janusgrimnitz

what speaker do you guys use for center speaker ? I have MOREL for front and rear now... HUGE improvement but I have trouble finding a good fit for center speaker!

Verlengsnoer

I just recieved a quotation for a upgrade for my c (coupe).

MOSD2806DSP GLONE100BMW
Mosconi D2 80.6 DSP - 6-kanaals versterker
GLADEN ONE 100 BMW - 2-weg Coaxiaal speakers
BOXMORE Luidsprekerring Mercedes C klasse tbv 20 cm midwoofer schutbord per set
Audison Prima AP 8 - 200mm woofer, set van 2 woofers.

I Just cant find YouTube audio on How it wil sound. I really have no clue. i will be disappointed if the improvement is not ear blowing

regards

fabbrisd1

If you can keep us in the loop on the interface from the head unit to the Mosconi - that would be MUCH appreciated !

Gladen - a good speaker - and you are choosing not to run separate tweets in the sail panels.

Good luck - like I say - interface post would be a good thing for me

Verlengsnoer

is this the part you are looking for?

https://www.carkitstunter.nl/content...__16_pins.html

the car audio shop told me this is the best bang for my money! Build in for €2000. If I wantend to spend more I could get extra amplifier for the subs. What do you think abouth this set up? Thank you in advance

KienPC

Rainbow just updated the new Mercedes speaker range ..
http://www.rainbow-audio.de/en/speak...line/mercedes/

shaunds

call these guys Unique Car Sound & Security. They are near Woking (Lightwater) and have experience with W205 audio setups. Its not cheap though. You can google their contact details

o27

Regarding option 1) What would a more cost conscious choice be for front speakers?

Could any of the Match speakers be used?

a) Coaxial: http://www.audiotec-fischer.de/lng/e...s-4x-bmw2.html
b) 2-way components: match-ms-42c-bmw.html

Ukaru Nusashi

I recently bought leased a GLC300 without the upgraded sound system which should have cost me another $3500. My old GLK350 has good sound for a base model. However, It looks like they decided to standardized having the rearview camera instead of having a good sound system.

o27

Do you know where to buy the 8" woofers from Rainbow you have installed. Can you share the exact model name/number of those, as I will the enquire Rainbow, Germany

bosch

As o27 says the Match speakers look like they will fit and have 3 mounting holes, has anyone tried to fit them or have any comments or feedback about them?

focusiris

So in this case from where u got the input signal for the subwoofer? is that so easy?

JazzKhan

Hi guys great thread!! sounds like upgrading A20 is quite a task. I was wondering anyone knows if four HERTZ ECX 100.5 will fit and worth the upgrade given everything else remains stock?

alexburov

I was wondering if anyone could help me with advice. In AUDIO 20 guide, the Focal crossover box goes into the door panel. I was looking at my door panel today and noticed that the place that was used in the guide is not empty on my car it is occupied with the power seats + memory seats modules. Do your guys' cars not have that or did you do some smart moving around? In the case that you don't have them, I was wondering what would be another good place to put a crossover box? I was thinking about sticking it under the driver's seat and somehow getting the cable into the door panel from the front side. Any suggestions?

benzdude

Did you guys know that Audison has a cable for connecting the Audison AMPS directly to the MB head unit?



https://www.audison.eu/wp-content/up...les_rev15B.pdf

Kris404

Hey guys,

I got a new 2018 W205 on lease with the base Audio20 "Frontbass" system replacing an older 2015 CLA 250.

By far this is the worst car audio I've ever had. Even the older CLA's base Audio20 was far superior to this.
1) It is not loud at all even turned all the way up
2) The Bass seems to get reduced on higher volume (3/4's of the way turned up) - why???
3) Rear bass presence is virtually non-existent
4) The Highs are just crap
5) Midrange is overly bright

This system is probably meant for listening to NPR lol.. and not for enjoying any kind of music. Needless to say this will be my last MB but I'm stuck with this for the next 3 years of the lease.

