RobInBoston

I have had professionally replaced all of my speakers with Match (brand) speakers in my 13-speaker Burmester system in my 2017 C300. I had been disappointed with the lack of mid bass and lower midrange sound. After searching for months, I decided to try the Match speakers which were engineered for this Mercedes setup. I began with the rear "surround" speakers on the parcel shelf. I was happy with those so I then replaced the front center speaker. Again, the sound was crisper. I still hadn't solved the lack of mid bass though. I went ahead and replaced all of the remaining speakers (2 front bass, 2 front door sides and tweeters, 2 rear 2-way coaxial sides). Even though my final results are mixed, I've gained some critical knowledge about sound engineering and using the equalizer to adjust the characteristics of these speakers. The Match speakers are brighter which I found became a bit too pronounced when I first installed them. I also made the mistake of cranking up the volume substantially in order to achieve a full sounding bass which made the upper mid range too harsh. THEN I read some material on sound frequencies and how they can cancel out one another in unexpected ways. In order to get a better mid bass sound out of this system, I needed to ratchet up the bass much more, but not the mid range and not the treble. l found that if I set the Treble at +1, The Mid Range at +2 or +3, and the Bass at +6 or +7, I was able to achieve a highly satisfying full range of sound, including the mid bass and lower mid range. The Match speakers produce some startlingly clear audio. I found everything from EDM to old AM hits from the 60s sounded great. Listening to old Beach Boys ballads, it's surreal the way it sounds as though they are sitting right in the car singing. With my very wide range of music, stored on sound cards, I find that the above mentioned setting (+1 Treble, +2 Mid, +6 Bass) works well without having to continuously make adjustments from one song to the next. I also learned that not all digital recordings are alike in quality, just as with my vinyl recordings that I transferred to digital. The commercially recorded music product has a wide range in quality. Some recordings are produced with way too much clipping. Others under-balance the volume and require adjusting the volume up as you go. There are recording processes to even-out (normalize) the volume factor (and other attributes), but you don't really want to average a high quality recording with a bad quality one. It's best to make the volume adjustment on the fly. I dare say, the original factory speakers in my system were not as good as the replacements, but if you are on a budget, you may not want to spend $2000 + (including labor) to replace them all. I am happy with the change I made. The money wasn't an issue. I just knew I could get a better sound than what I was hearing. If I hadn't done more research on applying the equalizer, I would probably still be complaining about lack of mid bass, but I have been able to mitigate that problem very well. The most important thing I learned to improve this system is DO NOT crank up the Mid-Range because it actually cancels out some of the Mid Bass and Treble in the process.