Becker 612 for Becker 1480 swap?
 

Has anyone ever swapped a Becker 612 for a Becker 1480? While my current 612 sounds reasonably ok if playing music not too bass heavy, it nonetheless underwhelms, as the deck no longer works and is just shabby in general. So, after researching costs to refurbish the 612 vs buying a brand new, ridiculous looking 3rd party head unit marketed to the wanker generation, a refurbished 1480 is looking to be a very viable option. Ungarishly high-end and smart looking -- handsome, if you will -- it is ostensibly the right fit for my 84 300SD. And, from what I understand, its sound quality is far better than that of the 612 when coupled with the the appropriate speaker upgrade.

Does anyone have experience with a swap like this? Any forseeable compatibility issues between the two? My biggest concern is that the 1480 uses an external amp and fiber optics for speaker connections instead of traditinal coppper wiring, either of which will derail the Becker swap.

Any advice to this idea is appreciated. Thank you for your time.

I ended up with a rebuilt 780 (with aux from Becker) with new speakers. It's a direct plugin and 2 generations of internals better then the old 612.

Just plug and play without isseu? Nice. I was considering the 7xx option as well as I now believe the 1480 is a more complicated system with multiple amps, etc, and likely not viable. Also, I've read the Becker aux mod resulted in mono sound, which does not make a lot of sense; why would someone go through the trouble and cost to install an auxillary source input only for it to lack the most basic of fidelity features? It also doeant seem in line with Becker's sensibilities, not to mention MB owners'. Anyway, does your experience support this notion the Becker auxillary install is mono? Thanks

The 780 and 1480 are very similar both have internal amplifiers for direct connection to speakers as well as connection to factory external amplifiers.

I am not sure why their aux mod would result in mono operation. I've done my own aux mod's on 1480s and mine run stereo.

Thank you for clarifying the amplifier question for me. Much obliged.

I exchanged the 612 for a 1480 in my Euro R107 300SL and it was plug and play with much better sound.

@JamesDean: Did you install additional speakers? The unit supposedly handles up to 4 speakers (and has a plug for an additional set of speakers) but only has 2x25 watts, so I wasn't sure if this approach or adding an additional amp were the best route to go.

With the roof down the small SL front speakers are very much at their limit...

I didn't add any additional. Not in my 126s, 201, or 124. My buddy has an SL. I agree its front speakers are pretty much limited.

Are the harnesses for the 1480 the same as the 612?

I seem to recall that they weren't, so would require a bunch of hacking at best...