So to salvage this, I ended up putting a subwoofer and mono amp in the trunk connected via level-adjustable LOC and disconnected the Frontbass altogether. All reversible and done very well by my local audio installer. Now I have great boomy bass from the rear trunk but no bass in the chamber. The bass still gets reduced if I play at higher volumes or while driving but returns if I lower the volume *rage*

Anyway, I need advice if I should get a Fix86 to defeat volume-based EQ or will a Match M-5DSP do the trick?. With the Fix86, I would need a separate 5-channel amp and wiring back and forth from the speakers.

Swapping the speakers will be a next-step but I'd appreciate your advice on the DSP.

Thanks,

damianw

Hi,
I do not know how it is in 2018 C-Class Audio20, what they did change - I know that HU has been replaced. Hope they did not "adjust" eq the wrong way. I had similar situation when I had an original installation. But after my upgrade (you can find in this thread my specification) I do not have this anymore.
Coming back to CLA - this cars have regular audio installed w/o crappy frontbass speaker (6,5" speakers are installed in front and rear doors - at least there is prepared place for them). So this is why they play much better than C-Class. Location of frontbass (even with two speakers) is just not good for a woofers, After my modification I could hear that passenger speaker is a little bit louder than driver speaker. The speaker enclosure is small (compare to doors). Frontbass is not woofer and not a sub. - generally nothing.
How did you connect (or workshop) LOC to your installation? Is high-level signal taken from frontbass? If yes than maybe there there is an issue as this speaker is connected to HU: front left+ and front right -.
If you have a saloon car (as mine) than it will be hard to get a nice low freqs. for subwoofer - I have 10" Hertz with closed enclouser with 325W delivered and still not happy with it. The problem is rear seat blocking all.
And only sub in trunk will not give you everything what you need - mid/lows which can be given by woofers - 6,5" or 8" which can be install in dedicated place where frontbass speakers are normally installed (passenger side and driver side - on driver side you have only hole cover). There are some dedicated speakers
- Steg PnP for Mercedes
- Rainbow intelligence-line mercedes
As you have a lease car then it will be better as these are pnp speakers with not a big impact in car modification. Minus - price. These are an expensive compare to good set of 3way component speakers.
Then you can find some DSP amplifier (Audison, Helix Match, Audio-Control) which you will control and amplify your system. You will have high-input, crossover settings, delays, presets.
As an advise - spending money to have a sub working correctly w/o woofer inside car cabin is not a good idea. You will still have a lack of kickbass. Sub is reproducing 40-80Hz (sometimes 110Hz depend of woofer crossover). And mids in doors around 500Hz an up. So there is nothing from let say 80Hz to 500Hz. And this is a place for woofers. And this is what makes a difference between your ex-CLA and new C-Class.
Start by this modification and you will see a big increase.
I did change all speakers in my car - added tweeters in dedicated place in front doors, replace mids in front doors, replaced mids with coaxial speakers in rear doors, changed passenger frontbass speaker to 6,5" woofer, added driver side woofer. Finally after at least 10-12 different setups of my audio (almost 10 months) I found the one which is good enough for me. But the further you go, the more you want. Not this summer but maybe later this year I will replace all speakers again (now I have set of Audison Prima speakers) to something which is higher quality (maybe Morel, Focal, Scan Speak, Audio System) - for a woofers I will make custom adapters, wire tweeter as active - now I have tweeters in front doors behind passive crossover, replace DSP amp (AP8.9) with Audison bit Nove dsp and amplifiers dedicated to this speakers and I will do custom box with 2x10" subwoofers. I am doing all modifications by myself so I can play with different setups. This is my hobby not profession
This was not a a strict answer to you question but some advise to consider.

Kris404

@damianw Thank you so much for your answer, your practical input is much appreciated.

They did screw up the EQ on the 2018 W205 I feel like it they left the EQ alone as set manually in the EQ panel, this could have been an easier save but they tried to do 'dynamic' EQ with a steep reduction of Lows as the volume is turned up higher; presumably to avoid blowing out their crappy speakers

The installer put in an EFX High-Low LOC with high input from Front L, R I think (need to check) fed to a trunk monoblock Kicker amp driving a set of dual 10" sub woofers in a custom box, all easily reversible (lease). I had the installer disconnect the Frontbass speaker as the see-saw variations of it's levels was driving me crazy.

