Now that I've decided to keep the S it's time for more mods. Wednesday she goes in for a Prima 8.9 OEM audio integration unit, my final step (probably) in the audio rehab. It steps in between the factory amp and speakers and gives you a crapload of digital signal processing capability, way beyond COMAND's Bass/Treble.

Config is done on a laptop jacked in to the module.




Also enroute (thanks Jason) some MidCity gear to allow remote engine start via the smart key and IPhone. It's hot as f' down here and it's gonna be awesome to be able to pre cool the car.

Write up to follow on the Prima!

 

Jason B has remote start for our cars?

 

+1

 

Yep. He has either the basic Smartkey remote (pressing and holding the Panic button starts the car when the key is in range) or an upgrade that adds starting plus lock control from anywhere via a Smartphone app.

 

+1 for remote start.

 

Correct on all of the above. If anyone needs help with it, just call or send me a text. The smartphone add-on is pretty cool and will rejuvenate your car into thinking it's a 2015

 

It works on 07+?

 

Yep, 07-13 S class (and most other Benz's), and soon 14+ (still in development)

 

How much is this unit? Do you think it would make major improvements to the sound with the stock speakers still in place?


I hope you put together detailed install instructions with pics when you install this unit. I'm looking forward to seeing what your results are....and where you decide to mount the amp.

 

Sure will. The amp is very compact, and my guess is it'll tuck into the same cavity as the factory amp.



There should be no outward signs of a mod at all. And I do think there's more than enough processing power to make a huge improvement in the stock system.

That's really the purpose of the Prima 8.9 vs the Bit One. The Bit One is a stand alone processor with low level outputs intended for aftermarket amps and speakers. The Prima has an 8 channel amp on board and puts out signal directly to the speakers. The Prima is a "mild" amp in terms of power, to suit the typically high efficiency OEM speakers in most cars.

The HK speakers are high efficiency with relatively mild power needed to produce volume. In this install, the Prima is taking over the main speakers in the 4 doors.

Each individual speaker in the front door (woofer, mid, tweet) gets its own dedicated channel (Channel 1: Left Front Door Tweeter etc.) That takes 6 of the 8 available channels. That configure gives you pinpoint control of the main speaker arrays.

The rear doors are treated as having a passive crossover, so each 2 way set gets a single channel each, and that's your 8 total channels.

The subwoofer in the rear deck is getting its own mono amp but its signal is coming from the Prima as well but unpowered. That's the ".9"

The front dash center speaker and two rear surround speakers on the rear deck will remain on the OEM amp. Combined, the three amps should provide plenty of power, and the system remains a 12 channel system.

One plus of the stock system is that it's already wired with each individual speaker on its own channel, so with a W221 audio wire schematic (which was already on the forum) we know the color codes for every speaker. As a result if you're not upgrading speakers there's no need to crack open the door panels. The whole install takes place in the trunk.

Once I've had a chance to dig into the processor I'll have a better idea of the impact it would have on the stock system. Cost is just under $1k for the Prima plus install.

 

For the record the install is being done by Sound Depot in Gainesville.

The left trunk cavity was too tight for the Prima and the small sub amp. They built a rack on the passenger side of the rear seat back.

 

Would that be going in the spot where the accessory battery is located in the earlier models? I'd be interested in hearing your results and finding out the optimal tuning for each speaker, especially since it can be done via laptop.


Also, is this thing pretty much plug and play? Or do speaker wires need to be spliced into the amp?

 

Yeah, that rack will be wrapped with trunk liner and look less like a shop class project, they were testing size in that pic. Not sure where the accessory battery goes on the 07-09, that could be it but I though it was in a panel behind the rear seat back for some reason.

It doesn't interface directly with the Harman/Becker amp. It needs its own power supply, and for the signal you have to splice into the Prima. In terms of being able to just jack right on to the Becker with a big prefigured connector, that day is not here yet. The device itself would need to be able to take all 12 channels, too, rather than 8.

