bENTLEY CONTINTAL gt 2019 NEW SHAPE
Complete Sytem upgrade to replace the Bentley Bang & Oh!
When this customer first brought his Bentley in to us we had a listen and couldnt believe how wrong Bentley had got this system!
Even to an untrained ear this system lacked Bass the midrange sounded wooly and the tweeters were to harsh!
The only time this system could have sounded good was if you were used to the speakers in a mobile phone!
So we decided to book this customer in and go for our midrange stealth package, the only noticable change was the 5" decrease in boot space at back of the boot, this is where the replacement amplifiers, DSP and subwoofer are located behind a trimmed panel.
So let me take you through the whole 3 week build and various package options we offer below.
The original equipment
So what do you get from Bentley in the B&O option, B&O speakers, B&O subwoofer, B&O Amplifier?
From what we could gather not a whole lot of B&O equipment it was more like B&OH!
What you get is cheap speakers, well made thou and specific to the bentley but manufactured by the same company that makes the VW van speakers Sonavox.
To the right you will see is a midrange comparison between the bentley midrange and the Audi midrange, at least in the Audi you get a B&O sticker on the speaker magnet!
Subwoofer again another Sonavox speaker similar to the door speakers but a little bit more heavy duty 6x9 in a thin plastic blow moulded eclosure (B&O might have designed this)
Amplifier now this is where it gets interesting this is manufactured by B&O
oh and you get some pretty grills on the doors and plenty of leather stamped B&O writing!
The Upgrade
The first stage and this is the most time consuming part is the tear down, we remove all interior panels, seats and carpets, this in its self is nearly a 3 day proceedure.
all panels a removed and laid out individually on the floor with corosponding bolts and screw bagged and taped up to the back of every panel.
from here all plastic panels are treated to sound deadening on the non visable side, wraped in bubble wrap and put in to safe storage for protection, the seats are covered in seat protectors and moved a side.
Sound deadening
On this Bentley the customer opted for additional sound deadening on top of the the normal amount we install for greater deadening this in turn creates a better musical environment in the vehicle!
on this vehicle we have applied a 3 stage sound deadening:
- 3mm skinz sound deadening
- 6mm sound isolator for the doors
- 10mm sound isolator for the panel gaps and cavities
- Skinz wave diffuser
Amplifiers
Digital Sound Processor
Digital Sound Processor
In order to keep space down and power every replacement speaker we went for a multiple amplifier solution using all Hertz Mille power amplifiers these allowed us to utilise 13 channels from the DSP
This amplifier rack is designed to be removable and sit in place of the original subwoofer and create part of the subwoofer port through the seats.
The original system runs 16 channels but on our upgrade we remove the centre dash speaker, and turn the rear 2 way setup from fully active to a passive setup.
Digital Sound Processor
Digital Sound Processor
Digital Sound Processor
The heart of the upgrade, on this upgrade there is only one DSP that we use on this prestigious car, the Audison Bit one HD Virtuoso, this is an incredible DSP that allows us to;
- Control every amplifier channel
- Utilise optical input for a cleaner audio signal
- Build a multiple custom EQ setups
- Time alignment
- Run the system active with built in digital crossovers
Speaker mounts
Digital Sound Processor
Speaker mounts
We decided from day 1 that the upgrade in this car had to be truly bespoke to this car, the little finishing touches were key, but also the engineering had to be right.
as no speaker adaptors exist for this car we had to develop and make our own.
We could have 3D printed some, made them out of resin bonded wood, but we opted for aluminium.
these speaker collars were engineered to fit exact and be CNC machined and cut out of 2 pieces of aluminium
Speakers
Subwoofer
Speaker mounts
On this system we fitted Hertz Millie legend speakers, swapping out the factory 6x9 speakers in the front for 2x 6.5" speakers per door
for the midrange speakers we replaced the following:
- rear shelf with 3" Hertz Mille legend speakers
- rear quarter cards with 3" Hertz Mille Legend speakers
- front doors 3" Hertz Mille Legend speakers
For the tweeters we were more limited for choice the original dash tweeters were kept in use, this is due to having to remove the windscreen to replace these, in the rear we used hertz cento tweeters running passive off the rear Mille speakers
Subwoofer
Subwoofer
Subwoofer
The original woofer as previously mentioned was by no means up to the task of delivering any noticeable bass, this was due to the sub firing into the boot and then being blocked by 2 panels meaning the bass was wasted.
we replaced this with a Hertz Millie Legend 8" subwoofer in custom 18mm MDF enclosure, this box had to be large but slim to take up less less volume, the sub also sat inside the box so the box would fit around the factory air compressor for the suspension without the subwoofer hitting it.
this subwoofer now wires through the opened hatch into the rear seats to give a noticeable depth to the music being played, without being boomy and overpowering.