You are absolutely right, without midbass in the vehicle now it's not enjoyable at all. Most of my drive is for pleasure and the thought of 3 more years of this audio is just not acceptable to me hence this quest On a side note, I absolutely love everything else about this vehicle. My mistake that I didn't audition this car before pulling the trigger because the older Audio20 was so good, I didn't think much of it. Oh how MB screwed me this time, not again.

I don't know where to get the Steg or Rainbow Audio pnp speakers in Los Angeles.

But I'm planning to go vldarh's route for base Audio20 with Match M 5DSP first but I'm not sure if I would also need Fix-86 to defeat dynamic EQ.

damianw

@Kris404
The best will be to see the level output on RTA - calibrated microphone and pink noise playing - I am using Room EQ Wizard or True RTA with spectrum analyzer to see a freq. response from speakers.
Audison DSP (Ap8.9 which is the one I have installed) is checking the level of input (out from HU) using sine sweep sound and de-equalization using pink noise. This is how it looks before de-eq on mine 2015:




AP8.9 is doing de-eq but personally I do turning this off as I could find this option off better for me.
If you installer has calibrated mic and test tacks with 0dB level then he can test if there when exactly level is decreasing.
For Steg or Rainbow : It can be complicated to find a dealer but maybe ebay? Or Europe internet shops?
Good luck with your system tune and again advice : 3 years lease it is long time so invest money for interior speaker replacement and additional amplifier. Because there is nothing worst than driving the car you "love" everyday with sound system which making you crazy.
Actually I did the same because I couldn't stand sound quality which was worst than the budget car sound system. There is some more things that I dislike in my car: 7G-tronic plus, engine, some rattles - this came out after I start to drive the car everyday after 2-3 months. But car has the look and this is very positive point

duttonst

In case it’s useful to someone out there I thought I’d add my experience of upgrading just the front speakers in my S205 (Audio 20) with a Rainbow speaker kit. I considered going down the amp/dsp route as well but wanted to keep the car as standard as possible and to keep the cost reasonable, at least initially. On that basis I decided to go with the Rainbow IL-C4.2C MB 2-Way kit as a first step and then take stock before doing anything else. Because the Rainbow kit is plug-and-play I judged it just about within my DIY capability, which helped with the cost. Overall the job took me about 2.5 hours, but a lot of that time was me learning from YouTube how to remove/reinstall the door panels and I reckon that someone that knew what they were doing could have got this done in less than an hour.

There were a couple of minor complications to overcome during the install.

1. Firstly the kit expects 2 cables from the head unit to be available within the door: a cable for the mid and another cable for the tweeter. The Audio 20 doesn’t have a tweeter so I was a cable short and had to splice the tweeter cable to the mid cable before plugging it in. Not a big deal but to be truly plug-and-play Rainbow ought to supply a 2:1 converter for A20 upgrades.
2. The second complication was finding somewhere to put the crossover units, which are quite big. I resolved this using trial, error and some double-sided tape, but it would have been nice if Rainbow had included a bit more guidance and some 3M VHB.

Apart from these snags the install was straightforward. The plugs fit the sockets on the existing cables. The mid was a perfect fit in the existing enclosure and the depth is just right. The tweeters fitted snugly in the empty tweeter enclosures that MB thoughtfully provide on A20 cars (presumably as a constant reminder that you should have bought Burmester). As you would expect from 2-way speakers costing £299 a pair, the units themselves seem to be very high quality, including the crossover components (I had a quick look inside one). The original MB units are shocking by comparison.

I hated the sound from the stock system with a vengeance - it seemed to suck all of the subtlety & joy (& treble) out of whatever you listened to, a bit like listening to everything as a low bitrate MP3. On my first listen to the Rainbows I was therefore hoping to get some treble & clarity back, and they didn’t disappoint. What I wasn’t expecting, but got, was bass. Initially too much bass in fact: during one of my earlier attempts to make the old speakers sound bearable I’d cranked-up the bass eq, so my first job was to revert to a flat eq. After that they were a revelation - night and day compared to the old speakers and greatly exceeding my expectations from such small units.

