Replacing the Becker in my '93 300E
 

I realize that this forum is already full of people asking what to do for the audio in their 124 and I believe I have read almost all those threads yet I am still uncertain what configuration will give me what I want.

My '93 300E currently has the stock Becker Head Unit with the tape unit in the dash and the radio plus two amplifiers in the passenger side trunk. I have six speaker locations (two in the dash, two in the doors, and two in the rear deck) but I think that the rear speakers are actually three elements in each location so I think it is billed as the ten speaker stereo.

I would like to replace the Head Unit and all speakers but I would like to avoid making major modifications to the car. The Head Unit I think I want to go with (so far) is the Pioneer Premier DEH-P8MP. How to wire this unit up is where I get myself confused. I do not mind trying to run new wires to new speakers but I would like to minimize this if possible. I read in the Pioneer manual that this unit could be set up to drive subwoofers connected to the two rear channels instead of full range speakers. This made me think that an easy wiring scheme would be to run the front dash speakers from the deck's front channels, small subs (or mid-bass?) in the doors from the deck's rear channels, and then run RCA from the deck rear PreOut to a two channel Amp in the trunk (installed where the stock bits are being removed). Unfortunately I have not been able to confirm that this would actually be possible (that the deck would actually let me do this). The reason I think this would be good is I would be able to avoid running wires several wires from the deck in the dash back to Amps in the trunk and then forward again to the dash or the doors. If the dash speakers and the doors can be run from the deck in the dash (it is supposed to be able to deliver 27 watts x 4 RMS) then these runs would be short, and if the only external Amp is driving the rear speakers again the speaker cable runs would be short. Does anyone know if this would work?

My next dilemma then is selecting the best speakers for this configuration. Right now I am leaning towards MB Quart since they make 4" components for the dash and 6 1/2" mid-bass for the doors but I am not convinced. I know Rainbow makes drop-in compatibles for the dash but I was disappointed to see that they recommend the same speakers for the rear as for the dash. I have not figured anything out about what would be best for the rear speakers - I am too hung up on what to do with the doors.

Sorry for this being so long and it is probably coming across as an illogical mess - but hopefully you all can be patient with me and help steer me in the right direction.

Thanks!

I had a 1993 300E, and had the system gutted to a Pioneer head unit, and then later to a Nakamichi MB100.

You are going to have to rewire the whole car no matter what you do.

Your current system is running off 2 ohms, whereas everything today runs off of 4 ohms.

You can either rewire the antena and the speakers to run off of your head unit, or rewire the whole car to run off of the amp(s) you put in your trunk.

I went with Polk speakers: co-axial in the dash with adjustable tweeters, mid-range speakers in the doors, and co-axial speakers in the hat shelf. I put a 12" subwoofer in the trunk that ran off of its own amp.

if it were me, I would do like paul and rewire the whole car and change the speakers for better ones. anything is better than the stock speakers.

That being said, when I got my car it had the stock speakers running off an aftermarket alpine headunit, and it sounded ok. the factory speakers, were running fine off the alpine amp. so if you had to you could run them off the pioneer unit.

Remmeber that 2 ohm speakers will cause more power drain ont he radios amp, and will make it run hotter, and could lead to the amp blowing. in my experience I havent seen this happen yet, but it is a possibility

Alon

I put an Alpine unit in my '92 300E, at first using the stock speakers in the dash and rear shelf which indeed do work remarkably well. I eventually replaced these with MB Quarts. 4" units in the dash drilling new mounting holes and modifying the existing wiring at the speaker end by using spade connectors and at the head unit end splicing in 2-pin DIN sockets (from Crutchfield).
I had to run new wires and an antenna lead from the head unit to the rear 5 1/4" speakers again drilling new mounting holes and bending the mounting apertures a little. This all still allows me to put the stock speakers back in if necessary.
Next I'm putting in an 10" Infinity powered subwoofer box to give the system some much needed bass. Best location seems to be on the left side of the trunk but I'm toying with the idea of mounting the unit on the under side of the parcel shelf. Anybody out there tried this?
I'm also considering replacing the 4" units with 6 1/2"
component speakers mounting the woofers in the doors and the tweeters in the dash locations.
No matter what you decide to do you are going to have to do some rewiring as only a couple of the wires can be adapted from the stock wiring and as far as I can tell it is also easier especially if your unit has the console fader too.
Colin

Thank you!
 

