When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Installed everything today and the sound is much more clearer and the bass out of the door is much stronger in a good way. There is no need to replace the ML rear deck sub, the front speaker upgrade was totally worth it. Unless your sitting in the rear seat the upgrade to the rears is not as necessary, since most of what you hear is from the front speakers. I might also replace the front middle dash speaker with one from Focal. I forgot to take pictures, but once you remove the door panel the speaker removal is obvious.
Also when you remove the door panel, every door has two green clips that stay in the door, they are much stronger than the white clips, it's a good idea to replace these green clips when you put the door panel back together, because it doesn't fit a tight as before. I had some laying around from last time I took my door panels off for sound deadening.
Also make sure you check the wiring diagram or test speakers for polarity, the harness I got for the tweeters was wired backwards. You want to make sure the positive and negative on the speakers is wired the same as factory.
One interesting thing I discovered are the front three speakers in the dash are exactly the same.
So you replaced all the speakers except the rear deck sub? How hard was it to replace the front, left and right tweeters in the dash? Also where did you get these green clips you speak of?
So you replaced all the speakers except the rear deck sub? How hard was it to replace the front, left and right tweeters in the dash? Also where did you get these green clips you speak of?
I replaced the speakers on the front and rear doors, and corners of the dash.
Other than making an adapter, it's not hard to replace the dash speakers.
The green clips are located on the door panels, I circled in red, same location on all the door panels. They are missing in this pic, because they stay on the door when you remove it, that's how tight they are.
I have a new set of Focal drop in speakers for the rear doors IC TOY165 for sale, I ended up not using this because I went a more expensive route. it's an upgrade for the factory speakers especially with the non-mark levinson cars.
I just did a similar upgrade on my GS-F. A couple things learned:
The ML factory front 6x9 and rear 6.5" door speakers are high-pass crossed over at the amp, allowing only mid/low range frequencies through.
So running coax speakers in the door locations will not allow any high frequency range improvements. In fact, coax tweeters in those locations won't emit any noise at all.
Midbass/component speakers of some sort are your best bet in those locations.
I ended up fitting a true 10" sub in the stock location, but had to open up the stock hole from roughly 6in to 9.5in to allow it to fit. I made a cardboard template based on the size of my sub, used the template to trace the new opening, then used a drill and jig saw to make the new opening. I filed the opening once done to smooth out any sharp edges.
I also had to open up the sub hole in the trunk liner under the rear deck. A nice, sharp box cutter did the trick, again, using a pre-made template to trace my cut line. The newly widened hole still looks factory.
I applied a lot of sound deadener to the top and bottom of the rear deck as well. One of those, "while you are in there" things. Also, if you are one to chase interior rattles due to bass, I learned that the tension rods in the trunk tend to vibrate on each other at their crossover point, near the center of the trunk. Use a bit of sound deadening on the metal rods at that point.
For those wanting to get at the rear sub, here is an excellent guide:
"In fact, coax tweeters in those locations won't emit any noise at all."
Lol, sorry I have to call major BS on this statement. I can confirm 100% that there is plenty of sound coming through the front tweeters I installed..
I believe you misunderstood my statement. I was referring to the lower door speaker locations. To quote another post in this thread:
Originally Posted by Nalod
The doors are not full range. Replacing them with full range speaker won’t yield full range results.
In other words, a coax speaker installed like this will not be playing sound from it's tweeter, since the factory amp won't allow it because of the crossover settings:
Same with the factory rear (lower) door speakers - they only play midbass frequencies, so swapping in a 6.5" coax won't give you any additional high frequenciues:
From your install, you it appears you installed component sets (not coax speakers), where you put midbass drivers in the stock (lower) door locations and the tweeters in the dash corners and rear (upper) door locations. As you stated, you'll get plenty of sound out of those tweeters, in the stock door/dash locations.
I believe you misunderstood my statement. I was referring to the lower door speaker locations. To quote another post in this thread:
In other words, a coax speaker installed like this will not be playing sound from it's tweeter, since the factory amp won't allow it because of the crossover settings:
Same with the factory rear (lower) door speakers - they only play midbass frequencies, so swapping in a 6.5" coax won't give you any additional high frequenciues:
From your install, you it appears you installed component sets (not coax speakers), where you put midbass drivers in the stock (lower) door locations and the tweeters in the dash corners and rear (upper) door locations. As you stated, you'll get plenty of sound out of those tweeters, in the stock door/dash locations.
That makes a lot more sense, I was getting my speaker/types mixed up, agree. Yeah the tweeter and the sub in the door are connected to the amp on separate channels. Amp is not going to send the sub the higher frequencies.
However on the rear doors, that's not the case, as you can see from the wiring diagram the tweeters are wired in parallel and the same inputs go to the sub:
Looks like it's essentially wired for a coax setup, but they relocated the tweeter higher up the door.
So the speaker upgrade looks great and likely on the menu for me, but I have a question. I just purchased a 2016 GS 450h today with the ML. The sound seems to be very vocal heavy in the front. Basically sounds like all the vocals are coming out of the front center speaker. I messed with the settings (staging left, right, front, rear) and the surround (on or off) but didn’t seem to help. Is this common with this system? The sound was fine, certainly room to upgrade, but didn’t seem “broken”. TIA.
Installed everything today and the sound is much more clearer and the bass out of the door is much stronger in a good way. There is no need to replace the ML rear deck sub, the front speaker upgrade was totally worth it. Unless your sitting in the rear seat the upgrade to the rears is not as necessary, since most of what you hear is from the front speakers. I might also replace the front middle dash speaker with one from Focal. I forgot to take pictures, but once you remove the door panel the speaker removal is obvious.
Also when you remove the door panel, every door has two green clips that stay in the door, they are much stronger than the white clips, it's a good idea to replace these green clips when you put the door panel back together, because it doesn't fit a tight as before. I had some laying around from last time I took my door panels off for sound deadening.
Also make sure you check the wiring diagram or test speakers for polarity, the harness I got for the tweeters was wired backwards. You want to make sure the positive and negative on the speakers is wired the same as factory.
One interesting thing I discovered are the front three speakers in the dash are exactly the same.
I thought I was loosing it also while attempting to wire up the tweeters. The harness was reversed when i was testing. I’m glad someone else confirmed it also!
A common complaint with the ML systems is front biased sound but it's designed that way from the factory. When listening to music, it's more natural to have the music playing in front of you rather than being on stage with the musician (or having the music coming from behind you). In fact, a most SQ car builds don't even run rear fill as they can mess with the front stereo imaging.
If you prefer to have it closer to rear bias, I think your move would be to turn off surround and pull the fader towards the rear of the car.
How would you compare the Focal K2 midrange/treble response of the ML speakers? Good to hear that the mid bass performance improved as I think its a weak point with the stock system. You wouldn't happen to have a pink noise measurement laying around by any chance would you?
How would you compare the Focal K2 midrange/treble response of the ML speakers? Good to hear that the mid bass performance improved as I think its a weak point with the stock system. You wouldn't happen to have a pink noise measurement laying around by any chance would you?
Great thread, thank you for the write up
The miderange/treble from the door sub is significantly improved. With the ML speaker it was hardly there, unless you cranked up the bass settings. I actually lowered the settings to neutral. The Focals satisfy all my bass needs, something the original ML was lacking imo.
I ordered a set of 4" Focal coaxial speakers and going to retrofit one into the center of the dash and sell the other one. I took some measurements and 2 holes line up with the factory bolt/mounting location:
08-16-20, 11:39 AM
