Does anybody know if its possible to retrofit the bang olufsen soundsystem from the facelift w221 in a pre facelift? My friend just bought a S8 today with bang olufsen and it made my allready ****ty harman kardon sound like 1980s paper speakers :-)

Ive retrofitted the dynaudio soundsystem for many customers in vw's so all the wiring and stuff doesnt scare me thats what i do for a living, its more if its even possible, and it will work with the old comand/ audio gateway etc

 

I think you would be looking at quite a bit of work. All speakers, Amp, and more than likely Comand as well. I don't know if the B&O center channel in the middle of the dash is a different size than the H/K version, but I would assume it is since the center channel for H/K sounds like the speaker out of a fisher price radio. It would be a complex install to say the least. Is it possible? Yes. Will it cost boat-loads of money? Yes.

 

The B&O is a better improvement, but aftermarket system for the vehicle would surpass it in quality of the sound as long as it was installed properly... IE a professional

 

I agree with jbondox. The other benefit of going aftermarket is the fact you'll save money. I could only imagine what the price is on the B&O stuff. You could probably install an insane Focal audio system for half the price. The only problem is the amplification, but anyone who is experienced in the H/K audio systems should be able to figure it out.

 

+1

 

In my last car a audi a6 with factory bose, i installed 10k+ worth of focal sound in it, but because of the lack of settings with the mmi system it was never super wauw, i had a converter from dietz which made the fiberoptic signal into analog so you could add normal amps..

This will be a issue in the benz also, the thing thats missing the most in the HK system is bass, so maybe i should just start with adding a extra sub or 2

 

Yes! 2 Focal Subs!

 

That would be one costly upgrade. I don't even enjoy loud music idk why

 

I think aftermarkets is a probably the best way to improve our sound system.

The problem I see is cutting any of the factory wires. If we can figure out what type of connector the amp uses we can make a harness that's would give you bare wires to send the high level signal to an processor/amp of your choice and then back into the factory wires to the speakers.

A few shops I spoke to said by just amping up the stock speakers and disabling the cabin microphone would produce better sound

 

Does anyone have a schematic of the speaker system of these cars. This was sort of an issue with the 7 series, but I was able to add a nice set of 12's paired with a Sundown Amp. I used the MTX REQ5, tapped into the BMW OEM amp which will zero out factory preset speaker settings. From there you get the line outs for amp, adjustable crossover on the REQ5 for cabin speakers etc. It performed very well with the stock HU of the 7 series. The REQ5 took about 45 mins for install, the rest was time spent with the box, amp, making it look pretty in the trunk. Something I can look into if anyone has a PDF of the schematic. Here are some pics from the 7 I had.

 

Here u go

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B0HVRDBM
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9N53Q5VF

Installing a system in our cars is just as simple. All the wires you need are in the trunk. Battery is located behind the panel in the trunk behind the seats and the wires are on the left side inside the panels. You need to pull out the panel, try not to break the trim pieces. Took me less than an hour to install my Jl 500/1 and a 10w7. I tried to pull out the rear seats to remove the stock sub but half way through I was too burned out trying to remove the hundreds of trims just to get to it.

What I also find is turn up the gain on the amp and lowering your bass on the deck and leaving your stock sub connected. This seems to keep a fuller frequency inside the cabin. Cause no matter what I did I can't seem to tune the sub well enough to sound complete in the cabin due to all the insulation.