Here we have Ron's brand new 2013 Mercedes Benz E63. So new in fact it only had 900 miles on the clock. Ron goes to the same gym as I do so over cardio we discussed what could be done audio wise because it wasn't up to par with what he wanted. The goal was easy. It needed to be LOUD. Well Focal and plenty of power via Mosconi got there.
First up is the front doors. The speakers were riveted in and once drilled out I was able to do some comparison pics. Ron's comment was "My motorcycle came with better speakers and this is a $100k car." Well the Focal K2 165 KRX2 will provide the proper audio experience this car deserves.
True to Octave style I made the adapter plates out plexiglas to guard against moisture that wood destroy MDF rings in a door.
To install the rings I used Rivet nuts to give me a proper mounting point for the rings. Also some foam tape was put down as a gasket.
Heat shrink on the terminals to keep moisture from the connections and the speaker were ready to go in.
With the mids done I turn my attention to the tweeters. Yet again a little lack luster on the OEM tweeters. To my surprise the Focal tweeters dropped right into the OEM location.
The door all done I got lucky again because the car didn't have a molex plug so running the speaker wire through the grommet was easy.
Driver's door done the passenger door got the same treatment.
With the door panels back on you can see those yellow cones peeking at you.
Now that the front doors are done the rears are up next. The rears offered a challenge. The speakers are riveted on but from the back of the panel and the panel itself is riveted to the door so the only option was to cut the surround on the speaker to get at the rivet.
After getting the speaker out another comparison was done with the Focal K2 165 KR. Yet again no comparison.
Just like the fronts the rear doors got the same treatment.
The rear tweeters are the same as the front. I also got lucky with the mounting on them in the rear door panels as well but my luck will run out on this car.
Just like the fronts you can see the yellow cones peeking.
With the doors done I turned my attention to the crossovers. As always I prefer to mount the crossovers inside the car for easy access down the road.
Now my luck comes to an end. The rear doors had a molex plug that I had to go through to run the wires. Wasn't that big of an issue because there is 2 open spaces to run 2 wires through.
Moving towards the back I was able to find space under the plastic floor board of the trunk to hide the crossovers.
With the front of the car done it was time to wire up the trunk. The trunk houses everything from the OEM amplifier to a power source. Custom RCAs were made to be able to go high level inputs to the Mosconi 6to8 DSP. I also used my favorite fuse tap to provide the turn on signal.
Last thing on the docket was to do build the subwoofer enclosure and amplifier rack. To keep everything one unit and not take up any trunk room the enclosure was mounted to the rear deck with the subwoofer firing down. Black Hole Stuff enclosure fill was used.
For power a Mosconi Gladen One 120.4 was put on the mids/highs and a Mosconi Gladen One 240.2 was put on the Illusion Audio Carbon 10.
Factory matched vinyl (matched down to the grain) was wrapped around the enclosure to give an OEM appearance.
And to finish things off a shot of the Illusion Audio Carbon 10 and a very curious and excited owner.
With everything done a base level tune done until the break period is done I can say I was overly impressed with the system. TO my surprise the doors had a lot of midbass even though no sound deadening was applied to the doors. Mercedes did a good job in that regard. But what impressed me most was the Illusion subwoofer. For it being a flat subwoofer it had output, got down in the weeds and was still detailed while doing it. Illusion Audio is back and better than ever. I'm looking forward to more system with the Illusion equipment. Good news for me I have 3 more builds booked featuring Illusion.
For more pics visit www.OCTAVEONLINE.com
For more pics visit www.OCTAVEONLINE.com
