B&O Audio system "Scientific" incremental upgrade - what really improved things

[DrRoboto]

Hi all, I just finished upgrading my B&O sound system, and it's now above the bar. I made changes incrementally, doing A/B testing, to see what made an actual difference, without just replacing the entire thing. I hope sharing my experience will be helpful to others, I found it very helpful to read what people have posted before me.

TL;DNR summary: replace the speakers, including the subwoofer, in the factory locations; and use a subwoofer amp that will compensate for the head unit's bass attenuation curve (I used the Kicker Key 500.1, and so far it seems great). It passes this suite of tests with flying colors, is much more clear than before, and is more than loud enough.

Longer story: My goal was to have a near-audiophile system; it's surprisingly easy to get great sound these days. I don't need to rattle windows, I just need to hear the recording accurately. My hypothesis is that the engineers really wanted to build a great system within the constraints and did some great engineering, but then had to cheap out on some things towards the end, and that made it suck. The subwoofer box looks highly engineered and well thought out, and the amp is probably decent (it's not hard to make a class-D amp with super low distortion now), and the tuning and EQ of the amp is probably a very good match for the Bronco's interior and speaker locations. They probably had to go with crummier speakers to cut costs, and limited power in the subwoofer, since that's typically the most power-hungry. You can hear the significant roll-off the amp does after every loud sound to limit the RMS power to the subwoofer.

The components I bought are:
- JL Audio C2-400x speakers; three went into the dash, and one in a rear pod. I still have the factory speaker in one pod, because it's mostly filler, not the main source for sound. I might replace it someday.
- JL Audio C2-650x speakers for the kick panels
- Alpine S2-W8D4 subwoofer - fits in the factory B&O subwoofer box, and has two 4-ohm voice coils, so I could try it on the factory amp.
- Kicker Key 500.1 amp.

Since speakers are sold in pairs, I bought two pairs of the 4" speakers, and replaced the three dash speakers and one rear pod. This gave me the opportunity to listen to the factory speaker side-by-side with the JL Audio speakers, and there is a big difference in clarity. It just seems like there's a lot more to the music from the JL speakers; the factory speakers are missing a lot, and muddy by comparison.

I was concerned about getting the subwoofer amp to power the new subwoofer, because I did not know if it would make a difference, and it's an investment in money and time to install. The factory system is loud enough, it just sounded really muddy. But now that I have installed it, I can say unequivocally that adding the amplifier made a huge difference with the subwoofer. It's now quite good. Important: the kicker amp has an EQ compensation that measures the head unit's subwoofer attenuation as it limits the power to the subwoofer, and then compensates for it to get a flat frequency response with its own internal EQ. It really worked. Get that feature, whatever amp you get.

I mounted the amplifier between the subwoofer box and the rear of the car, screwing into some little blocks that clamp it into the body pillar there. It's a good place for the wiring. The 17' 8 gauge power wire wasn't quite long enough - I think 20' would be long enough.

I started with the 6.5" kick panel speakers; then a pair of dash speakers; then the subwoofer; then the center speaker and a rear pod; and finally the subwoofer amp. Each step saw noticeable improvement. Now, I'm very happy with it! the cost was around $1000 total.

update: after living with this system for a while, I do think replacing the B&O amp with an aftermarket A2B and amp will improve sound, because the EQ is set for the factory speakers, and can’t be changed. As it is now with new speakers, it’s much more clear, but seems uneven in frequency. Like it has low bass, but is missing mid bass. It just seems like there are holes. I wish I could test it before buying.

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[DrRoboto]

Hi all, I just finished upgrading my B&O sound system, and it's now above the bar. I made changes incrementally, doing A/B testing, to see what made an actual difference, without just replacing the entire thing. I hope sharing my experience will be helpful to others, I found it very helpful to read what people have posted before me.

TL;DNR summary: replace the speakers, including the subwoofer, in the factory locations; and use a subwoofer amp that will compensate for the head unit's bass attenuation curve (I used the Kicker Key 500.1, and so far it seems great). It passes this suite of tests with flying colors, is much more clear than before, and is more than loud enough.

