g'day there,

thanks for your report i am thinking of doing the same with my car. The way you have put this report together i think i can give this a go.Thanks for your help and the time you have put into this report. cheers

 

What about the rear doors, Maybach has spinouts in the rear. I know the door is different, but what about the location for the tweeter...

Great Post by the way!

 

if you want I can provide the Nick's email address. He's the guy I ordered directly from. This way you can use PayPal instead of providing credit card over dhgate. He is also working on listing them for sale st his Amazon store.

 

Thanks! I didn't know Maybach had them for the rear doors. I will have to look for them...

 

This is based on my experience with the Burmester system in the W205 C, and the Harman/Kardon system in my W221 S Class. (I wrote the blog on upgrading the Burmester in both the C and S referenced in a previous post.)

All current MB sedans suffer from FrontBass syndrome. Typically, MB would use a conventional speaker array, with 6" woofers in the doors, a 4" mid and 1" silk dome tweeter, and a dedicated subwoofer on the rear parcel shelf. This is a tried and true formula that is very easy to tune.

With the introduction of FrontBass, there is neither a true sub-woofer nor any true 6" midbass speakers. Instead, MB relies on the resonating cavity in the cabin footwells to handle the whole range. Theoretically, mounting the speakers directly to the structure would give a transducer effect (the "hit" on a low frequency sound) that you can feel. That handles the ultra low end, and the resonating cavity should fill out the midbass.

In reality, um, no. The bass gets way too loose trying to play up high enough to meet the low end of the 4" midrange, and it's cutting through a lot of carpet and insulation, which makes it muddy.

With respect to the "Burmester" branding, that's exactly what it is and that's pretty much all there is. Burmester doesn't make car audio gear, and they didn't start making it when Mercedes licensed their name. The "Burmester" speakers are the same off the shelf stuff that has been installed in every Mercedes and BMW Harman/Kardon system since forever ago. I'm not saying the "Burmester" speakers are similar to the HKs...they're identical. Either they're made by Harman, or whichever supplier makes speakers for Harman also makes these.

I've auditioned the base audio in the W222 and I thought it actually sounded pretty decent. I'm not sure I'd change much. But the Burmester 3D, in addition to some more amplification, puts some real good old fashioned 6" woofers in the doors (as well as more surround speakers. But those 6" make a huge impact. For that reason alone I'd pay the freight for the 3D.

With respect to the special 3D tweeters. Starting with the optional Bang & Olfsen system in the W221, Mercedes decided to add some eye candy to distinguish the $6400 upgrade. Their solution was to pull a little razzle dazzle with the tweeters, since they're right at eye level I guess. So the B&O got very exotic looking tweeters that were also illuminated. Snazzy!

To create these exotic looking tweeters they took a plain old standard issue 1" silk dome tweeter (I have a coffee can in the garage full of them) but rather than surface mounting it vertically, like all car tweets since the dawn of time, they created a housing where the tweeter fired straight up. Obviously orienting the tweeter, which is a very directional speaker, so it fires up into the roof is a bad idea. So they created a little diffuser (they call it an "Acoustic Lense") that then reflected the tweeter's output horizontally into the cabin, which is where it belonged in the first place. All sizzle, no steak.

Likewise, to create some obvious outward expression of how much more the Burmester 3D system cost, you got the latest incarnation of the all form/no function, rotating and illuminating tweeters. I have not dissected a Burmester 3D tweeter housing but my guess is inside all that stuff is a plain old basic car audio tweeter. The rest is eye candy. Obviously, illumination is irrelevant. Rotating the speaker baffle inward toward the cabin by a half inch is likewise, um, not necessary from an audio performance standpoint.

The reason the knock-off Chinese units don't sound any worse than the standard Burmester is that in all likelihood they use the same actual tweeters.

As best I can tell, Burmester's contribution in these cars is limited to design and tuning, and in licensing their exotic premium brand name. Again, I haven't dissected a 222 so I can't say for certain. But if MB holds true to form, the Burmester in the C, E and S share components, with the S getting more stuff, although not necessarily better stuff, unless you spring for the 3D, in which you definitely get more stuff and possibly better stuff, but I doubt it.

 

would the audison 8.9 u mentioned in your write ups cure this? after reading your posts I was planning on going audison 8.9, adding 3D tweeters and over head dual speaker, and putting a mono amp and sub in trunk.(I got an extra w6 in the garage)

the frontbass syndrome is annoying and the lack of equalizer tuning is annoying.. it's weird that my 87 grand national has a better equalizer in the stock radio..lol

 

So the 222 has existing cavities for 6" speakers in the doors which is huge. No such luck in the 205. Unfortunately you'd either need to cut into your door panels and use an aftermarket grille, or ideally just buy a set of door panels from a 3D car.

As the 222 sits now, I'd run the Prima for 3 Way active in the front (Frontbass, 4" mid, tweet) and 2 Way passive in the rear doors. That'll use up the 8 powered channels. The 9th low voltage sub out would need to go to a separate amp and a box in the trunk. I wouldn't add any more surrounds at first.

When you're tuning the Prima, and with an active set up in front you can tune each individual speaker for EQ, crossover, level and time correction) you'd repurpose the Frontbass speakers to function as true mid bass drivers, and smooth out the transition to the 4" mids. Since they tend to be bright, a little EQ helps take the edge off.