I also looked for a way to take the fiber optic input before it got to the Becker. They exist for MOST systems like in my old 220. From a noise standpoint that's preferable, but nothing for a CAN system that I've seen.

As for tuning, those controls and concepts are all very familiar to me and it shouldn't take long to have screen grabs speaker-by-speaker to share on the forum. Folks can use them verbatim, or save them as a preset and then experiment, able to go back to the "safe" configuration

Me, with the Focal and Hertz speaker upgrades and the Prima and sub amp, my days of coveting the B&O cars may be officially over. Should have her back Friday. Typically the shop's tune is terrible. They try to do it by the numbers, not by ear.

The way to do it is to listen for example to a vocal or guitar solo and think "I need to knock off a couple of decibles at the 4khtz range, and then slope back up from 12khtz to 20khtz to bring the cymbals forward. Then go to the Prima and dial that in to the equalizer. It'll sound close and I can fine tune the rest. Otherwise you're trying to work from the math, raising and lowering things to what they "should" be without regard for how terrible that may sound.

These W221 optimized speaker configurations will be based obviously on my aftermarket speakers, but they should work well for the OEM HK, since we're still both fighting the same factory DSP and EQ, Also with the Prima you're able to set crossovers via a bandpass filter, set delay, equalize (and this is after the Prima has stripped out the factory EQ to perfectly flat) and adjust each speakers relative power, helpful with mismatched sets like mine.

Believe me, as soon as I get it back I'll be living in it with my laptop until I get it perfect.

 

Pics...



Prima (top) and small sub amp in new rack.





Small JL sub amp was chosen because it runs very cool under load, good for installs without ventilation. Prima is also low heat.





Outputs from the Becker factory amp routed to the Prima and back to the speaker harness.

Nothing visible once the trunk liner is replaced. COMAND controls and integration was left totally stock. I should get my hands on it tomorrow and start tuning! Also picked up a mini laptop on EBay for $50 to keep in the car for running the set up and configure software.

I was incorrect in my previous post re the mounting location. It's the space on the passenger side of the rear seat back, not on the right quarter panel,

 

Update: The system is installed but it's wonky when it comes to saving the tuning map. Hit or miss, may be a firmware issue or a defective device. It's going back in tomorrow for the MidCity toys so the shop will dig into the Prima too.

I'm not 100% sure the unit is functioning at its full potential yet so I'm reluctant to comment on the audio output. So far it's underwhelming. Essentially the dash center speaker, which is still on the factory amp, overpowers the door speakers on the Prima. However the factory sub on the JL 300 watt amp sounds great and hits hard. The myriad sound shaping tools work well with a lot of adjustment range across the board, but with the center blaring away it's hard to tune by ear at this point.

The shop has a 30 day amp upgrade policy so if once configured correctly the Prima just isn't enough I'll get a 100% credit toward a step up. That would be the non powered Bit One processor and a new 8 channel JL high output amp. Luckily the connections for the Prima and the Bit One are the same so no big labor hit.

Also, to Dave's question there is a custom harness adapter Kit by Audison for plug and play with the W221, at $700.

Stay tuned...this stuff is par for the course with aftermarket audio gear. I'll report back once the Prima is running as intended...

 

Well the installer and the support guys at Audison have been going back and forth all day and the unit needs a software update and a different wiring arrangement (the rear door tweets weren't playing).

According to the shop they were able to get an updated configuration and tuning map to load and it's now producing plenty of output and power.

The installer got paid a flat 6 hours on the job and he's got close to 20 in it so far. I'm throwing him a hundred dollar tip when I pick it up.

 

Picked up the car today with the Prima module running correctly. It sounded great out of the box with no custom tuning, but it really came alive once I connected the laptop and did some fine tuning.

Plenty of power, very clean, wide open soundstage. Easy to get the levels set so that the center channel and rear surrounds (which by necessity remained on the stock amp) blended properly.

