Plug and play sound system extension part1.
At first I´m not an english native speaker. I can speak english well but because of time I´ve used for the following text Google translate. If there are any missunderstanding please feel free to message me.
Some of you already have it or know that we have had such a system since the middle of the year. It's an open secret that the Grenadier has a very poor factory sound system. I would be inclined to say that you can't call it that at all. For me that includes the premium sound system. In this thread I want to tell you more about the existing system, why it is so bad and the technical structure.
Afterwards, of course, how we tackle the problems with our new systems in order to create a real sound system that also deserves the name.
First of all, the technical differences beteen both systems.
Standard system components:
- Front doors: 6inch 2-way coxial speakers
- Rear doors: 2-way 4inch coaxial speakers
View attachment 7882216
frontdoors
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reardoors
- 4 channel radio unit below the steering wheel
All speakers come from the LaVoce factory in China, which is owned by Elettromedia. For your information, Elettromedia is a very large, well-known italian manufacturer that is extremely well known for the aftermarket brands Hertz and Audison (small spoiler. We will also be using Elettromedia speakers from Audison in the new system). One of Elettromedia's most famous projects is the Sphere in Las Vegas. Their internal speaker equipment also comes from them and shows very impressively what you can do with audio technology. Elettromedia was founded in 1987 and has been active in the automotive audio sector for almost 40 years.
In clear words. Elettromedia is a highly professional company! The problem is once again elsewhere. At this point that would definitely be Ineos. On the one hand, it was decided to only use coaxial loudspeakers. What does it mean that, due to the tweeter being positioned very low at the front, no stage performance can actually take place? In addition, the tweeter mounted on the chassis wastes valuable membrane area on the woofer, which results in significantly less bass than a classic two-way system with a separate tweeter would have. The rear speaker is unnecessarily small. Both the door construction and the exit surface of the door panel grille would have allowed for at least a 5inch speaker. The rear speaker actually doesn't make any sound below 100Hz, which means that it doesn't contribute anything to the bass. The cause of all these decisions will certainly have been a cost decision. They took the cheapest possible LaVoce automitive loudspeaker that was conceivable. Just as a small calculation example. A Hertz DCX100, which is very close to the rear speaker used in the Grenadier, costs me, as a good Elettromedia customer, around 10.50 dollars each. However, the included accessories in the packaging and the sales packaging itself are also included here. Speculatively, I would say the net price from Ineos for this speaker is around 5.50 dollars per piece based on the order quantity. the front speaker around 9.50 dollar. In other words, all speakers together probably cost around 30 dollar. Nobody should be surprised that it doesn't work.
The same applies to the radio unit. This is generally very linear, which is good. But the performance output is very poor. At a 4 ohm load (like the original speakers have), the radio produces a sensational 5.52 watts per channel at the front and 5.76 watts per channel at the rear. Which is a total output of 22.56 watts.
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frontchannels pwoer measurement
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rearchannels power measurement
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frequency measeurement
That's a kind of a joke! Every 80 dollar radio has about twice as much power. The fact that it still works at all is due to the abnormal efficiency of the factory speakers. But miserable enjoyment cannot arise like this. This can be seen in the acoustic measurement of the Grenadier with the microphone positioned on the driver's seat. The turquoise line would represent the reference of how the measurement would ideally be. The yellow line is the Grenadier. Here you can clearly see that there is a beautiful dent in the bass range between 50Hz-100Hz. The elevation in general would not be a problem. This is even desired by most customers. But the dent makes it very inharmonious. Espacially the relative difference between 120Hz (highest point) and 420hz (lowest point), the difference minus the desired 8db is approx. 22db! This corresponds to a volume reduction of 730% to less than two octaves. that's really bad. Up into the treble range, it's more of a rollercoaster than a waterfall diagram. From around 2.5kHz you could still let it go. But that's not cool either.
View attachment 7882223
acoustic mic measurement
Premium sound system components:
- Front doors: 6inch 2-way coxial speakers
- Rear doors: 2-way 4inchcoaxial speakers
- Radio unit under the steering wheel
- Active subwoofer under the rear seat on the passenger side
To make one thing very clear in advance. The system does not have an amplifier that supplies all speakers with more power! The amplifier is located in the housing of the subwoofer and only drives it. Otherwise the system is completely identical to the standard system. The active woofer used is a JBL Bass pro Nano which has a 6x8 inch driver. The internal amplifier produced an output of almost 100 watts RMS. I have no idea how the partially communicated values of over 700 watts come about with the premium sound system. Ineos does not provide any specific information in the configurator. However, the statement regarding the amplifier is very misleading in the configurator. Original sound in the configurator: “Upgrade the standard sound system with a subwoofer and a more powerful amplifier.” Of course, this can be misunderstood. You can easily buy the subwoofer online for around 180 euros. Even if we sold it including cables and assembly, it would be around 680 euros. With 720 euros, Ineos has a very lucrative margin here.
In short words, the system sounds exactly like the standard system only with a little more bass. But the bottom line is that it is even worse because money was actively paid. My recommendation is clear. Hands off! Not worth it.
So I hope that wasn't too much theory for you and I hope it gave some people some information. In part 2, which will come in the next few days, we will deal with the insulation and the new system.
