Conversion 1
I always love working on repeat client cars. Because each time you have to up the game a bit. This was his first time getting a taste of the Utopia Speakers. We did Focal Kevlar in his G Wagon and Illusion Carbon in his GT3. Both of them had pretty integrated installs, but we wanted to step this one up a notch.
Starting with the front stage, we went with a Focal Utopia M 3 way. We utilized the 6” mid bass drivers to fit in the factory door enclosure. The factory mids were removed out of this enclosure and capped. We created new pillars to house the Utopia M midrange and tweeter. We played off the OEM grille design and grille shape to create our inserts. We created an identical, to scale, grille openings to match. OEM Alcantara suede was sourced to rewrap the new pillars for a perfect match. A NavTv Zen interface was used to achieve a digital signal from the factory radio. The Zen Interface then feeds a Helix V Twelve DSP Amplifier. This powers our front 3 way speakers as well as our rear 3 way speakers.
We fabricated a modular style down firing subwoofer enclosure that houses two Focal Utopia M 10” subwoofers. This enclosure pulls almost every detail from the interior. From overlapping inset panels, hexagon inserts, grille pattern, black and tan leather, red and white lighting as well as Alcantara suede. The amplifiers were installed on a rack that resides under the rear floor. Custom inserts were created to store the roadside accessories which were originally removed with the spare tire rack. The front of the floor can easily be removed to access and service this equipment. The enclosure bolts down to the factory bolt points from the hold down which sits behind the enclosure.
We used a Helix Conductor DSP Controller for our source and subwoofer volume. This was mounted adjacent to the OEM volume control knob. The front doors and rear storage area were fully sound treated in Sound Shield acoustical foam. The customer has the option for 3 separate sources. His factory radio being one, a internal HD BT chip which resides in the DSP for the second, and an analog input for an Astell & Kern SP3000 for the third.
