Factory Audio SQ help

[randomguy 10+ year member]

I have a 2006 Mercedes Benz E350 that has the Harman Kardon Logic7 Surround Sound.

It allows me to use Standard or the Logic Surround Sound within the Comand OEM Headunit that comes with the car. It sounds just okay to me. I want to keep from changing as little as possible in my Benz. The thing is clean and well taken care of. But! I need some Bass and Better Sound Quality.

My original plan to use a line driver and hooking up my Hifonics BXi1210D mono amp. to 1 or 2 subwoofers and that's it.

However I was also wondering since I also have an extra 4ch Hifonics amp, could I use that to power all the stock speakers without having to rip the doors apart and splicing wires or making any other modifications? That would require a 4ch line driver as well?

Since I don't want to change out any of the stock speakers and say adding that 4ch amp won't work unless I did have to mess with the wiring throughout the entire car, would an aftermarket Sound Processor make a difference for Sound Quality instead?

like using a

JBL MS-8 ( which has Logic 7 Surround Processing Built in )

JBL MS-8 Factory OEM System Integration Digital Sound Processor

AudioControl LC7i

AudioControl LC7i-Gray 6-Channel Line Output Converter (LOC)

Kicker Front Row

Kicker Front Row ZXDSP1 (12ZXDSP1) Digital Signal Processor

any advice, opinions are welcomed.

Click to read more...

 

[CSCStang]

The ms8 would be the way to go imo.

 

[randomguy 10+ year member]

I heard that MS8 was nice. I came across a similar post of mine. The guy replied saying that it may blow my factory speakers? His word "magic smoke" unless he meant good by that word. lol see the link attached.

Digital Sound Processor - Factory system - CarAudioForum.com

 

[CSCStang]

I heard that MS8 was nice. I came across a similar post of mine. The guy replied saying that it may blow my factory speakers? His word "magic smoke" unless he meant good by that word. lol see the link attached.
Digital Sound Processor - Factory system - CarAudioForum.com

Interesting. I've never read any review where that or anything similar ever happened. From what I've read, and quite a lot of it recently, it will completely blow you away with the quality and clarity.

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

Hifonics in a MB for SQ? you're not going to like me. you need a DSP like the BitOne or PS8. the MS8 will work but I have seem so many of them have issues. the LC7 is just a line out converter than can internally sum the signal, so that won't work. the Front Row doesn't have any sort of speaker level inputs and has no EQ adjustment, so that won't work.

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

I heard that MS8 was nice. I came across a similar post of mine. The guy replied saying that it may blow my factory speakers? His word "magic smoke" unless he meant good by that word. lol see the link attached.
Digital Sound Processor - Factory system - CarAudioForum.com

What he possibly was assuming was that MS-8 would apply boosts with its EQ, which would then lead to blown speakers over time. Considering that kind of problem would be a disaster to JBL that is not what actually happens. That is not to say the user cannot boost with the EQ and end up in the same situation. The target curve for MS-8 has a boost in the low frequencies, but you can get that effect by dropping the midrange and treble.

 

[randomguy 10+ year member]

Hifonics in a MB for SQ? you're not going to like me. you need a DSP like the BitOne or PS8. the MS8 will work but I have seem so many of them have issues. the LC7 is just a line out converter than can internally sum the signal, so that won't work. the Front Row doesn't have any sort of speaker level inputs and has no EQ adjustment, so that won't work.

lol. well the Hifonics BXi1210D would be just for the subwoofers obviously. I was just thinking a DSP would be good to tune the factory speakers for better sound quality. I guess I would need to hook up the BXi1210D to the DSP too for better configuration?

I had a 2002 Lincoln LS V8 with the Alpine system that came built in with it, sounded good, actually seems better than the one in the Benz!! and I had added a line converter to hookup my Rockford Fosgate 800.2 Amp that went to 2 12" Cerwin Vegas.. it was great. So I mean I prolly will be okay with the Harman Kardon Logic7 Surround Sound in the Benz. But again if the Lincoln to me sounded better, i wanted to adjust the Benz Harman Kardon Logic7 Surround Sound system without having to re-wire a bunch of stuff and/or swapping out the stock speakers.