Thank you all for the responses! I have been able to verify that my concept for wiring should work but I believe that the advice here is very correct in that I will need to run new wires! I would like to do that anyway so I can leave the original wiring in place such that if the next owner wants the Becker back in it is possible. I think that the Pioneer DEH-P8MP or DEH-P80MP (premier or non) Head Unit will look good in the car and I hope it will sound great. Any opinions on this HU?

Now to audition speakers. I am having trouble finding alternatives that I think will fit without major modification to the car. I think that MBquart would work but I have been partial to Infinity and Polk Audio in the past. I have not been able to find any Polk Audio speakers in their current lineups smaller than 5" so I don't think they will go in the dash. What Polk Audio speakers have worked in this car?

I am thinking seriously of going with JL Audio speakers. Something like this:

Head Unit = Pioneer DEH-P80MP
Dash = JL Audio 4" XR400-CX or TR400-CXi on HU front channel int. amp
Door = JL Audio 6 1/2" XR650-CW on HU rear channel int. amp w/ low-pass
Hat Shelf = JL Audio 5 1/4" XR525-CXi on external amp in trunk

How do you think this setup might sound?

I would go with compoentns up front and compoennts in the rear and add a sub tot he trunk but that is just me.

I took out my door speakers and replaced them with compoennts, and it sounds great to me.

Alon

I (almost) successfully had a local Sound Advice put in a Pioneer DEH-P660 head unit in to replace my aging and failing Becker.

They ran new wire from the head unit to my 4 Rainbow shelf-mounted speakers. We did not bother to figure out how to drive the door speakers. I had an aux wire run for my iPod and everything is great.

Except that the head unit does not control the antenna. Sound Advice says the wire from the head unit that terminates at the antenna supplies power when the unit is switched on. But the antenna does not go up. Am I to understand from this thread that I need to run a new wire from the head unit to the antenna to control the antenna? Anything specific I can tell Sound Advice to make this work? Thanks in advance.

no, you should not have to run a new wire for the antenna power.

Sounds to me like they did not hook it up correctly then.

do you have a dash mounted antenna switch? if so make sure it is int he right position.

I am usuing the factory antenna lead in my car, I do not have the antenna switch in the car like some benzes do.

mine goes up and down when the radio is on.

Alon

antenna problem aswell
 

I just did my '93 300E by putting a 12" punch sub in the trunk, 5.25 punch components in the back, 6.5 components in the doors and the tweeters from those in the front (using two amps). To tell you the thruth, it really sucked having to do this all, maybe because I put 15 hours into this project in 2 days, and school is starting which puts everyone in a bad mood. Anywho, I was too lazy to figure out the antenna and I was wondering how I could hook up the antenna to the kenwood head unit that I put in there. I know the wire is blue but I'm not sure if it was the small plug that went into the bottom left of the becker which has a blue wire and a ground wire which for some reason was hooked up to only one of the front speakers (odd?). I'm gonna get some sleep and fiddle with my dealy tomorrow so I'll post tomorrow to tell you guys how it went.

Btw. I spliced, cut, and crimped a lot of stuff behind the head unit so there is a possiblity that I no longer have something that is supposed to be there (Apparently Mercedes weren't intended for brute force.)

forget it
 

i figured everything out so don't worry about replying. my antenna which has been broken for a long time because it went through the car wash finally broke off from goign up and down. it got a good 12 years of use. RIP antenna

Have you considered the Becker 4806? I believe Ed Ebel at becker can make you a good deal on one. Speakers, I'm in a similar boat and was going to go with the Rainbow speakers which are drop in replacements.


Michael