Mike5215

I bought the Focals two years ago. They were $749 I believe. Good news if they're now cheaper. I may do the rear doors.

Link?

Never mind, found them. Thanks for the tip?

Mike5215

That's weird! It's supposed to be a Surround system, which would usually require rear surrounds. Maybe something in the 63 requires they be deleted, but I'd ask the dealer.

topsider

wow that is weird, i can see the speakers in my rear deck

Mike5215

Yeah those grilles pop right off and there they are.

jakc

Burmester should be the one who wouldn't want this as it devalues their brand to anyone who first sees/listens to them the first time in a W205. As for Mercedes, they all have fake exhaust tips now too, this is also a C Class, and I'm not surprised the speakers are not genuine Burmester either as it never sounded great to me anyway. It sounds great compared to the HK system in the W204 but that's because the HK was pretty bad...

Mike5215

I think the speakers in the W205 Burmester were sourced from Harman/Kardon. Burmester's contributions likely were limited to sourcing the various components from third parties, and designing the equalization and tuning maps specific to the 205's cabin. It's not a terrible OEM system.

I do think Burmester was hamstrung by MB by the available real estate in the doors and parcel shelf that necessitated a sub/sat approach which relied too heavily on the 8" footwell drivers to play up into the lower end of the midrange frequencies where the 4" speakers picked up.

NYbenzzz

this is a practice VERY common on all OEM sound systems.

Specially "BOSE" or should i say......BLOWSE.

i did a complete audio system when i had a maxima, pretty high end too (rainbow, ARC, Eclipse). Eclipse AVN was chosen for it's double din format + 5v preouts + navi/dvd.
when we took out all the OEM system, we found out that:

Bose only designed the soundstage, equalization of the system.
Headunit was made by Clarion (a budget brand). All speakers were GENERIC and way underpowered compared to the sub.

just installing 6.5 on the doors + tweeters made an astronomical difference. and this was before installing a sub.

However, that system came out to be about $6k with installation (including headunit).

since then, car got broken into TWICE. no more audio system upgrades in NY for me. i keep it all stock.

Str8Down

So are these some crazy ohm rating speakers that can't be simply swapped out, like in my E46 M3? Or can we simply buy better speakers and plug and play. If that is the case, I don't mind having paid the premium for the Burmester, just to get the wiring and footwell subs.

topsider

Disappointing, but it still works for me!

Mike5215

I'll test them but I'm 99% sure they're standard 4 ohm, and built to be efficient low power handlers. New aftermarket speakers alone aren't going to make a huge difference, and they're likely to be heartier and as a result want more power that may not be there in the OEM amp.

I think you'd need to address defeating the factory EQ first. Once the EQ is back to flat and you begin the process of tuning, some underperforming speakers may expose themselves. I also think you need to treat the footwell subs strictly as cabin woofers and hand off the sub duties to an outboard amp and speaker.

Mike5215

Yeah I'm not crapping on the systems overall performance, which is decent as far as an OEM system goes. Just disappointed at how pedestrian the hardware is, and the tuning limitations that hardware creates if you want any sort of improvement.

I get that not every owner is an audio geek and knowing what I know I'd still get the Burmester upgrade just to have a decent starting point.

Mike5215

Ok well we ran into a bit of a hiccup with the Burmesters Vehicle Noise Compensation system. It can't make sense of what's actually coming out of the speakers vs what it "knows" it's putting out. It treats the difference as noise and tries to cover it up by having the subs make random farting noises. Normally I like extra random farts in my music anyway, but we'll need to go back in and disable it.

supersky3k

My C400 also have fake speaker grills at the rear as well....Do you guys see the rear speakers from opening the trunk?

Mike5215

No, they're top mounted 4" and plainly visible. Every 205 Burmester should have a 9 channel surround set up;

1) left front door 2 way
2) left footwell sub
3) center dash
4) right footwell sub
5) right front door 2 way
6) right rear door 2 way
7) right rear shelf surround
8) left rear shelf surround
9) left rear door 2 way

matt11212

Yes, I take that back I didn't look hard enough. The mesh on the grille is confusing, its only open exactly where the speaker is.

supersky3k

Thanks for confirming. My surround sound setting was off so I couldn't heard it at first. Now I heard it, they are very quiet speakers at the rear shelf I had to open both rear doors to hear them actually working.

supersky3k

Does our burmester system have a subwoofer connector? Do I need to add more hardware to support a Subwoofer? Thanks.

vic viper

No but you can tap high level signal from the rear amp.
Use the feed to the front sub speakers.

topsider

I shined the LED light from my iPhone on top of it and could see the reflection of the speaker. Also stuck my head back there once () and could hear the sound coming out of the grill

topsider

I've seen the noise compensation system mentioned once or twice, but assumed it was not noise cancelling, what exactly is it? Could the compensation system also be why the stereo sounds like crap when the windows are down? Figured that was because there was less surface area for the sound waves to bounce off of, but in my previous cars the sound quality or staging never decreased with the windows or sunroof open.

Mike5215

Not sure. Whatever it's doing it's doing in the low frequencies. Toggling off the automatic volume setting in COMAND helps to kill it, but not entirely.

NYbenzzz

i thought volume compensation on car stereos = adjust volume levels in relation to speed?

i think it was called SSV (speed sensitive volume) on my previous car.

topsider

oh if that's what we are talking about then yes it does, but it also distorts the sound quality. I have mine turned off.

topsider

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...-vnc-what.html



Quote:


Originally Posted by Steve71 View Post

I think you're right Jeffy. If it was active noise cancellation, they'd be more vocal about it.

Yesterday I sent an email to the Burmester general contact address and asked what VNC is and what it does. If (when?) I get a response, I'll post it here.

I received the following response this morning:

"Thank you for your request which we would like to answer as following.

The interfere influences on your sound, so the driving noises, will be technically measured. By algorithms these influences will be compensated so that the sound can be preserved.

Please be informed that the function is a noise compensation not a noise cancellation."

My interpretation of this is that the system somehow measures "drive noises" and applies an algorithm to compensate. As he says it doesn't "cancel" noise, I suspect it increases sound levels for some set of frequencies based on what it measures.

megaoctane

This is something all Mercedes have I believe. The volume increases automatically when driving at higher speeds versus standing still at a traffic light.