A Bose System can be upgrade while mantaining the factory Radio
11-13-2004, 10:32 PM
#1
Newbie
Thread Starter
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 22
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
A Bose System can be upgrade while mantaining the factory Radio
I recently purchased a 2001 e320 wagon. I have been searching for the past 3 weeks for info on the Bose system installed in the car. I never found the info I was looking for or what I wanted to hear. Basicaly the consensus was remove and rewire the entire system. NO WAY, I payed good money for all the pretty integration MB has put into the dash. It just sounds bad. I owned an AV business in the 90's and learned a bit about commercial sound systems. (Enough to be dangerous?) A car stereo is no different. Here are my findings
I started by puting an ohm meter on the factory speakers. They were all 3 ohms or better. Acording to the boards, they are all 1 or 2 ohms. What this meens ultimately, is that there is no real reason that you can not change the speakers for higher quality speakers. You can safely use higher ohm speakers on any amplifier. You CAN NOT use lower ohm speakers. (FYI a dead short is "0" ohms. So, the lower the impedence the closer you are to a short. The only down side is that your sound level will be lower. Bottom line in my opinion and my case in my car is that MB did me a favor by installing the low impedence drivers because I can now put anything I want in. The power offered with the factory amp isnt great, but the factory speakers are worse. If you change your speakers just understand that the sysem wont play maybe as loud but the sound quality will be much better. Thats for the speakers
Now the amplifier. Its a joke. It weighs less than a hamburger and my guess is that it uses Boom Box amplifier transistors for powering speakers. Some people will tell you to put a Speaker Level to RCA adapter on the amplifiers output. This solution in my opinion only adds room for faults. I do not want to use the factory amp at all. Here is another cool thing MB did. They used 600 Milivolt balanced output from the factory radio to the amp. This method elimates most any chance of getting noise in the system. I own a Soundstream amplifier that has Balanced inputs. I figured out what the pin out was on factory amp and built a $5 adapter. Works Awsome. My amp is older but if you want to purchase a current product, Zapco is the standard for amplifiers and they offer balanced inputs or what they market as Sybolinc.
If you want to upgrade in stages, I would recomend changing out the front speakers to component or seperates. (Put the tweater in the dash or door if they are very small) Then change the amp, then the subs. This is only this mans opinion, but I have made it word WELL and due to the lack of info I post this message.
PS, my factory amp does not use fiber optic cable for source, it is copper
I started by puting an ohm meter on the factory speakers. They were all 3 ohms or better. Acording to the boards, they are all 1 or 2 ohms. What this meens ultimately, is that there is no real reason that you can not change the speakers for higher quality speakers. You can safely use higher ohm speakers on any amplifier. You CAN NOT use lower ohm speakers. (FYI a dead short is "0" ohms. So, the lower the impedence the closer you are to a short. The only down side is that your sound level will be lower. Bottom line in my opinion and my case in my car is that MB did me a favor by installing the low impedence drivers because I can now put anything I want in. The power offered with the factory amp isnt great, but the factory speakers are worse. If you change your speakers just understand that the sysem wont play maybe as loud but the sound quality will be much better. Thats for the speakers
Now the amplifier. Its a joke. It weighs less than a hamburger and my guess is that it uses Boom Box amplifier transistors for powering speakers. Some people will tell you to put a Speaker Level to RCA adapter on the amplifiers output. This solution in my opinion only adds room for faults. I do not want to use the factory amp at all. Here is another cool thing MB did. They used 600 Milivolt balanced output from the factory radio to the amp. This method elimates most any chance of getting noise in the system. I own a Soundstream amplifier that has Balanced inputs. I figured out what the pin out was on factory amp and built a $5 adapter. Works Awsome. My amp is older but if you want to purchase a current product, Zapco is the standard for amplifiers and they offer balanced inputs or what they market as Sybolinc.
If you want to upgrade in stages, I would recomend changing out the front speakers to component or seperates. (Put the tweater in the dash or door if they are very small) Then change the amp, then the subs. This is only this mans opinion, but I have made it word WELL and due to the lack of info I post this message.
PS, my factory amp does not use fiber optic cable for source, it is copper
10-08-2006, 05:25 PM
#2
Junior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hampton roads, VA
Posts: 62
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
'99 SLK230
I need to do this with my factory amp because the factory amp crapped out last night. Is there anyone else who's done this? I have a 99 SLK 230 I really dunno where to start on getting this thing fixed but I'd rather not go to a sound shop because I don't trust any of the ones in my area.