Then you'd tune the sub to start way down low and cut off where the Frontbass start coming in. You also might consider replacing the stock mid/tweet with the Focal KRS100 vs the "3D" tweets. They sound good, aren't power hogs, and the tweets are very nice, much smoother and cleaner than stock. No light show though 😕.

The other speakers (center dash and rear parcel shelf) that are orphaned on the Prima just leave on the factory amp and tune around them. The Prima has so much DSP it's very easy to blend everything in. That part always flips people out but I've done it now on two cars and I've never found it necessary to get into them.

Basically if you used the system in the 205 write up you'd be in good shape.

 

nice, my buddy is a dealer for focal. he told me the same as far as tweeters, and to use my jl sub. he thinks they are better. thanks for the info. your write ups are very informative. I appreciate the knowledge

 

The base audio in the 222 is on par with my Audi A4s original system. It's what my car started off with, and something which had to change due to how bad it was. Edit : My bad, I'm in the UK where the base audio system is below Burmester

 

Yeah, I had just done a major overhaul of the HK system in my 221 and at the time everyone was raving about the Burmester in the 222 (which is a vast improvement over the HK) so I wanted to hear them together. I'm not sure there wasn't some placebo effect going on what with the fancy grilles and the cool Equalizer thingie though. Once I got the grilles off of the Burmester in the 205 and realized they probably cost more than the little wispy speakers behind them my perspective changed.

 

So they work identical to factory installed ones then, right? I knew you wouldn't really tell a difference in sound. If anything, they'd probably sound better. I once swapped the tweeters out from a matched component set for more expensive tweeters one one blew and I couldn't get the original anymore, and the new ones sounded better.

 

Yes, they work identical to factory installed. I will gladly upload a video clip showing how they work if anyone requests it.
I figured they would not sound any worse or degrade the overall sound quality but I am surprised at how much better they sound over stock... it may be some placebo effect but I am VERY happy wih it

 

I guess another question is are they plug and play (sometimes MB prewires stuff even if the car doesn't use it)? Otherwise you're running new cable for power to the motor and for illumination. Also they need to be able to match the color and intensity of the rest of the cabin lighting which I think requires a CAN bus connection of some kind. They have these units for the W205 C as well but the C definitely isn't prewired for the 3D tweets since the 3D system isn't available on the C.

 

Yes these are plug and play. If you click on the link to the product they show pictures of the control module and how it plugs in. This does not require any additional CAN bus connection (unlike my installed motorized license plate module did) as MB prewired lighting controls i.e. Your door panels already have illumination in them and therefore this uses signal from the same controller. The speakers change colors and intensity automatically when you make changes through Command.

 

You got very lucky here. Seems MB had it already setup and programmed for non 3d models. Usually with mercedes, adding stuff like this requires some type of re-coding. Luckily, this is one simple add on to do! I will admit, this was one of the coolest looking gadget type things I saw when I was in the 3d car. I know it's mainly looks, but I love stuff like this. Too bad it probably can't be put into other cars

 

I don't think it was pre-wired for non-3D cars out of luck... since they have lights in the door panels already someone figured out how to "intercept" that signal. Luck for me would be if they pre-wired subwoofers and amps but just left out the hardware lol. That's what this car really needs imo.
I totally agree with you on the looks of these speakers... they definitely add to the car and at $800 I found it to be worthwhile!

 

Cool stuff. So, I wonder what Mercedes charges for these from the dealer? $2k?

And these are a replica item?

 

I saw some OEM ones on eBay for $1500. I'm sure if you bought at a dealer it would be closer to $2k (factor in sales tax). These are "replica" but the speakers looked the exact same so they could be just considered aftermarket.

 

wouldn't call it luck. all your doing is adding another component into the existing speaker wires and ambient lights. like hid lights on non hid cars.

 

With Mercedes you're it's never usually this easy. lol. Even that lighted star emblem that fits some cars. Pretty darn involved with new modules, etc. You think it would just hook to the parking light wire, nope.

 

You can't retrofit the 3D Subwoofer with the amplifier its meant to have. It has an amplifier independent from the main burmester 3d amplifier which I had bought and spent a lot of time trying to fit. If anyone does manage to do this, I would love to know how as I have it's amplifier still lying around. I asked SteveNL, someone I was recommended to by guys here due to him being the master of retrofits and he said you couldn't. In order to retrofit the subwoofer I had to use a different amplifier, namely a Rockford Fosgate one.

 

The roof speakers with Burmester 3D aren't plug and play, neither is the rear sub. I'm quite surprised to hear that these front tweeters were. In order to retrofit Burmester/Burmester 3D I had to have a friendly dealer add data to the cars VeDoc for which they had to contact the main Mercedes branch in the UK, and then in order for the speakers to work, the dealership had to do online SCN coding.

 

it makes sense. tweeters are being replaced nothing's added. easy to make a harness for that, which allows a plugnplay install. adding extra 3d subs and roof speakers that require amps is the pain. aftermarket amps help ease that a tad.

so did you retro fit the 3d amps or wire the 3d speakers to aftermarket amp? I'm in the process of doing my audio now and I can't decide what route to take.

 

Somewhat off-topic but I thought this article was interesting. I know that there are some TVs now that use the entire screen surface as their "speaker", so this is along the same lines.

 

Any info on the rears?