Kevin’s Fast Track to Audio Heaven
Kevin Ford was concerned about security when he purchased a classic 1991 Mercedes 300 SE. In his search for a solution, he visited Motor Mods in Tewkesbury.
Now semi-retired, Kevin has enjoyed a varied career in the petrochemical industry. From school, he joined a company and studied petrochemical engineering. This decision was to take him worldwide to oil drilling sites, supervising planned maintenance visits. This is a highly pressured environment, particularly if production has to be shut down for remedial work.
In his final years in the industry, Kevin was aware of growing competition from companies from developing nations. He felt that these threatened the future of his work and began searching for an alternative career.
Kevin made a brave and decisive step, seeking employment from wealthy individuals who required help keeping house and managing their estates. Answering a classified advert in The Lady magazine, he discovered he had the skills and personality to attract clients for this kind of work, so his life changed dramatically.
He was brought up by parents who travelled a lot, which, he says, made him able to accept change easily. He was more or less raised living between England and Hong Kong, as his father taught Mandarin in training establishments there before returning to England to do the same job here. He doesn’t particularly remember being exposed to music much while growing up.
At 16, he found himself finishing up his schooling near Cheltenham. He and three friends decided to build a sound system and go out DJing to earn some money. This was a pivotal moment in Kevin’s musical journey.
They travelled around entertaining at air bases and clubs in the area and had a residency at New Sarah Siddons, a club in Cheltenham. They played a merry mix of genres, but he was most attracted to classic Rock music.
His taste developed through his formative years, and he started going to gigs, including Led Zeppelin at Earl’s Court in 1975. He was also keen on Genesis during their years with Peter Gabriel, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and, latterly, Dire Straits “Brother’s in Arms”, which came factory fitted to a Technics system he purchased and still owns today, featuring Bowers and Wilkins speakers.
The Mercedes is a beautiful-looking beast, and he purchased it because of this. It is a comfortable car, and although he has had to spruce up internally, it is in excellent condition. A 6-cylinder, 3L engine provides power and comfort. It is as solid as a rock and the ideal basis for an audio build.
However, this was not on his agenda until he travelled to Motor Mods for a chat about a tracking system. While this was being installed, he became interested in the demo vehicle sitting in the showroom. This is an Audi A4 equipped with Audison Prima equipment. Kevin had never encountered an aftermarket audio upgrade before and was immediately impressed by the obvious increase in quality over his Mercedes. He enquired if a similar result could be achieved in his Mercedes. Motor Mods have been installing car audio since the 80s and have more than appropriate skills to do this, so the car was booked in.
The standard speaker positions were less upgrade-friendly than in the Audi. Motor Mods had to fabricate a speaker position in the door pocket to receive a pair of AP 6.5P, 6.5” speakers. These are matched to a pair of AP 2, 2” wide range speakers mounted under grilles on top of the dashboard. These fascinating speakers operate over a bandwidth of 150Hz to 20kHz. They were selected both because they fit in the factory positions without much effort. Kevin is extremely sensitive to high frequencies, and a love of guitar and drum-based rock music would also mean that the additional coverage of mid-frequencies would be exploitable.
Kevin wanted passengers to benefit from the upgrade, so a pair of AP 6.5 woofers were fitted to the rear doors and a further pair of AP 2’s in stock positions on the rear parcel shelf. Kevin particularly enjoyed the sub-bass in the demonstration vehicle he listened to. An Audison Prima APBX 10 S4S, 10” subwoofer in a stylish enclosure, was installed in the voluminous boot. Motor Mods modified the rear parcel shelf to allow more bass to the passenger compartment.
The amplifier is an Audison Prima F 8.9 bit. This eight-channel compact DSP amplifier features sophisticated signal processing on each channel, which proved most helpful in achieving Kevin's desired sound. The front speakers run actively from four amplifier channels, while the rear woofers and tweeters run passively from two more channels. This leaves two channels bridged to provide additional power to the subwoofer in the boot.
Kevin listens almost exclusively to music from CD. Motor Mods sourced a Pioneer head unit with CarPlay, Android Auto & CD, that looks good in the dashboard as part of the upgrade. When we jumped in to listen, we noticed that the car had just been rolled out of the workshop where the car had been for a system tune-up. This is a standard procedure and an excellent idea as the speakers have time to bed in, which can change the sound. A sophisticated instrument known as bit Tune is used to do this. It optimises the sound by assessing and adjusting the DSPs on each channel, using a dummy head microphone to monitor results. The results can be dramatic compared to the basic setups applied to the system before the speakers have run in. This was the case for Kevin. He had been delighted with the sound after the initial installation. But the system tuning had taken the sound to a different level.
Seconds Out, a live album by Genesis, a one-time favourite of yours truly, was in the CD player when I powered the system up. The track “Afterglow” was playing. This features a very low bass pedal accompaniment to a guitar/keyboard intro. There are two guitars, with Mike Rutherford playing the 12-string on his twin-necked Rickenbacker guitar and the bass pedals. At around 2 minutes, Rutherford switches to bass guitar for additional bass twiddles without losing presence in the low end. I had a play with the Equaliser on the head unit as Kevin had set this for his preference – I like a little more top and was happy to find it all there. The track was very moving on this system.
We wanted to try something a little more upbeat. Kevin selected “Another Kind of Love” from the 2007 Joe Bonamassa album Sloe Gin. This standard ballsy blues track performed really well. The rhythm guitar, predominantly panned right, captivated me while Joe ripped out tricks and frills from the left. The track has a very live feel that left me looking forward to an inevitable blistering solo. This came at 1m34s. He really is the master of this genre, and the system in this car did every bit of justice it deserved!
We really enjoyed meeting with Kevin and Victoria from Motor Mods. The system design and installation looked to be something of a challenge, but Charlie, Alastair, and Ben at Motor Mods met it perfectly, and I look forward to hearing more of their work.
Contact Motor Mods: 01242 679222
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