herbkell

I have 450 with the Burmester surround system that comes with the Premium Package up here in Canada (not the very expensive top of the line one) I am reasonably satisfied with the sound quality but find if a bit "muddy" at times. I believe there is no sub woofer and the bass/low end isn't very distinguished.

During my fairly short ownership of a BMW 550 I upgraded the sound system from the stock Harmon Kardon premium system to the aftermarket Bavsound amp and speakers. The beauty of this upgrade is that it was basic plug and play and integrated fully with the stock controls and trim. The upgrade was invisible to your eyes but not your ears!!

How do others feel about their Burmester systems and are there any aftermarket upgrades like the Bavsound ones for BMW?

rustybear3

I'm perfectly happy with my Burmester sound system. I'm so glad I opted for it, for at first having an E450 CAB, I thought the wind noise would make it inconsequential. Little did I realize how quiet my CAB would be with the top down, I would have missed out on some great music. A lot better than the basic Mercedes system IMO.

I tailor my system's sound through my Radsone app on my Iphone, and find it's equalization more than compensates for sound. I'm not one of those that needs to have it's bass so loud that 6 cars down and neighboring homes can hear it. The standard Burmester system exceeds my expectations, and is a pleasure to listen to, both top up and down.

sackboydad

Mine is awesome in my E450 Cab. Sounds amazing. Great deep rich bass too.

My my only issue is the completely abysmal quality of SiriusXM. It is so heavily compressed to cram more and more channels that there is ZERO dynamic range. Even on Bluetooth my phone connected sounds perfect compared to SiriusXM

mercedes.fan

Im not happy with the bass. It plays the mid and highs very well, but the bass is very muddy. It doesnt have a subwoofer and it shows, the bass is more like a deep rumble than actual bass. My evoques standard system was better in my ears...

whoover

I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Sirius/XM audio on the high-end (3D) system in my '19. Of course there's compression, but it's much less noticeable than on my previous cars. And the overall audio fidelity is quite good. I was expecting to never use it, but I find it quite acceptable now. I don't know if it's an improved receiver in the head unit, something about the Burmester 3-D signal processing, or both.

rustybear3

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I agree SirusXM traditionally sounds pretty bad in sound and fidelity. However, at least on my Burmester, it sounds much better than in past vehicles. However, not that great that I would consider keeping it once the trial runs out. Better music apps out there.

But. yes, agree, it's an awesome sounding system.

haibieb

Our Burmester sound system is great on our CLS. The quality of sound is also dependent on your source of the music (i.e. Apple Music, Pandora or Sirius.)

Egonvdv

I like it, but the only problem is that several speakers vibrate within the door itself.
so this is not burmester's fault, but it does impact the sound.
they've already re-fixed the speaker twice & changed two.. but makes no difference.

Lanzz

Yes, as Egon said, the speaker grilles rattle at certain frequencies, which I find annoying and the dealer claimed not to hear it. It's a good system, but let down a bit by the build quality of the door panels / speaker grilles. If I owned the car, I would take the door panels apart and address it myself, but it is a lease and goes back in December, so I just live with it.

madtrader

On my 2018 wagon I was impressed how much better SiriusXM sounded vs my 2012 W212, but as others have stated, SiriusXM isn’t a high quality source. My W212 had the upgraded HK sound system (I’m forgetting the name) and HD Radio was excellent sounding. On my wagon it was actually a bit disappointing, but I wasn’t sure if the HD Radio stations around here are any good. When I listed to HD Radio before in the W212 we were in a different region and therefore totally different stations. I tried streaming some music from my phone, and again I wasn’t particularly impressed, but I wondered if it was the quality of the songs on the phone. I need to put some high fidelity songs on removable media and try it out, but I’ve been too lazy to try it. I usually have the news on anyway.

c4004matic

Im very satisfied with the base burmester. There are indeed 2 subs in the firewall, its a "front bass system". I like it because the mids and the highs are very clear, however, as you pointed out, the mid bass can be a little "smeary". This might be a particular point of distress if you listen to boom boom music but otherwise you will never notice it. As far as deep bass, you would be surprised how deep it can go frequency wise, but again, the mid bass, where most of the boom boom music's bass is located is rather soft. Im sure you can place some subs in the trunk, but whats the point, they'll eat half of it! One point of advice, don't crank the bass up it makes the issue worse. Try lowering the treble slightly and the bass only to plus one.

c4004matic

The mids can indeed rattle. On my previous C Class it was worse.

2012 merc amg

I think it sounds great in both my wagon and my Cabriolet. I think in the cabriolet it sounds a little better. Strangest thing though. I had a 2018 E63 amg and I felt the surround system in that car sounded horrible. Night and day difference between that car and both my e450s. The amg had very muddy bass and just did not sound musical at all like my E450s do. I’m kind of a audiophile so I should know. One theory I have now is that perhaps the speakers were changed out at VPC before I bought the Amg. Somebody said that was going on in one of the other forums. Hard to believe this could be the case but it sure seemed that way. The two systems should not have sounded so different. Same amps and same speakers as far as I know. Unless mb changes something between 2018 to 2019. I guess I’ll never know the reason. But it did really bother me with the Amg. A 120k car with a stereo that sounded worse than a Hyundai. I’m very conscious of source too. Lately I’m really finding that amazon prime music sounds better than Apple I tunes. I think I’ll dump I tunes. I get Amazon Music free with my membership to prime. I tunes is 10 bucks a month. Internet radio sounds good too on any stations greater than 128 kps.

mister__p

I have mixed feelings about the Burmester. At the time of the new car purchase, I was rather annoyed with MB for making the stock sound system so below average. In previous cars I had owned ( Audi ), the stock sound systems were always very good - certainly good enough to enjoy a wide range of music at a healthy volume whilst the MB stock system struggled and stood out as a major mismatch with the car it was installed in screaming out at you to upgrade.

Having used the Burmester for six months, I think it is a decent system but when I think about the price of it + 100% tax, it drops many points.

stephos

Personally I'm very happy with the clarity and performance of the system on my coupe.

bimmer2benz

I would say, I'm neither happy or disappointed. It's just about where I expected it to be. I'm a little mad at you though... Because I had my 535 for 3 years and always debated getting the Bavsound but couldn't bring myself to commit; now your comment brings up unresolved feelings!