Shadwell

thats the definition of marketing right there...

janusgrimnitz

I put a 10'' Rockfort sub box in the trunk.. It's like night and day.... Massive diff for like 500 bucks...

Mike5215

The factory 4" looks to be 1 1/2" deep, but without pulling the door I can't tell how deep the actual pocket is.

I know the Focals with a 1 9/16" depth fit up front in the 205 without a problem. The MTX are 1 13/16" because the tweeter adds a couple mm of height. I've used the MTX to replace the same 4" harman/kardon the 205 uses in my 221.

You'd need to pull a rear door panel and measure to see how much depth you can get out of it, but my guess is they'll be fine.

c200amgline

Hi Mike,
I also have the base sound system and wouldn't mind a small upgrade. If I purchase the MTX Thunder40, can I easily connect it to the tweeter compartment and amp? This will be my first electrical work. Also, are there any better tweeters you'd recommend?

Also, with a budget of $1.5k, do you think I can upgrade the amp to Prima 8.1 and maybe Focals for better sound or do I really need a sub & tweeters, as you suggested above for $960? Which would you do if you were in my position?

Mike5215

The MTX are coaxial, so the tweeter is already mounted to the woofer and it's a single assembly. Just mount it, connect + and - , done! I really think from a cost standpoint, a power standpoint and a quality standpoint, the coaxials make way more sense than high end separates.

If the cabin was starved for midrange and you needed something really powerful and bright, the Focals are great. But in the A20 where literally every speaker but the "sub" is a shrill, 4" midrange, the goal is to fill the midbass space between the sub and the mids, kill the shrillness and find a way to introduce the ultra highs.

The MTX woofers are a good bit warmer and fuller, and play lower than OEM, and the built-in tweets solve the other problem of getting the ultra highs in.

If you heard the Focals on the factory amp after spending $400 you'd shoot yourself. Trust me. In this application the MTX will sound better than the Focals.

The last bit is to get the low bass out of the 8" Frontbass using the Equalizer in A20 so it's primarily reinforcing midbass and shift the sub frequencies to an outboard trunk sub and amp. The controls on the amp will let you dial back in the lows and get the "hit" without adding boominess.

One last thought: If you don't want to mess with the MTX but still want front tweets...

Buy a pair of generic 1" silk dome tweets, pop the mirror sail panels off, pop them in the unused tweeter pockets and run a short speaker wire from them to the OEM 4".

New:

http://www.parts-express.com/pioneer...-pair--267-288

Used (recommended) (Example, any from a 220 or 221 S Class will work and have a crossover capacitor built in)

Mike5215

Unfortunately the only folks who know how it sounded when it was recorded are the musicians, the producer and the engineer. And groupies, if they had any. Maybe the weed dealer...

Anyway, an accurate, balanced system is the goal, and everything should sound good on it. The OEM system isn't remotely close to balanced or accurate, so you have to remediate the deficiencies.

As it sits, with 4 midrange speakers, no tweets and one 8" bass driver, it's way too bright (4" by their nature are bright) and with no midbass drivers of the 6" variety, there's not enough fullness and body in the sound to balance the bright mids. It also lacks clean distinct highs, since the 4" speakers do double duty as pseudo tweets.

Adding tweets, either by coaxials or just buying some used 1" silk dome tweets on eBay solves the tweeter issue. So the conundrum becomes how to introduce clean, punchy midbass into the cabin. Can't get it from a 4". Can't get it from the one 8". No room in the doors for two sets of 6", which would negate the need for a trunk sub...

So, you gotta go to the trunk. I don't like boom either. I want clean, punchy, accurate bass without sloppiness or boominess. My W205 has a gorgeous sound, and a trunk sub, but you probably won't hear me coming at a stop light.

The key is to use a sub with two small (8") drivers and a high quality but not necessarily high powered amp. That lets you dial in just the right amount and range of bass frequencies to meld into the cabin mix and fill it out. Even 4 6" would be good.

(On mine I'm able to use the Prima's DSP time correction to set the subs distance to the front seats. As a result, the signal to the subs is just a few milliseconds ahead of the door speakers, and the result is the sound reaches your ears at the same time. The effect is that you don't perceive the bass as coming from the trunk.)

CA_GLC

I found some of the Focal KRS's that can be special ordered here in California for only $100 each. I believe the mounting depth is about 1.6" and the magnet is small too. The Focal distributor said they are labeled with different name to order the speaker without the tweeter/crossover box. I already got the regular KRS100 with tweeters for $450.

Then I'll be looking at about $200 for pro-audio installer. I have same budget as you no more than $1000. Not a big fan of booming bass like Cidtek, so not looking for sub.

But an amp for door speakers won't help much without DSP? I had bad luck with that JL Audio OEM Fix in prior car with Alpine amp that was shared with stock amp. Maybe I had a bad installer.

Mike5215

Well I think the problem is that the mids are too hot as is, and with the Focals they'll be even hotter. They may actually make the problem worse without some extra power and a DSP amp.

You still need to fill the mid bass gap. Even without adding a sub, just having the ability to EQ and set the cut off on the OEM sub would be huge.

