speakers together and connect them to the front right lead from the aftermarket HU, etc. and completely bypass the amp. Sounded easy and I was ready to do it....

Then I started reading everyone talking about "crossovers" being necessary... I'll be honest I dont even know what a crossover is or what it's function is supposed to be. I even found one especially confusing post about dissecting a factory amp for this reason.

I would be way out of my universe doing all this, so if the above method of wiring everything together to the HU isn't going to work, would it be possible to connect just the 4 speakers directly to the HU, and connecting the woofers and tweeters to an aftermaket amp for power and using the low inputs to connect them to the HU? If this is an option, what would I have to look for when purchasing said amp?

Also, since the amp doesn't seem to be the problem and probably isn't defective, can I utilize it and keep everything stock except the head unit? This obviously would be the preferred solution, so if it's possible I would appreciate a little direction as to how to go about it.

Thanks and sorry if my question is a little noobish. I've installed a lot of car audio before and I've never come across a single snafu but this thing has me stumped.