The advancement of technology in recent years has nowhere been more evident than on the car audio front.

Amplifiers now do more than simply amplify, while speakers use space age materials that were once closely guarded military secrets.

In between are advanced electronics that tune, modify and monitor audio signals thousands of times per second, so it’s little wonder really that a whole new generation of car audio enthusiasts want more than just a head unit upgrade and a few extra speakers.

Niko, for example, is a discerning auto sound connoisseur and an individual whose appreciation for music means distinctive sound with warmth and boldness, whilst maintaining absolute clarity.

Some of the audio technology in Niko’s Mercedes is very new, whilst some of it is over 50 years old.

No, that’s not a misprint and we’ll see why in a moment.

Starting with quality
Built by Audioart & Technologies on Murray Street, in Perth, the system begins with a Nakamichi MB-100 head unit in the centre console, just under the Merc’s factory air conditioning controls.

Nakamichi head units are considered by many to be the best money can buy.

One of the key features of this particular model is its in-built CD stacker, effectively doing away with the need to install a CD stacker in the boot or glovebox.

To watch a head unit such as the MB-100 swallow 6 of your favourite CDs into its special and patented internal storage area is amazing.

There are 6-stacker CD units out there that are twice the size of the MB-100, yet into a standard DIN sized package, Nakamichi have combined a stacker and one of the finest tuners on the market.

Once generated, signals from the MB-100 head out back to another one of those boot installations (the sort that boggle the mind).

Built by Audioart’s head installer, Clint Bowers, the boot houses an amazing amount of sound gear whilst making the whole package look aesthetically stunning at the same time.

Upon arrival, signals arriving from the front of the car are first processed by an LD-2 line driver.

Mix of old and new
Now then, remember above where we said that some of the technology in this Mercedes is 50 years old ?

Believe it or not, but the LD-2, the LDX-23 crossover unit and the two Butler 1500 amplifiers in this car use vacuum tubes - just like what your grandparents had in their wireless sets back in the 1920s and 30s.

While it’s true that vacuum tubes gave way to transistors in the 50s and then microchips in the 70s, the humble tube refuses to die.

After all, when you sit down to watch Neighbours each night, you’re looking at a vacuum tube and they are still the major component in most computer screens.

In a wide variety of applications however, vacuum tubes have died out mainly because of their fragility, yet many professional musicians still record and play with vacuum tube equipped amps and processing equipment because of the associated sound.

It is universally agreed that vacuum tubes give music a distinctive ‘warmth’ and ‘body’, while many enthusiasts believe these distinctive features produce a sound which is superior to that produced by modern solid state (i.e microchips) electronics.

The problem for car audio enthusiasts is that with all the vibration inherent to driving an automobile, vacuum tubes have traditionally been too fragile for auto sound use.

Technology to the rescue
But that technological barrier has now been overcome with modern materials and manufacturing methods, with the range of vacuum tube equipment distributed by Audioart & Technologies regarded as highly exclusive hardware on the car audio scene.

Admittedly, much of this Butler and Phaze Audio vacuum tubed equipment utilises a combination of tubes and solid state components, but without any loss of that distinctive ‘tube sound’.

Now back to that LD 2 line driver, which boosts the signal voltage up to as much as 18 volts RMS, enabling the amplifier gains to be kept turned down and thus reducing unwanted noise.

The LDX-23 crossover meanwhile, uses its vacuum tubes to filter out signals below 75Hz for the subwoofers, while signals above 75Hz are sent to the two Butler 1500 amplifiers for the front stage.

In both cases, signals are distributed from the LDX-23 in stereo format - i.e there are left and right low pass signals as well as left and right high pass signals.

It’s conventional in car audio to run subwoofers as mono devices and while each of the 10" Velodyne subs is in effect fed a mono signal, they are left and right mono signals and therefore - different signals.

If it all sounds too confusing, then just bear in mind that the whole objective is to produce absolute sound quality.

The subs are powered by a four-channel Rockford Fosgate G400a4 amplifier, with two channels bridged into one being dedicated to each sub’.

