My circumstances changed and I ordered a 22 S-Class (to be built late July) and will trade in the 21 GLE450 when it arrives. There are no 21 or 22 S-Class to see or test yet, but I wish I could hear the 4D Burmester. It is a $6,730 upgrade on the new S-Class and I would like to know it it is worth it or consider an after market solution. There are plugNplay replacement speakers by Blam and Match, and the company that makes the Match speakers also makes Helix brand amplifiers that have a built in DSP (digital signal processor) but would take minor wiring surgery to intercept the output from the Burmester amplifier to the Helix amp and route it's signal back through the factory wires. Installers do this all the time, but I would only trust it to a high end installer. I actually started this process, but some investments went up so that I could afford the S-Class. My installer already installed 4 speaker locations so I told him I would pay him as I agreed, but he instead of installing the remaining 4, I will keep them and have him put back the original 4. The job was going to be done in 3 stages, 1. Front doors, under dash, and center channel. 2. Rear doors, and rear surrounds. 3. Add the amplifier. Just changing out the front door, under dash, and center speaker made about a 20% improvement, but if I was going to keep the car I would need all 3 stages done.

My installer will undo stage 1 a week from tomorrow, and I -think- the new S-Class will be a similar system, they now call it a 15 speaker system, but I will already have the new speakers. Anyway, there are options if music is important.

Wow. Most random post of 2021 there, I believe!

S-class is really nice, though.

Get the 4D Burmester if you want your S to sound the best it can from the factory. I am SO glad I got the 3D in my 2020 S.

I just got me 2021 E63S with the 3D sound, I am very impressed. Sounds way better than our 2021 GLE580 with the base system. Tweeters are a bonus, they look great spinning out with the ambient lighting.

Just got a 2021 GLE 350 and it lacks bass. Took it in for service to address the lack of bass and the dealers solution was to turn the bass up to 10. Bass is still hardly noticeable. Horrible sound for a luxury car. Very disappointed.

Did you tweak the equalizer for each input source? Not that you'll get thunderous bass, but it should be noticeable.

I didn’t realize you could tweak the equalizer for each input source, I will go back and double check. Appreciate the info!

For perspective i worked in radio for years in my youth and have a wide range of music that i listen to. I’ve also had amazing systems at times so i do know the difference between muddy sound and clarity. I bought a 2021 GLE450 in March w the base Burmester system and i find it is perfect for when my wife is with me or i have a car full of family or friends. Using surround mode and Bass +3, Mid 0 or -1, Treble +5 - The vehicle fills with sound w no dead spots and using a decent audio source it’s actually rather good. Alone in my vehicle when i want to rock out the system doesn’t make me feel like i’m at a concert as it doesn’t move me like a custom premium audio system would. But overall i’m happy with it. No doubt my 2013 BMW HK system rocked harder but this is a very nice system for most types of music.

If there were a local high end sound pro that could add a 10” sub w amp and tune the mid bass footwell speaker plus add some sparkling tweeters that’d be great but at this stage of my life (57) I enjoy driving this badass ride down the road with the music and light show

I agree with your most of your assessment -- but I find there is plenty of bass with the Burmester in my opinion. However when you find yourself waiting on your wife to get her weekly fill of Homegoods and rocking out in the car, if you recline your seat back about 20 degrees — that will bring your ears into the sound field of the rear door speakers, and it provides a-much better surround sound experience.

I think the speaker placement in the rear doors, combined with how the front seats are design/positioned, blocks a good portion of the rear door speaker sound field from your ears. The high end system solves this by placing the rear sound stage speakers in the ceiling, behind the front seats.

My ‘base Burmester’ sounds better to me as well - not amazing, but not terrible. I use +3, +0, +3 (bass, mid, treb) but have the fader set 3 towards the rear, and focus area for all occupants.

Thanks, the -3 fade balanced it out, surround is much better and balanced. Here's my settings, the sound quality is very good...try it for yourself.