You could use the less expensive Prima 6.9, run the doors on the 4 channels, bridge the remaining 2 to the factory sub. There's no mention of VNC on the A20. You wouldn't need the Fix82.

The Prima also has a line out for an external sub amp and box, so you could expand later if you wanted more bottom. Remember on the Focal 2 ways set the crossover position switch to Hi.

CA_GLC

Thanks makes sense, where do you get the Prima 6.9? Nowhere to be found on the net? Yes I need to save money trying to stick with stock sub.

Mike5215

Sorry, the next step from the 8.9 is the 5.9. No 6.9. You'd use one channel for each door plus one for the factory sub.

cidtek

Here's a video of a guy installing that in a 2015 CLA 45 plus Magicauto speakers

Mike5215

That'd do it.

vladarh

Just a little correction. The existing speakers are 2ohm, not 4. The system is advertised as "4x25W with Frontbass". So I'm guessing it's only 12,5W at 4ohm?

vladarh

I can confirm most of what Mike is saying.
The main issue is the freq. range 120 to 300Hz. The 8'' is playing them and it's way too high for it. It's messy and sloppy. There are two options of doing the upgrade:

1) Get a nice DSP amp (I would recommend Match M 5DSP - as good as the Prima but you can get a plug&play harness for it), change the front speakers (I did Focals) and get a simple coax speaker in the back (Match has decent ones for BMW integration). This way you can cut the woofer at 120Hz and leave the rest to the door speakers. You have all of the freq. range to play with and you can set timings as well (as Mike did).

2) Replace the door speakers the same way as above, run them from the HU amp and use the 5th pair of wires as the input signal for an active subwoofer kit. I would disconnect the stock woofer then as it would still mess up everything with it's crappy 250Hz reproduction. The problem here is that the stock amp still only feeds the doors with 250Hz+ (you would still miss the 120 to 250Hz, but would have a nice crisp low bass)

I decided to go for the first option (and it's more fun to play around with the DSP software ) The second option is a bit cheaper but doesn't fix all of the problems.

Mike5215

Yeah, that's a recent revelation on the 2 ohm. At least when harman/kardon used essentially the same speaker in the W221 they were 4 ohm. My error for assuming they'd be the same. I need to check the resistance in the 4" I took out of the Burmester as well.

So in your system with the Match DSP the website shows it as a straight DSP with low voltage RCA out, presumably for an amplifier. Did you need to buy an amp for your set up?

Edit: Found the version with the amp included.

The really cool thing about the Match is the available vehicle specific harness. Huge labor saver. Otherwise, on paper at least, it does seem to match the Audison in terms of power and features. How much for it plus the custom harness?

vladarh

Yeah, maybe those are 4ohm. They could be using 2ohm only in the base system?

vladarh

This is the one I ordered but I still haven't received it (should be installing next weekend):
http://www.audiotec-fischer.de/lng/en/m-5dsp.html

It's a 5 channel amp with a DSP and a USB connection for setup. The size is amazing, 110x85mm.

The price here in Norway is 720$ for the amp and the harness.

Mike5215

Got it. Get some pics along the way and I'll add it to the blog. Honestly the off brand name and the tiny form factor (size of a cigarette pack per the website) makes me a little nervous. None of that matters of course if it sounds good and works like it's supposed to.

I shouldn't say "off brand", just a brand I'm not familiar with personally. Reviews on BMW forum are very positive.

vladarh

It's the same guys who make the Helix line, and I know how good that is. I like the fact that you run the 4 channels through the harness so it's plug and play. And the sub has a dedicated cable (for passive subs) that connects to the 5th wire pair coming out of the HU. So I'll just cut that one and connect it directly to the sub cable.
The Prima 8.9 is the way to go with Burmester, but here the Micro Match should do the trick.

Mike5215

Yeah, if it does what they say it does it's the perfect upgrade path for the A20 cars. It looks like they have a database of tuning set ups by make/model. No 205 yet but you can add yours.

So I've lost track of what you're doing. Speaker wise what are you replacing and with what? Or staying stock and seeing what it needs after the DSP?

cidtek

What exactly defines A20? Is it all non Burmester even if the car has the Comand upgrade?

Mike5215

Actually it's all non Burmester even with the Burmester. The speakers at least appear to be identical in both systems, with the Burmester simply having more of them, and an external amp.

Burmester is an upgrade from the base Audio 20 sound system, independent of whether COMAND is selected (as part of the Multi Media package).

So you can have an A20 car with COMAND or without.

The difference between the two:

Burmester adds four tweeters, one 8" woofer, three 4" surround speakers and a DSP amp (presumably tuned by Burmester).

cidtek

So my non Burmester with Comand has the amp built into the HU then?


Where would the included harness for the Match M 5DSP be plugged into my Audio 20? Maybe I should wait for Vladarh to show us his install steps when his package arrives.


Edit: Hmmnnn according to the Audiotec website an adapter for non Burmester is not possible.

Mike5215

Looks that way. Typically you'd unplug the harness from the A20 HU and plug it in to the DSP, and then a new additional harness back from the DSP to the A20. Basically you're inserting the DSP between the HU and the speaker leads.

cidtek

Except now it turns out Audiotec is not offering an adapter for W205 cars. Hopefully their website just needs updating.