3x8 Audio: Blaupunkt Bremen SQR 46 DAB

This single DIN audio head unit has modern internals but has the outward appearance of a circa 1985 Blaupunkt Bremen cassette deck and radio. The “cassette” door now hides ports for USB, SD card and analog audio inputs.

I have been wringing my hands about buying this modern Bremen. It is expensive and designed for the non-US market. I hate my current head unit with its convoluted menus and multifunction buttons. My daughter’s boyfriend wants my old radio if I replace it. What pushed me over the edge is that the modern Bremen is currently on sale through Amazon.de (Amazon Germany).

I logged into Amazon.de using our US Amazon.com Prime account. Ordering was very straightforward. The site states upfront that shipping is available to the USA. It was not eligible for free shipping but total all-in cost was 374 EUR (418 USD) which was much less than any other vendor I could find. Returns are allowed if necessary. The unit was picked up yesterday by DHL from the Amazon warehouse in Wroclaw Poland. DHL says it’ll be delivered on Tuesday (5 days shipping time).

The unit's shortcomings for the US market are that does not have US-spec HD Radio or Sirius Radio compatibility. It uses instead Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) that the rest of the world has. I can live without HD radio or Sirius. The sad part of the story is that I really only use my radio for is Google Maps, but I get to lose those menus and, I guess, I now get to look cool with the retro Blaupunkt look.

There is a good installation write-up at:
Blaupunkt Bremen SQR 46 DAB - Rennlist - Porsche Discussion Forums

User experience with the Blaupunkt Bremen SQR 46 DAB is very welcome.

Here is a picture of the front panel (from the Rennlist thread):

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I've been reading through the User's Manual in preparation for this thing arriving on my doorstep next week and have a question:

What do people do with the "Illumination" input"? My understanding is that it supplies a variable voltage to dim or brighten the display in coordination with the instrument lights. Do you just hook it up to switched 12v? Do you not even hook it up? Do you do something fancy? My instrument lights are barely lit at the best of times.

 

My Bremen has hopscotched from Wroclaw to Liepzig to Los Angeles to San Francisco. It is still scheduled for delivery on March 2 via DHL. In the meantime, I’ve been reading the User’s Manual. Zzzzz.

Does that “Illumination” wire change brightness as a binary switch or can the Bremen dim proportional to the instrument console brightness?

I am thinking about tapping into the illumination wire going to the oil temperature or clock and running a wire back up to the radio area. Those gauges are easier to access than the ones in the instrument cluster and they dim with the instrument cluster lights (with a range from very dim to extremely dim). If I need to send a constant 12v to the Bremen illumination wire, that plan won’t work.

Apparently the dimming feature has to be enabled under User Settings with the two options being “Auto” or “Manual”. “Auto” dims the Bremen when the “Illumination” wire receives voltage. The factory setting is “Manual”.

I sometimes wonder if the Amazon algorithms reduce price to cause sales which immediately cause the algorithms to remove the sale price. (My conspiracy theory.)

My Unit price was 326.90 EUR, tax was 30.14 EUR and shipping was 19.13 EUR. (I may still have to pay US Customs and Duty. I'll find out in a few weeks when/if a DHL invoice comes in.)

 

Glad you were able to snag a Bremen at the sale price. The Alpine unit is nice looking too but definitely is a different aesthetic. The Bremen is an older look.

Ha! Good luck with managing the scope creep.

This is the third time I'm working on the audio system in the car. The prior owner had a big stereo system installed including a subwoofer as the passenger footrest. I've progressively ripped out more and more. All I've saved is his 2-channel 125 watt per channel power amp. I was "motivated" to upgrade the speakers when I accidentally sent 12v DC through a tweeter and, literally, caused it to smoke. I've replaced them with nice high efficiency Infinitys with tweeters in the door crank holes. They sound better than the old speakers even without the subwoofer.

... All this for a stereo system I only really use for Google Maps. With the convenience of good Bluetooth, thumb drives and SD Cards for .mp3 files, maybe I'll actually play a little music (and make myself deaf playing over the volume of the engine).

No matter what, it will be nice to have a head unit that is a little more intuitive for my beloved Google Maps; my current one drives me nuts.

 

Thanks.

The Bremen allows adjustment of "Day" and "Night" display brightness. We will, at least, be able to set these two brightness levels.

Dimming that follows the instrument lights would be great but my bigger concern is sending too low of a trigger voltage for night dimming. I guess I'll just have to test and figure that out. I could grab power from the headlight circuit I suppose, but that gets complicated. I plan/hope to update the instruments to LED sooner or later so may actually have to worry about (the current non-issue of) reducing brightness.

The color of the Bremen display and buttons can be adjusted to match any instrument color. I really like that.