Equalizer Settings

Balance and Fader

Sound Focus

Sound Profiles

I also have Spotify Premium, WiFi and cell streaming set to high, downloads set to very high.

My 2020 S560 went into the dealer two weeks ago for a rough downshifting transmission. They loaned me a new GLC300. Not bad. The base audio was also not bad. Today, I took my S560 back in, as they are going to replace the transmission. Upon request, they loaned me a brand new, 2021 GLE350, with the Premium Pkg., which includes the Burmester audio. HORRIBLE! I was astonished at how BRITTLE and HOLLOW the sound is. Overall, I truly dislike this GLE350. The GLC300, to me, was a better driving vehicle with better audio. In this day and age, HOW can a company like MB screw this up so badly?

Funny, I had a GLC300 as a loaner for some scheduled maintenance 2 months ago, and I like the sound system in my GLE 350 better. The GLC wasn’t bad, but the Burmester in my 350 is better. What music source were you listening to (XM?), and did you adjust the sound settings?

Ya, you never know what the previous "loanee" did to any of the systems in the car. I've come to sitting in a loaner and, after adjusting the seat and mirrors, I go straight to the sound menu and reset to flat.

I had the same experience with a loaner GLC equipped with Burmester. The audio was as good as my 2017 E class.

The GLE with Burmester I now have is terrible. I’ve been back to the dealership requesting to demo inventory GLE with and without Burmester. Which were equally terrible and confirmed the non Burmester was even worse.

MB is apparently aware of this as the update is audio quality related.. Sounds completely different after the update but still trash.

My friend bought this used for his 2021 Acura RDX and it didn’t work but it works on my GLE! He found this used online for $88.

Now that I've gotten about 500 miles on my GLE, I have to say that overall, I think the Burmeister surround system is finicky, but really not that bad. I'll preface by explaining that while I am not a professional musician, I'm an amateur and record a fair amount with professional audio equipment and have a solid grasp on "Neutral sound". The Burmeister system definitely appreciates higher quality audio sources and recordings. Satellite is average to decent, but much of the music I stream from my Iphone via amazon music has pretty good (not great) separation (I use surround), reasonably tight bass (I haven't had that overly boomey bass some have mentioned) good highs and a middle which seems best left at the center. I have treble at +4 and bass at +3 for now. Good modern recordings can sound pretty good and older recordings can sound very average and in some cases poor, but I find that on many digital systems. I'm not saying this is a spectacular system, but I really don't think it's bad and it seems to be loosening up a bit and sounding better. I also have no issue with getting it to low enough of a level that it is faint background music while having a conversation or driving with a sleeping 11 year old. Just my two cents.

I have spent my life producing audio, and currently own a small state of the art recording facility where I produce all sorts of music content.
I also develop algorithms using psychoacoustics intended to drive human performance through the calibration of sound grequencies.

I just purchased a 2021 GLE450 AMG sport night pack with a bunch of options Burmester surround sound included.
I know I am fussy about sound so take my comments below as comments driven by a passion for sound.

So.... I absolutely love this car, its amazing..... except for its sound.
This has to be the worst sounding system I have ever heard in a car, especially a new luxury car.
My previous car 2018 Range Rover Velar HSE had poor sound when I purchased it new, but after some firmware upgrades it got a lot better, to eventually being great, so heres hoping an update may be in store for the Mercedes shortly, or at worst Mercedes puts someone new in charge who can tune this system and release an update that fixes it.

The EQ control is a joke (IMHO) and on a lot of music content, the surround mode sounds like an old pro logic surround, phase or modal cancellation is super obvious.
In terms of imaging, there is none, it's like its impossible to attach a location to anything in a mix. maybe its just my car.

Put on your radio, or listen to a song and in either pure or surround mode try and detect where the voice is coming from. In my system the dialogue is somewhere around me, a place without focus.
I master audio files at 24 bit 48k and run from a USB drive, files mastered, on referenced Genelec 8341 monitors that are room calibrated and flat.

