If you want to spice up the original system of your Mercedes a bit, Emphaser offers two new door systems for a simple sound upgrade.
In almost all newer Mercedes cars, such as the C-Class, E-Class and GLS, we find identical speaker equipment ex works. The front and rear doors are equipped with mid-high systems, and there are inconspicuously mounted woofers for bass in the driver's and front passenger's footwells. Doors and woofers can be replaced quite easily and independently with aftermarket speakers if the original sound is not to your liking. This is about the new EM-MBF2 and EM-MBR2 door sets from Emphaser for front and rear doors. Both sets come in Emphaser's trademark black and red colors and are intricately manufactured. The woofers are characterized by the Mercedes-typical three-point mounting with ball heads, so that they are replaced without screws in a flash.
This also applies to the cabling, because the crossovers are connected to the existing cabling via vehicle connectors without soldering. The tweeters of the front system are also quickly replaced and fit into the original mounts.
The MBF2 front system uses a nice 25-millimeter fabric dome tweeter, and the MBR2 coaxial speaker also has a small fabric dome with a 13-millimeter voice coil. This distinguishes it pleasantly from the cheaper systems with plastic domes.
The 10-centimeter woofers come in specially designed injection-molded baskets and are equipped with black aluminum cones. The crossover of the front system is very elaborately made and relies on valuable components such as film capacitors and air core coils. While the tweeter is wired with a second-order high-pass filter as usual, the woofer sees only one coil, but it is supported by a blocking circuit that pulls out a certain frequency range like an equalizer. Here, the blocking circuit is used to lower the frequency range around 1.2 kHz somewhat, so the acoustic conditions in the Mercedes vehicles are addressed.
Measurements and sound
Our frequency response measurement on the MBF2 shows the equalization on the crossover by a corresponding dip, which lowers the level of the 10 woofer. Otherwise, this runs balanced without spiky diaphragm resonances, which can be found from time to time with hard diaphragms. The coaxial MBR2 also shows an overall linear response, so we are very satisfied with the Mercedes systems so far. Finally, the distortion behavior is particularly positive. Here, especially the 10 cones shine through the absence of distortion, which is also not a matter of course. Sonically, the Emphaser sets are convincing due to their jump-starting and lively performance, which sets them apart from the factory equipment. Voices and instruments sound crisp and unpolished, and a lot of high-frequency details reach the ear. The front and rear systems sound balanced overall and deliver a sound that is quite suitable for everyday use, and you won't get tired of it after a few minutes. All in all, a quite grown-up performance and a successful sound upgrade.
Conclusion
The Mercedes MBF2 and MBR2 systems feature high quality with elaborate details like neodymium magnets and crossovers that pay off sonically. They are nicely made and thanks to the plug&play installation an upgrade without much fuss.
Source: Hifitest