 

I may as well confirm I understand this correctly:

The "Telephone Mute" wire is not needed for our cars. It is for cars with a separate telephone unit. Such units would send a 12v signal through the Telephone Mute wire to mute the Bremen while the telephone unit is being used. Correct?

 

My unit arrived today. The shipping box was damaged but the unit itself looks fine.

Hooked it up to my bench 12v battery to play and to set things up. (The unit has flash memory so remembers settings when power is disconnected.)

Hit the “Illumination” wire with 1.5v which triggered the display and buttons to dim. Hit it with a full 12v and got the same dimness. It appears that dimming is day/night binary not proportional to voltage. It's great to see though that 1.5v (an AA cell) was sufficient to dim the display. This means I am going to connect the wire to my clock light.

 

Grrr. Stupid car. Stupid stereo. Why can’t it be easy?
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The wiring installation should be fairly straightforward now on my car and, if I get a few hours later this afternoon/evening, I should be finished the installation today.

The problems I've been dealing with are mostly cleaning up the mess from the prior stereos. I am only the second owner of the car but I think this is the 5th stereo system going into it (the first one for me!). There is a lot of weird dangling wires, stupid connections, redundant crimps upon crimps etc.

A biggie was discovering that the slot for the head unit was not a full DIN in size. The professional installers in the past must have used a sledgehammer to get the old units to fit. To get the old unit out is why I had to remove the a/c duct etc. The bottom of the DIN slot was flat, but the top was a crooked edge of fiberglass (Ferrari's fault). I flattened it out and expanded the hole to a full DIN size with my Foredom tool and a carbide burr (a little hair raising considering I am cutting within an inch of the main wiring harness). But, geez Louise, why do I have to do stuff like that?

When I removed the old unit's telephone microphone, which was installed at the upper left corner of the windshield, I figured out why that trim panel is so loose. Someone had obviously pulled on it with a panel removal tool and stretched the pop rivet. Well, while I'm in there, I may as well ....

 

It’s in and I am very happy.

I’ve still got to tuck away my new wiring harnesses and reinstall the stuff I took apart on the car, but otherwise I’m done. It’s tested now and seems to be working fine.

I plugged a USB drive into the rear USB port which had a bunch of mp3 files on it. First thing that came up was a great Junior Wells song. I cranked it and sat and listened. The system sounds truly great. Huge volume available too. I fired up Google Maps on my cell phone and, sure enough, the Google voice came through loud and clear. I love the feature that you can select a fixed volume level when the unit turns on; no getting jolted awake in the morning from the prior evening’s high-volume level.

The settings were retained from where I had set them on the bench. Nice. The clock is the only thing that needs to be reset when the power is cut; I guess there is no internal battery or capacitor. The unit is running firmware version P1827201X. I can’t find any new versions on the internet, so I’ll just leave it be: I'm not going to bother contacting Blaupunkt.

I’ve yet to figure out where to put the phone microphone. I am going to drive around with the top off while my wife judges my voice quality. The previous setup was useless because of wind/engine noise. It may be the same for the Bremen but I am hoping there might be a better place for the mic.

I have to wait for dark to color match the display with the 308’s gauges. In daylight I couldn’t even see if the gauges were illuminated or not. Red, green and blue can be adjusted separately to mix to almost any color I want.

I have made two modifications to the car for the radio:

1.) I tapped into the wire to the 308’s clock light to in order to send back a voltage trigger to the Bremen telling it to dim it’s display when I turn the car’s lights on. This was quite simple to do: there is a 3” pigtail coming out of the clock light which plugs into a simple female 18-gauge spade connector. I cut the female connector and re-crimped a new connector back onto the harness wire and a piece of 18-gauge wire which I ran to the radio.

2.) A few years ago, I had made another modification which I retained. I had reconfigured the antenna switch so that the antenna only goes up if the radio is on AND the antenna switch is on. I forget what the stock configuration is, but I remember I didn’t like it. It is a straightforward modification. The antenna switch, in the center console, sends a trigger voltage to the antenna telling it to raise the antenna. The Bremen (as did my old unit) has an antenna output for that purpose. The antenna motor itself has access to unswitched 12v power. When it receives the trigger voltage signal, it raises the antenna. At the switch, I disconnected the factory wire and connected my antenna trigger wire. My power amp also needs a trigger voltage to turn it on so I use the Bremen’s antenna output to turn on my power amp as well.

I’ve jokingly complained and grumbled about doing this project, but the reality is that has been a pleasant job. I’ve enjoyed just being the garage, intentionally working as slow as molasses, as much just hanging out as working. I still have some reassembly to do (a/c vent, fuse panel cover, driver’s side front carpet, hiding some wires, etc.) but the project is done.

It is also a special day for me and my 308. I bought it exactly 9 years ago today.

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