Has anyone built or found kiccpanels for this model year. I have no midbass due to my 4" speakers. My audio doesnt sound right because i have a jl 12w0 with about 300 watts from an alpine v12 amp and 2 4" clarion coaxial speakers up front in the poor factory locations only getting about 20w rms from my pioneer 6000 head.
Anyone help would be appreciated because im going mad!

go to www.sounddomain.com
then go to member pages, and search for mercedes..

you might find someone who has done it to their car...

It wouldn't be that hard to do yourself. You would need some mdf, some fiberglass resin and some fiberglass sheets. You would also either need some color matched material to your interior, or colormatched paint to paint the pods you make. you could then mold one yourself. there will be a lot of sanding to get it to the right shape you want and it is not something that is done very quickly.

You would want to basically make new kicks for the car, using your old ones as a template for the starting size and shape of your existing panel.

hope that helps

Alon


------------------
'92 300CE
Black on Creme
77k Miles so far

Go To My 300CE Page

you dont really have to worry that much about midbass, just get a nice set of 4's that can take a decent amount of power, and get an amp to power them so the sub doesnt drown them out.

------------------
81 280e
16" 8-holes
clear indicators, new exhaust/intake

stereo -
jvc head unit
6 infinity kappa coax's
aura mr675h 90x6
2 aura mr475's, 200x2 each
2 audiobahn aw1200s in a ported box
1f cap

not bad for a car older than me, huh

Most drum information, bass guitar, male vocals, and piano bottom half are midbass....
http://www.audiocontrol.com/techpapers/techpaper108.pdf

Have a look at page 5 of that PDF. It explains which instruments produce which sound. I'd say midbass is the most crucial part. Your ears are more sensitve to midbass loss, as the midbass regions spans say, 60hz to 400hz, which by my reckoning is an entire 3 octaves. Yikes.

Of course, getting midbass in a car is a pain, but well worth it if you have the time. ;-)

Bri

------------------
Brian Drought
1991 300CE
2000 A170-CDI
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~drought/
ICQ: 2180069

Dug,

I stuck in the same boat as you are. I also have a 190E, same year. Currently I have some uni-plane speakers drilled into the doors, but they are thin speakers, and now they are distorting. However, in about a few weeks, I'll be building some kick panels out of fiberglass to house some Polk dx 6.75 component series. I'll try to take some pictures and post them, so that you can view it.

-Happy Driving,
vutown

I just bought 2 Sony xplode 4" for my dash and two JBL 6's for the rear deck. The Xplode was the only thing that I could confirm would fit in the factory dash location with NO mods. The Sony's are so ugly that I didn't want to use them in the rear no matter what their sound.

The JBL's, accoriding to Crutchfield, will fit with minor "soft material modification". The diference in performance of a 6" and a 4" speaker from 300hZ down is substantial enough to warrant the mods on my opinion. The only noticeable differnce will be the loss of the rear grilles.

Its Thursday June 14, My 190 16 valve just went into the stereo install bay. My installer is going to make a custom speaker pod near the floor that is going to house a MB Quart 5.25 midbass which is part of a MbQuart separate package. The tweeter from the separates will be either door mounted or mounted to the floor pod. I am having him also install a set of MQ Quart 4 coaxials in the factory dash locations and a set of Eclipse 4 inch coaxials in the rear factory locations. Subbass will come from a custom free air Kicker C-12. Amps will be JL Audio 4X 75 to the front and rear channels and a JL Audio 500 watt sub amp to power the sub. Once I get the car back, I can send pics to anyone who wants to see the custom install. Joe

Joe,

Much applaud! I too, am in search of getting better sound for my 190E. Can you put pictures on the forum so that we all can see what's possible with our cars? I'm planning to build some kick panels to house some Diamond Audio 6 1/2, and just keep the 4" in the back, unless there's a way to squeeze 6 1/2 back there. Also, you had mention that you were going to put 4 " Eclipse in the factory dash. How are you going to wire that up? Won't you have a total of 6 channels without your sub?


vu

The entire front soundstage will be handled by an MB Quart 5.25 component set and the rear soundstage will be 4 inch MB Quart coaxials. The dash speakers will be bypassed and will not be used. A 1 farad capacitor and the MB Quart separates will be mounted under the rear seat. This change was due to the 4 inch speakers from Quart were too deep tp fit into the front dash. Thanks, Joe

[Edited by Joe-1 on 06-15-2001 at 11:49 AM]

I think that you can buy pre-built kick panels for your model car but I may be wrong. Call Cutchfield to ask. If you are handy and adventurous, here are instructions to make your own kick panels.

http://www.elitecaraudio.com/install_clinic/Kick_Panels/images/index.php

You should only use one set of speakers for you front stage or you will ruin the soundstage by cluttering it up. I consider rear fill an option. After all, when I listen to music at home, the sound comes from the front unless it is dolby or DTS surround. A subwoofer is a must to round out the lower octive of your system. Prolem is, Mercedes likes to put their gas tank behind the rear seat which eats up low bass.

I was lucky to have four cut-outs in my rear deck to port the low-bass up front. For a look at my install see here:

http://www.sounddomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?SID=GAT80WMMLE4rRQsyQg__&page_id=133487&make_type_query=make=Mercedes-Benz&model_brand_query=model=all_models&tree=Mercedes-Benz%20(all%20models)

Good luck

MattK thats a sweet E and a clean install...I was looking at your site a few days ago...Anyways, i was talking to another guy and he had a good solution for the small up front speaker problem. He removed the front side pockets from the front doors and mounted the midbasses there. Im thinking that is the way that i am going to go...since i last posted I have upgraded my coaxials to polk db 3045 componets. They are very sweet sounding even with only 50 watts a channel. Even better than the sound is the price i paid for them off ebay: only 110 shipped for them and they were brand new factory sealed...As of right now, my future plans are to send 100 watts a channel to my 4" mids and tweeters in the dash and 100 a channel to the midbasses which i will mount in the doors.
Im also planning on running a single sealed tempest with 400 watts on it. That way i will be sending my frontstage the same power as my sub.

Thanks for the compliment, my wife thinks I'm a freak. She told me I needed a new hobby. I think mine is only slightly more expensive than her shopping habit. Oh well.

Sounds like you are getting it figured out. I can't imagine trying to work through all of this without these message boards.

Good luck.