They obviously don’t perform miracles: if you crank up the volume too far then physics gets in the way. You will therefore need more power and a sub if you like your music loud. However for listening at moderate levels (which I tend to) then I’d recommend trying one of these kits out before spending too much more. When I specced my car towards the end of last year you could have CarPlay or Burmester, not both. I chose CarPlay but the sound has been a constant niggle every since. I'm now a lot happier with that choice.

Kris404

@damianw I read up more and now decided to go with Audison AP8.9 bit. It's on the way along with the required T-harness, ASP & extension cable. It looks like my vehicle does need De-EQ which the Match M 5DSP does not seem to have.

I have also ordered two Burmester woofers for the LR footwells and two front sail Merc tweeters. My plan is to do 'Preset 4' layout on the AP8.9 bit.

2 x Front Merc Tweeters + Front Original Mids (via a custom crossover)
2 x Front Burmester Woofers
2 x Rear Original Mids
1 x Trunk Swubwoofer (Bridge 7 + 8)

I think this should last me for a while until I get the urge to swap out the crappy factory speakers

Anderson77

Does the stock Audio 20 hadle a second bridge on other pair of the speaker cables for stereo footwell woofers?
I read that the footwell box size is 15Liters, does somebody know what is relflex port diameter and lenght?
How big is the 4" door speaker box size in litres?

If i understand right the problem is with missing midbass, so would something like Dayton Audio ND105-4 be adaptible for the door speaker place, if making small hole for the magnet?
It would be dirt cheap and big xmax with smooth response up to 2-3khz.
Not sure if any improvements could be archieved with smaller Faital Pro 4FE32 (because of low xmax)
Thanks.

damianw

Hi,
Apologize, I was traveling this weekend for my summer holidays (1760km).
good choice to make this mod. I know that someone was checking speakers impedance here (in this topic) but I would rather check it again. AP8.9 can work in 4 and 2Ohms (2 ohms will supply more power to speakers).

You decided to go with Preset 4 which is:

Remember that on this preset all speakers are behind passive crossovers so anyway speakers will be affected by passive crossovers and DSP will send approx. freqs which should go to speakers. Your installation will not have passive crossovers (there are capacitors on original speakers which is kind of filter as well but installation will more active than passive.
For a speaker config is quite ok but crossovers setting in my opinion are not sounding nice. I used the same kind of crossovers settings but setup manual at software and I was not happy, missing freqs.
I putted this setting to soft and this is how it will look filter + eq:

So you can see that there will be a lag of freqs. And you will hear (or not hear) it...
So my suggestion is to do it manually using Butterworth filter with slop of 24dB/oct - this is the same crossovers setting:

Now you can see that yellow line is showing you quite 0dB with two peaks of around 3dB at 80Hz and 500Hz which is not bad (which anyway will sounds better than previous settings).
Of course we do not know freqs responds of orginal speakers so this are taken from Prima speakers. Original can be different. Personally for rear speakers I would put crossovers the same way as for front tw+mid (this will be the same speakers w/o tweeters) Hi-Pass Butterworth filter 500Hz@24. Anyway 4" will not play under this freqs so there is no sens to send freqs below 500Hz to rear mids.
Another point are delays (TIME ALIGNMENT) which is not matching our car. Below are measured distance from drivers side head level for our car (around as there is no possibility to put exact values to soft) for tall driver - I am quite tall 193 cm so seat is all the way back :
Fr L mid and tw: 90.7cm
Fr R mid and tw: 141.7 cm
Fr L woofer: 150.2 cm
Fr R woofer: 164.3 cm
Rr L mid: 51 cm
Rr R mid: 110.5 cm
Sub (installed just behind seat): 116.2 cm
Again advice : after I tested it (around 1 week driving) I came back to "0" at all speakers as I didn't find this good for me (could hear like an echo, high freqs were lower). So at final I left with no delay.
This can be useful for you as well - this is inputs level from HU with volume all the way up (procedures done by soft - no clipping):