Longer story: My goal was to have a near-audiophile system; it's surprisingly easy to get great sound these days. I don't need to rattle windows, I just need to hear the recording accurately. My hypothesis is that the engineers really wanted to build a great system within the constraints and did some great engineering, but then had to cheap out on some things towards the end, and that made it suck. The subwoofer box looks highly engineered and well thought out, and the amp is probably decent (it's not hard to make a class-D amp with super low distortion now), and the tuning and EQ of the amp is probably a very good match for the Bronco's interior and speaker locations. They probably had to go with crummier speakers to cut costs, and limited power in the subwoofer, since that's typically the most power-hungry. You can hear the significant roll-off the amp does after every loud sound to limit the RMS power to the subwoofer.

The components I bought are:
- JL Audio C2-400x speakers; three went into the dash, and one in a rear pod. I still have the factory speaker in one pod, because it's mostly filler, not the main source for sound. I might replace it someday.
- JL Audio C2-650x speakers for the kick panels
- Alpine S2-W8D4 subwoofer - fits in the factory B&O subwoofer box, and has two 4-ohm voice coils, so I could try it on the factory amp.
- Kicker Key 500.1 amp.

Since speakers are sold in pairs, I bought two pairs of the 4" speakers, and replaced the three dash speakers and one rear pod. This gave me the opportunity to listen to the factory speaker side-by-side with the JL Audio speakers, and there is a big difference in clarity. It just seems like there's a lot more to the music from the JL speakers; the factory speakers are missing a lot, and muddy by comparison.

I was concerned about getting the subwoofer amp to power the new subwoofer, because I did not know if it would make a difference, and it's an investment in money and time to install. The factory system is loud enough, it just sounded really muddy. But now that I have installed it, I can say unequivocally that adding the amplifier made a huge difference with the subwoofer. It's now quite good. Important: the kicker amp has an EQ compensation that measures the head unit's subwoofer attenuation as it limits the power to the subwoofer, and then compensates for it to get a flat frequency response with its own internal EQ. It really worked. Get that feature, whatever amp you get.

I mounted the amplifier between the subwoofer box and the rear of the car, screwing into some little blocks that clamp it into the body pillar there. It's a good place for the wiring. The 17' 8 gauge power wire wasn't quite long enough - I think 20' would be long enough.

I started with the 6.5" kick panel speakers; then a pair of dash speakers; then the subwoofer; then the center speaker and a rear pod; and finally the subwoofer amp. Each step saw noticeable improvement. Now, I'm very happy with it! the cost was around $1000 total.

Ok everyone... After living with it for a while, I started to realize it really seemed boomy at the low end, and was missing the mid-bass. I took some measurements with Room Equalization Wizard (REW), and despite being a rookie, could see that hole clearly. I'm guessing the amplifier doesn't have much oomph, and also is tuned to handle the deficiencies of the factory speakers.

I bought and installed a mObridge 8.1 channel DSP amplifier, and the difference is pretty significant. It's much, much better. A larger difference than replacing speakers.

Unfortunately, after going down this rabbit hole incrementally, I've determined that every aspect of the bronco system needs to be replaced to be actually good. It's not about volume, it's about clarity and sound quality.

I sure do like it now though, and since I spend so much time in the car, it's worth having satisfyingly good audio.

I'm also having a lot of fun finding with the tune using the DSP and contemplating little changes and upgrades, which are all now very minor and just for fun.

 

[Brian_B]

bought and installed a mObridge 8.1 channel DSP amplifier, and the difference is pretty significant. It's much, much better. A larger difference than replacing speakers.

I am about to make this same jump and have pretty much come to the same conclusion as you.

Either just do the speakers and live with the modest upgrade, or jump in the deep end and get an amp ~with~ DSP. My mistake was not getting a DSP/amp combo - so it will cost me almost as much to add just the DSP as to upgrade to an amp with an internal DSP.

If you don’t have a DSP you cannot tune the system right at all - you need something that can adjust timing in particular. So, for me, I can either have full range to my speakers, but the timing is jacked and it sounds muddled out, or I can have good timing and crisp sound, but the entire bottom end is gutted out by the factory EQ

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