Having control of each individual speaker's frequency band, level, equalization and time correction gives you enormous control over how the system sounds.

The software lets you "solo" a speaker or group of speakers so only they are playing, allowing you to hear them in isolation and then toggle back to the full mix to see how your changes affect the overall sound.

Having the factory sub on its own channel on the Prima was a good call. It plays incredibly loud. I cut its frequency off fairly low at 60hz so it's just providing the thump of the bass drum. The front door subwoofers pick up the bass north of 60 and run up to 1000, working more like conventional woofers than subs, although they do thump a bit as well. From the drivers seat the sense is that there is no rear sub and all the bass is right up in the front seats with you. Most of this is achieved using band pass filters, but I did add some mid bass to the front door woofers by adjusting their individual EQ. Same with the rear sub, to get it to hit a little harder.

The rear door 2 ways are on a passive crossover and get a full range signal. They contribute a good amount of fullness and ambience.

The front door 4" midranges were way too forward in the OEM system. Easy fix, just narrow their range and then push down their individual volume levels so they blend better. The tweets, also individually adjustable, got some EQ to decrease brightness and "sweeten" the cymbal sounds and were also pushed down in level just a touch.

If you want high end sound in the car without gutting it and going all aftermarket this is the mod for you. In fact I wish I'd done this before I did the speaker upgrades. The factory speakers on the Prima, which also strips away the terrible factory EQ, would have been fine with the Primas level of audio processing power.

I'll do a stand alone write up and attach a zip file with my configuration and all of the settings for the W221 so if anyone who isn't an audio geek wants the results I got, they can just load that file into the Prima and they're done.

The Prima was $950, the JL sub amp was $350. Install was 8 hours at $90 an hour, and that included fabricating the amp rack.

 

It's too bad that the factory didn't get the tuning of the stock system correct so that we wouldn't have to spend $2k to get it to sound right. Lexus offers a lot of customization of their Mark Levinson system right in the car and it sounds great right out of the box. The HK has significantly more power and should have allowed for better customization with correct separation of the signals....instead of the lame bass and treble only.


I'm glad you were the pioneer here and I'm looking forward to seeing your specs. Much cheaper to spend $2k to get the sound right than going full custom as you said. I wonder if any of the guys over at Aston Martin know about this as I've heard that their stock system has tons of power but sounds horrible.

 

It's so easy to game amp wattage numbers. An amp rated for 500 watts into the typical 4 ohm speaker load becomes close to a miraculous 1000 watts if they run less hefty 2 ohm speakers instead.

An amp making 250 watts into speakers with high efficiency plays as loud as a 500 watt amp into low efficiency speakers. Without knowing everything the wattage ratings are pretty meaningless. Not to mention how the speaker arrays are configured or how the system is tuned to the car.

I don't think Mercedes bothered much with the stock system, presuming that audio buffs would spring for the $6400 B&O.

The Prima puts out an honest 35 watts per channel over eight channels into a 4ohm load. In the 221, that's more than enough to run the six front door speakers and four rear door speakers. The car is louder than I would need it to be and I could still dial more in if I needed it. I like it loud and powerful especially for rock. I just sat in the garage listening to Aerosmith's Toys In The Attic, Eagles Studio Album set and the first Boston album at full tilt and you could hear it playing inside the house.

I still haven't heard the B&O but I can't imagine it's any louder or cleaner than the HK/Prima system.

Really pleased with the results. Great solution for vastly more clean and powerful audio without hacking the car all up or spending a fortune.

 

It occurred to me that part of the fun of the remote start via phone app is the ability to prewarm the car in the winter. However that would involve reaching my hand out of the door from the garage to the house to press the button and open the garage doors for ventilation. So I added a Chamberlain wifi module and app so I can control the garage door from the phone as well.

 

Now your going have your neighbors knocking on your door telling you that you left your garage up.