On playing any file created on this system they sound horrible. I have lots of other purchased files that are high bitrate these still sound horrible.
Tried standard AAC files from apple music and its worse.
I find however, if I work on an individual album, I can get it sort of ok, but on playing another album, I have to start all over again. Too much work.

My wife's KIA Sportage sounds 1000 times better.

In the two weeks I have owned my car, I have noticed a bit speaker break in though.
To me it sounds like there is something covering the speaker, some foam in the grille,
In terms of tuning, either the crossover points are crazy, or the speakers are phase cancelling themselves out (however at the volume im listening at I doubt it)

I just cant believe Mercedes would go to all the trouble designing something so amazing then put in a system that sounds like crap.

Car goes in tomorrow, let's see if there is something that can be done about it.
I had never heard of Burmester before purchasing this car, I purchased it outright and its my first Mercedes.
One thing for sure Burmester is a brand that will never be on my shopping list thats for sure.

The good news is the rest of the car is a dream.

I will report back if I hear anything.

Wangbar: Thank you for putting into technical terms what most GLE drivers simply call CRAPPY AUDIO. Having had a 2021 GLE350 loaner for a couple of days, I just could not believe my ears that the sounds coming from this high end vehicle were so brittle, harsh and lacking any richness or depth, which are my layman descriptive terms. One might think that someone—or perhaps “SEVERAL SOMEONES”—dropped the ball while designing these systems and that it’s just a fluke, but it has happened before.

EVERY SINGLE MB R231 SL model built between 2013 and 2020 has a similar problem. Whether one went for the standard Harman Kardon “Logic 7” system or the optional $5,400.00 Bang & Olufsen “BeoSound” system, the sound is just horrible. These systems ONLY sound decent when DVD-Audio discs are played, of which only a relative handful were ever produced. MB KNEW they had a problem as early as 2013, but they kept the same, CRAPPY systems, virtually UNCHANGED, throughout the EIGHT YEAR model run. AND, most all of these cars had an MSRP of over $100,000.00! Sometimes, it would just appear that the folks in Stuttgart just don’t give a damn about their customers.

If yo are talking about the "standard" Burmester, I agree with many things. I, too, have been involved in sound production, reproduction and design.
However the Burmester 3D sound (+$5k) is worthy. It's focus, wavefronts, time alignment are exemplary. The "VIP Seat" really demonstrates the advantages of the 3D system over the standard Burmester.

Try reclining your seat back…if you’re not driving. I find with the seat upright, I can’t hear the rear door speakers, which impacts the surround field.

I turn off the surround completely and enable "3D," which brings time-alignment into focus. And of course the VIP Seat.
"Surround" introduces too many artifacts for my taste.

UPDATE..........

OK, so got the car back from service here is Australia.
New Software for MBUX and Sound System was available.

New software was also available for the 48v system so all updated.

My new MBUX software version is apilevel/ntg6/081.

So onto sound.......
There is absolutely an immediate noticeable difference in the tuning of the audio, a difference for the better.
So after running tests on a number of different of different albums / musical works (all at least 16bit 44.1K ) some 24bit 48K I can now get the system to sound actually pretty good.
A mile away from how it used to sound.
The weird thing is the settings I have currently settled on.
They are certainly strange but Imaging is back (somewhat) I can hear front door speakers actually working overall balance is pretty good.
There is still a hump between approx 200 and 250 Hz, which makes things occasionally woolly sounding, but bottom end is definitely there, and whilst not exactly tight, its certainly not flabby like it was before.
I am actually excited, and whilst still not being the best system I have heard, it is now certainly not the worst, a title this system held a day ago

Take note of my weird settings, get the update then see what you think, I think you will be a LOT happier, I know I am....

Thanks @mikapen , I am sure your 3d system sounds great.

Apologies for any confusion, my post refers to the standard Burmester, which is the only available option on 21 model GLE's in Australia unfortunately.

Thanks @TexAg91 ,

Didn't think of that, makes some sort of sense, however I don't want to adjust my driving position.
But thanks for the tip.