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Sound System Plus upgrade (part 2)

Forrester

Active member
Joined
11 May 2014
Messages
37
An update on my improvements to the basic sound system in my 991.1 C4S ...

The first stage involved the replacement of the rather useless ASK tweeters with a pair of Dynaudio MD 102 ESOTEC tweeters. These are amazing little beasts (100W RMS) and transformed the sound in the car substantially, though as you might expect the sound was a little unbalanced – excellent high notes but that showed up the rest of the system.

So, on to phase 2 – replacement of the door speakers. For the woofers I chose Audison Prima 8's for two reasons – first, I thought that the might fit the existing 8" adapters (they didn't) and secondly, the depth was such that I thought that they might clear the window (and with a 16mm adapter they did with a roomy 5mm to spare). For the mid-range, I chose Audison Voce AV3 – a little smaller than the existing ASK 100mm mids but they fit nicely into the door cavity whereas the equivalent Prima 4s didn't.

I've no particular beef as to whether to use Audison, Focal or whatever - I've just chosen what seems to be about the right power and just as importantly what will fit.

Just as a reminder, the rules of the game are:

1) no butchering the wiring harness
2) no holes drilled
3) no 'boxes in the boot" (or the equivalent in the frunk)
4) the aim is to be (a lot) better than Burmester (Bose isn't even in the running).

In other words, the look and feel has to be OEM and everything has to be reversible just in case anyone ever wanted to go back (unlikely, I know, but ... )

I installed the woofers first and that improved some things quite a bit. For the first time I could feel the floor pan vibrate when I cranked up the volume, but in fact that made the overall sound worse. I could hear low notes and high notes fine, but the mid was simply drowned out. Also, I think the basic amplifier might not have enough oomph to drive the Prima 8s (plus the doors don't help: a 2.5mm thick plastic frame is not a great place for a woofer).

Next, I installed the Voce mids. They are twice the weight of the original ASK mids (220g vs 110g). But what a difference they made! A total transformation! For the first time I've actually got a more than a decent sound stage! I can actually discern clearly what the singer is doing, where the drums are and so on. However, I think the center dash speaker is mushing things up a bit – that will go (along with the rears)| when I replace the ASK amplifier.

This is as far as I can go without pulling up the carpets and installing a new amp. I've had to change my original plan of using a Mosconi One 60.8 DSP to a Mosconi Gladen D2 80.6 DSP (same overall power, but fewer channels and quite a bit smaller) since the One won't fit under the seat where the original amplifier is because there's the tracker in the way. The downside is that the D2 is on back-order – delivered within the next few weeks hopefully.

On the sub-woofer side I've got a Rockford Fosgate Punch 300W sub amplifier and a Focal Utopia Be 13WS sub-woofer ready to be installed, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to take out the carpets to get to the power distribution point - I think this is in the passenger footwell - and I'm only going to do that once. Both the amplifiers require a fair amount of juice with 6mm power cables, so that has to be taken from the main cabin power point.

Overall, though – just replacing the speakers has improved the sound beyond all recognition - even without messing with the amplifier. Total cost so far is £1600 and I expect to pay a few quid more for cables, fuses, etc.

So the spec now is

2 x Dynaudio MD 102 ESOTEC tweeter @100W
2 x Audison Prima 8 @ 100W
2 x Audison Voce 3 @ 50W
1 x Focal Utopia Be 13WS @75W

Mosconi D2 D2 80.6 (6 channels @ 80W = 480W)
Rockford Fosgate Punch PBR300X1 @ 300W

I'm now waiting on the delivery of the Mosconi for phase 3!
 

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Just curious to know if you installed the Mosconi Gladen Amp/DSP and what the outcome has been? Would be really interested to know!

James
 

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