Maserati Quattroporte Audio/Visual Upgrade
This is a report on the amazing work done on my 2006 Maserati Quattroporte ExecGT by Richard Chronister and his team at Auto Essentials (805-371-9983, 595 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, CA, 91362, Richard Chronister [autoessentials@verizon.net]).
My initial goals for this project were:
- World class sound
- Digital iPod interface
- Bluetooth interface for Treo phone
- XM radio
- Auxiliary audio/video input for laptop
- Backup camera
Sound system
The sound system which comes from the Maserati factory is mediocre. It consists of a Bose amplifier and six Bose speakers. From the factory, the car has two 2” speaker locations on the sides of the dashboard, pointed up at the windshield, and two 6” component speaker locations in the lower front of the rear doors, plus an 8” subwoofer in the rear deck, and a 5” subwoofer at the feet of the front passenger. Yes, there are no speakers in the front doors! The 8” subwoofer in the rear deck is a shallow depth speaker with an inverted magnet. Although Blaupunkt and Bose are fine manufacturers, these components are not their top-of-the-line products. Furthermore the locations of the speakers are suboptimal, indicating that the audio system was designed as an afterthought. Certainly the engine, transmission, and other elements of the powertrain receive more attention at Maserati!To implement a world-class audio system, we modified the car to add a number of speaker locations, and replaced all the speakers with components from Hertz (a division of Italian electronics firm Elettromedia). Three-way component systems were installed on each side in the front, with 8” mid-base drivers added at the lower front of the front doors, 2” dome midrange speakers mounted in the existing locations at the side of the dashboard, and 1” neodymium tweeters added to new nacelles incorporated into the triangle panels inside the front windows, opposite the rear-view mirrors. Two-way component systems were installed on each side in the rear, with 6” mid-base drivers and separate 1” tweeters in [modified] existing locations in the rear doors. Finally a new 10” subwoofer was installed in the spare tire (more on this below!). The doors were reinsulated with Dynamat Xtreme sheets, and new Scosche 14 gauge wire was run to all speaker locations. Speaker covers were fashioned from aluminum mesh and covered with black cloth, attractively incorporated into the existing door features. Please see the pictures for details; the tweeter nacelles in particular are a work of art.
New 8” mid-base drivers in front doors.\
New 4” midrange speakers in existing locations on dashboard,
New 1” neodymium tweeters in nacelles inside window.
View of all three front speakers, 8” in door, 4” in dash, 1” tweeter in nacelle.
New 6” drivers and 1" tweeters in [modified] existing locations in rear doors
There's a limit of four pictures in each post; to be continued in a reply...