Again it was just a little bit to low for me - tested. In situation when I was listening in low level it was just to low on speakers. This is how I ended:

Tested with different music types - clipping appear sometimes but with really high level on HU - generally do not listening all the way up - but it is not all the time - depend on music and source quality. But with this input sensitivity I have all speakers playing really nice at low audio level form HU.
This is how my setting looks like:

I know that +3dB is a little bit to high for all freqs but in normal driving conditions (regular audio level and sometime quite high) this sounds the best for me, not loosing any of freqs at any level. The de-eq is off (didn't like it with 'ON') and bass boost on but the level is not high - if I listening at high level then I am turning this off by DRC (remote control which I found quite useful - 2 presets to choose (A, B), amplifier out level and sub level control).
If you will be interested just let me know and I can prepare for you some different files: setting with your chosen Preset 4, setting with the same but as mentioned different filter and 24dB/oct slope, sens. inputs like software and my personal, some eq to increase levels, with or without delay. This is quite fast to do, I can send you the files and it is easy to upload to Ap8.9. You can upload each one, test it for some time and then you can decide which one will be the best for you.
Of course everyone has his own preferences - everyone have his way of system setup. But I could find that sometimes original settings are just not what I was looking for. Sound was to low and to be honest I was disappointed thinking that if manufactures is advising to setup this way it should be really good.
I have system installed May last year and since this time I was checking different setting. I was missing to have some advices and I had to discover it by my self. So maybe you will find it useful. Play with settings to find the best for you, it is really worth.
And at the end - after installing new speaker, mainly woofers do not play them loud for some time.I know that some people will say that this is a myth but I always doing it for any speakers, home speakers or car speaker and I could hear differences - with a certain of time they will sounds even better.
So if you are interested just let me know.

damianw

Hi,
passenger woofer is connected to FL+ and FR- of HU speakers output - don't think it will works with second woofer. Frontbass speaker (passenger side) is install in car structure not box - there is sealed enclosure not ported and there is no reflex port - no chance to make it ported. Didn't check volume of this area where speaker is installed but for sure there will be not 15 liters and there is differences between driver and passenger speaker "enclosure". If you will follow this topic you should get an answers for these questions with pictures attached.
4" mid in installed in door is fixed to door panel from inside, there no box meaning speaker is not using door as enclosure. There is very limited space behind and there is few speakers which can be install there (org. is neo magnet), depth is the problem. In my opinion mids indoors should play mid freqs.
Dayton Audio ND105-4 - mounting depth : 57mm
I had problems to install speakers which mounting depth is 41mm. So there is 16mm more on Dayton and w/o customizing door panel speaker will not fit there. Same problem for Faital speaker. Do not think that cutting a hole for magnet in door metal part is a good idea.

Kris404

Excellent advise, makes logical sense to me, thank you again.

Will do custom mode via USB but modeled after Preset 4 + separate RCA out to my existing trunk sub amp.

I will take you up on that offer of files but I can wait until I get the AP & connectors in a couple of weeks. One quick question, did you put the AP in the trunk or somewhere near the glovebox?

Anderson77

Hi, Thanks for reply.

Would it be possible to use FL- and FR+ for the other side frontbass (Drivers side or passenger) which is missing on stock?
Yes i saw the pictures of frontbass but was not clear if its reflex or not. Thanks for clarifying that.

Was that speakers 41mm overall or mounting depht? Faital pro has mounting depht of 42.6mm. Edit: Did read on Italian forum that door wont close very good after the magical 40mm depht, so even a JL audio C1-400x coax with 46mm mounting depht is out.
So the door 4" mid elements breathe only in the cavity of doorpanels. How leaky is that space in your opinion?

Thinking if an adapter plate for Laterall (cylinder) Tymphany lat-250 elements could be done on the visible (top part) of frontbass?
They are good down to 60-70hz and sensitive aswell (Already have them). Then a Sub for trunk would be easier.
Thank you.