SLS/R197/C197 AMG: $6,500 radio
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Joined: May 2012
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
$6,500 radio
Hopefully one of you guy's have the radio upgrade. My rear speaker puts out hardly any sound. My service advisor turned the bass up all the way. He says it's supposed to be that way. I blasted the stereo and put my hand on the speaker grill and felt hardly any vibration.
What's the deal? The radio sounds like all treble.
What's the deal? The radio sounds like all treble.
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Joined: Dec 2013
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SLS AMG
I've got the BO upgrade, but it's a sound system upgrade, not a radio upgrade (just to be precise).
I assume you have gone in and checked the settings to make sure the bass is a decent/high level - and that the treble is not too high. I looked at my settings just the other day and it seemed like they had changed (without me changing them). I prefer a middle setting for treble, and a slightly above middle for bass. And the settings I found had the treble too high (which I know was not where I left it).
My system (maybe yours, too) allows to have a left (driver) or right or center focused sound set up. This made a difference for me. I set it to "left" (or driver, or whatever it said, I don't remember exactly) and it definitely improves the sound for the driver's side.
Overall there is enough bass for me. It's not all treble. It's not "shake the world and 4 cars behind me" bass, but I don't want that.
(And I've said this before... the $6,000 upgrade isn't worth $6,000. It's a nice system, but not that nice)
I assume you have gone in and checked the settings to make sure the bass is a decent/high level - and that the treble is not too high. I looked at my settings just the other day and it seemed like they had changed (without me changing them). I prefer a middle setting for treble, and a slightly above middle for bass. And the settings I found had the treble too high (which I know was not where I left it).
My system (maybe yours, too) allows to have a left (driver) or right or center focused sound set up. This made a difference for me. I set it to "left" (or driver, or whatever it said, I don't remember exactly) and it definitely improves the sound for the driver's side.
Overall there is enough bass for me. It's not all treble. It's not "shake the world and 4 cars behind me" bass, but I don't want that.
(And I've said this before... the $6,000 upgrade isn't worth $6,000. It's a nice system, but not that nice)
Thread Starter
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
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From: San Francisco
2011 SLS Gullwing
Hopefully one of you guy's have the radio upgrade. My rear speaker puts out hardly any sound. My service advisor turned the bass up all the way. He says it's supposed to be that way. I blasted the stereo and put my hand on the speaker grill and felt hardly any vibration.
What's the deal? The radio sounds like all treble.
What's the deal? The radio sounds like all treble.
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 395
Likes: 1
From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 395
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
The BO sound system is my biggest disappointed about the car. Being a bit of an audiophile, I was really expecting a lot for a $6500 up-charge sound system. Not that I've every been that impressed by a factory sound system, but this one is pretty disappointing for the price tag.
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From: Mandeville, La.
2011 SLS AMG coupe, 1997 Yellow/Blk Hummer H1, 2014 Monterey Blue SLS AMG GT roadster
B&O sound
I’m with Newport on this one.....I’d much rather listen to the exhaust note.
When dialing in the sound system be sure to use the CD that came with the car to tune. The sound is completely different.
When dialing in the sound system be sure to use the CD that came with the car to tune. The sound is completely different.
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
No CD came with the car. I just spoke with the parts dept. They had no clue as to what I was talking about. Do you get sound from the rear speaker?
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SLS AMG
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From: San Francisco
2011 SLS Gullwing
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SLS AMG
1) The most bass feel in the rear comes from just in front of the indicator lights that warn if you are about to hit something. There is not a speaker grill there, but maybe a "subwoofer" or bass speaker is there (underneath the fabric)
I would say it does not "vibrate". It thumps lightly or medium lightly. It is not a heavy bass at all. But it's there. I'd like it to be a little stronger, but it doesn't have to be.
2) I'm starting to think there might be a software glitch. I checked the levels again, and it seems (not verified) that the treble was set higher again. Nobody drives the car but me and the treble was set higher than I like it. I put it back at "0" (centered) and I'll look again in a day or two to see if it has increased.
I would say it does not "vibrate". It thumps lightly or medium lightly. It is not a heavy bass at all. But it's there. I'd like it to be a little stronger, but it doesn't have to be.
2) I'm starting to think there might be a software glitch. I checked the levels again, and it seems (not verified) that the treble was set higher again. Nobody drives the car but me and the treble was set higher than I like it. I put it back at "0" (centered) and I'll look again in a day or two to see if it has increased.
Last edited by bteasley; Oct 11, 2017 at 10:04 PM.
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From: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
SLS Irridium silver,2014 GL350 BT Irridium, 2015 White Dodge RAM Hemi Quad
As said here, the sound system, the BO which was on my car was by far the most disappointing item on the car. It was down right embarrassing. Any increase in volume rendered the sound to become all distorted.
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2018 E63S Wagon
There was a post somewhere with a comment from the B&O engineers that worked on the SLS stating even they were sorry for how the SLS' system turned out. They amount of space they were given for bass enclosures was inadequate. Also you will notice that if you turn the system on and bass-heavy music is playing you will get a split second of deep, loud base before the audio processing retards the output on the rear speaker. This was intentional to prevent distortion, they believed no bass was preferential to distortion.
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
I bumped the bass up most of the way and listened to a song with a lot of bass. This was with the top up in my garage. it sounded the way I like it. With the top open, the radio compensates for the changed acoustics. I'll try it out this morning. I found no advantage to bias it left or right but it sounds as good as my stock stereo in my '16 S-Coupe. Well, it came with the car. It was the last iridium silver 2014 in the country. The final edition came out several months after the purchase.
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Joined: May 2012
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From: Florida
AMG SLS & S coupe
Yesterday, in the garage, I was playing with the radio. Quite a difference with the top up. It sounds great until you put the top down. You loose a lot of bass.
This is from the link posted NewportSLS......
Fine-tuning the sound
The process of adapting the sound experience to match the acoustics of the SLS AMG cabin required around 400 hours of intense testing and retesting by a team of skilled sound engineers. And for the SLS AMG Roadster, when this process was complete it started all over again, as the acoustics needed to be retuned to suit the acoustics of the car when the fabric soft top is down.
This is from the link posted NewportSLS......
Fine-tuning the sound
The process of adapting the sound experience to match the acoustics of the SLS AMG cabin required around 400 hours of intense testing and retesting by a team of skilled sound engineers. And for the SLS AMG Roadster, when this process was complete it started all over again, as the acoustics needed to be retuned to suit the acoustics of the car when the fabric soft top is down.
Last edited by Daytona-flyer; Nov 4, 2017 at 04:52 AM.
