Mercedes Benz GLC Audio & feature upgrade

This Mercedes GLC with factory Burmeister came in to us, as the customer wasn't happy with his factory integration for Tidal, it not having wireless Apple CarPlay and him not being able to adjust the Burmesiter system enough to tune each individual track easily on the move.

We spoke at length with our customer to work out how he uses music (Tidal predomiantly) and how would be the best way to integrate this into his Mercedes GLC. Our Android 12, 12 inch screen upgrade ticked these boxes, as it allows him to use Tidal directly through the screen itself (by simply downloading the Tidal app direct to the screen, and save his favourite artists and playlists on the screen's internal memory) or by wireless Apple CarPlay from his app on his iPhone. He can still use the factory Mercedes system through the new screen and rotary controller, so he didn't lose anything, just added new features through a much better screen

Then we asked many questions about his home audio and headphone setup when not driving, to see how he likes to adjust his music to suit his desires, and to judge his level of expectation. Richard felt that his car offered him the opportunity to feel the music more, as he doesn't have to worry about disturbing the rest of the household or his neighbours when he may want to give his system some welly!! We felt that hiding an Audison Prima compact active subwoofer under the floor, and adding an Audison Forza M12 12 channel DSP amplifier, that alows us to control each speaker individually for frequency response, time correction and level, would give him a chance to get the maximum performance from each track while on the move. This equipment is all hidden under the boot floor, so doesn't affect how he uses the car on a daily basis. To keep to the customers budget, we decided to retain the existing Burmeister speakers, to see if they could give him the audio results he wanted, without having to replace them, but with the idea that we could always upgrade those in the future if we felt they would improve his experience, and if Richard felt he needed it. We're always happy for a customer to make that choice, as they can see the benefit of each pound they spend, and the improvement of each component fitted can be judged honestly by all parties.

To adjust these settings while driving, a subtle controller is mounted in one of the cupholders, to change between sound presets, sources (so Richard can choose between controlling by the Burmeister factory system, or by Toslink optical input from screen to DSP amplifier without Mercedes interfering with the audio result),master volume and sub control. This allowed us to get the existing Burmeister speakers to behave in different ways for different types of music.

With other Mercedes GLC audio systems we'd upgraded previously, we'd also replaced all the speakers, and experienced a far louder and more detailed response using aftermarket speakers, with a wider operating frequency (higher frequency performance and mid-bass performance especially seemed to need to use more of the DSP amplifiers power than we'd seen in other systems we'd installed for customers). To see how aftermarket speakers performed with the rest of the system, we surface mounted Audison Voce tweeters onto the a pillars, and ran them active from 2 of the Audison 12 channel amplifiers channels, to control them separately to the mids in the doors (we could also disable the Burmeister door tweeters by the amplifiers software without rewiring, saving labour time). We tuned this in situ with the customer in the driver's seat, and we both immediately noticed a massive improvement in higher frequency detail, level, and upper range (the Audison Voce tweeters could play higher frequencies the factory Burmeister tweeters couldn't hit, especially using the optical source).

Our next stage is to replace the firewall mid-bass drivers with Audison Prima AP8, which can go lower in the frequency range (to blend better with the active Audison sub, playing the mid-bass speakers and sub at the same time trick your brain into thinking your sub is your mid-bass drivers, which helps bring the lower frequencies forward in the car). We'll also replace the front door mids, to improve detail, efficiency and operating range. After tuning, this should also allow us to up sub bass performance too, as the active Audison sub is currently turned down to not overpower the OEM Burmeister speakers.

This will all fit behind the factory grills, to keep the OEM look, but improve audio performance.