After purchasing this beautiful vehicle the client quickly realized it was not up to his standards in the audio reproduction department.
We upgraded the front stage with an active set of the ES 165 KX2E from Focal's new K2 Power EVO series. These feature a robust mid-bass driver and the FRAK "full-range tweeter," introduced with the K2 M line, which has flexible applications with its wide 600Hz to 32kHz frequency range.
The speakers were mounted in their factory locations utilizing factory mounting points limiting any modifications to the vehicle leaving it completely returnable to factory without issue.
This includes the center channel which still utilizes the "ball and socket"-style mounting solution from factory.
As part of the installation we treated the outer and inner door panels with Second Skin Dampifier PRO and Focal B.A.M. tri-layer sound treatment to reduce resonant vibrations and reduce exterior sound interference.
From the factory Mercedes uses a small, shallow subwoofer in an aperiodic enclosure in the trunk floor which was leaving a LOT to be desired in the low-frequency effects area. We fabricated a bespoke composite enclosure housing an Audiomobile EVO 10" subwoofer, which bolts to the body of the vehicle, and is mounted in the trunk corner on the passenger side.
A mObridge MOST coaxial pre-amp interface was used to get clean signal from the factory system. Signal was passed by an Audioquest TOSLINK optical cable to the Mosconi PICO 10-channel hi-res DSP with an 8-channel built-in amplifier providing over 500W of power to the full-range speakers. The Audiomobile subwoofer was powered by a Mosconi PICO mono-block amplifier with up to 750W dedicated to the bass response in the vehicle. Both amplifiers were bolted to a factory location under the rear seats via a composite mounting solution we made in-house leaving it fully serviceable yet hidden from immediate view.
The client wanted to ability to have a preset for driver-only as well as a pre-set when there were other occupants in the car. We utilized a capacitive touch hidden switch to give the client the ability to switch back and forth between the two presets without having the need for a controller. It was hidden in the inner edge of the front pocket along with a bass level control knob to adjust the bass response to the music and his personal taste.