More serious techno-bits
Now comes the part about really radical technology.

Velodyne subwoofers are like nothing else on the market, because they each have their own electronic computer control box which alters the speaker cone movement via a servo after information is processed by two accelerometers (a fancy word for a ‘motion detector’).

One accelerometer monitors the motion of the car, while the other is busy monitoring the movement of the speaker cone.

The computer then compares and processes all of this information before performing any necessary adjustments and feeding the perfect signal to the voice coil.

This, in addition to spun aluminium cones and other advanced design features, make the Velodyne subs a very special piece of equipment indeed.

Incidentally, each Velodyne control box also features an adjustable sub sonic protection level, to guard the subs from damage caused by ultra low frequencies.

For this reason, Velodyne subs cannot be powered by amplifiers with built in sub sonic protection and in this Mercedes, the sub sonic protection in the control boxes has been set at 10Hz.

The power figure for each sub is relatively high, said to be a claimed 300 Watts RMS.

Apart from the subs, the other major speaker groups in this install are the 3-way Dynaudio splits on either side up front in the cabin.

You won’t find these particular 3-ways in any catalogue however, as Niko sourced all the Dynaudio speakers individually himself to make a custom combo’ that comprises a 5" mid base, a 2" mid plus a home audio tweeter on either side of the dash.(We were asked not to photograph the dash mounted tweeters, as they were still being custom fitted.)

As indicated above, each 3-way works in pure mono mode, with each having its own dedicated two-channel 1500 Butler amplifier.

The two channels from each amp’ have been wired in bridge mono fashion, producing a massive 850 Watts RMS for each side of the car.

No short-cuts
In the interests of absolute sound perfection however, Audioart decided not to use any factory Dynaudio crossover packs, and instead installed a monster custom crossover tray that dominates the floor of the boot.

The use of very high quality components with tight tolerances, plus an in-built 18dB per octave slope for very steep rolling off, complements the individually chosen and matched Dynaudio speakers perfectly.

The crossover points incidentally, are 800Hz for the low pass, with bandpass from 800Hz up to 2.5kHz. The tweeters of course then work from 2.5kHz upwards.

Nonetheless, these are said to be ballpark figures as Audioart were keen to keep some ‘secrets’.

Technological marvels aside, this system is to be noted for its installation techniques.

Clint Bowers admitted that this particular car presented one of the biggest challenges he has ever faced, with the main problem being to fit so much gear into the boot whilst still producing something of extremely high aesthetic value.

Right at the base level, copious amounts of Dynamat sound deadening have been applied, while no structural part of the car has been cut.

Keep the trims intact, and hide the cables!
A feature could be written on the installation aspect itself and not surprisingly, there are numerous tales to tell on this subject.

For one thing, Niko didn’t want his factory Mercedes door trims cut or modified, so the Dynaudio speakers are actually mounted on custom pods which have been stuck to the door trim with a special removable glue compound.

Audioart’s resident cabling expert, Paul Chung (whose claim to fame is that he can run a cable anywhere anytime !), then pressed the speaker wires into original factory seams in the trim and panel work - a time consuming affair by all accounts.

When it came to running the various cables between the front and back of the car, the Mercedes carpet posed plenty of problems as it is the thickest to be found in virtually any car.

Simply bending it back to run a few wires was not an option and the entire carpet had to be removed as one piece so that the cables could be laid. And all the wiring in this Mercedes has been hand made to the exact length from high quality materials.

The boot display has seen Bowers exercise his woodworking and space utilisation skills to the absolute max and with vinyl applied and lights strategically placed, the end result speaks for itself.

One item you might notice in the boot is one of those new Alumapro 15 Farad stiffening capacitors from Arena Distributors.

When you consider that auto sound stiffening caps are traditionally rated at no more than 2 Farads, it’s obvious to see the sort of power reinforcement that these 15 Farad suckers offer.

Apparently they even come with a health warning and no, we didn’t ask Bowers to stick his tongue across the contacts for a demonstration !!

All up, it’s a classy and distinctive install that compliments the vehicle perfectly.