Bang & Olufsen – gone! And a new premium processor-based car audio system – in the 2021 Audi Q7!
Well, we’d barely finished our previous car audio project for an Audi R8, where we’d also swapped out the Bang & Olufsen for something truly decent, when a new car rolled into our garage with a very similar request. This time, though, the car arrived in one piece.
So, what we have here is a 2021 Audi Q7 with just 12,000 kilometers on the odometer. The factory audio system is a Bang & Olufsen Premium (not Advanced) with 19 speakers and a factory amplifier with only 15 channels of amplification. How can you not like the sound of 19 Bang & Olufsen speakers? And we’ll say, of course you can—it’s not for nothing that people come to us asking for improvements.
For those who don’t like to read too much, we made a video about this project—you’ll find the link at the end of this article. However, if you want to see all the installation steps, it’s better to read this article, as the video shows the finished, assembled car.
Speakers for the Audi Q7 instead of Bang & Olufsen
Audi went to the trouble of installing the front speakers in the doors, housed in plastic enclosures. The idea was likely that the closed enclosure would give the midbass a nice punch, but no.
The client suggested installing speakers from the French brand Blam in his car, inspired by one of our YouTube videos. We agreed it would be a worthy option to compete with the factory speakers.
Blam speakers were installed front and rear. For the front speakers, we chose the Blam S165.300 three-way speaker system. We installed the midbass speakers from this system in the front doors by removing the stock plastic housing they were housed in and fabricating a plastic plug for the access hole in the door.
The final version of the front doors with audio preparation
And the delightful beauty of French taste in the Blam premium Signature Series speakers
The midrange speaker was also installed in the standard location in the dashboard, under the windshield. Kudos to the Audi Q7 manufacturer for the perfect speaker placement!
The front tweeters have been replaced, but only one pair – the remaining pair will work as normal.
For the center channel, we chose a set of Match speakers for BMW—it just so happened that the dimensions and specifications were completely satisfactory. Plus, we’d already used half of a Match UP C42BMW-frt.3 set for a previous Audi R8 project, so we were able to save a bit of money there.
The new speakers were installed in the stock locations, enhancing the car’s appearance and improving the sound quality. The photo below shows the stock Audi Q7 center channel speakers and the new ones:
Processor amplifier for Audi Q7
The factory Bang & Olufsen Premium amplifier is located in the trunk behind the third row of seats, to the right of the factory subwoofer. As you can see, there are no special features, high-tech features, or anything else—nothing impressive for premium car audio.
We installed a single device for the entire system—a Helix processor amplifier with 18 channels of amplification and processing. This killed two birds with one stone: we saved space in the car and got high-quality channel-by-channel amplification for all the new speakers, including the subwoofer.
The stock amplifier was moved from right to left in the trunk, and a structure was built above it to house the new processor and the subwoofer monoblock. The result is very compact.
SUBWOOFER FOR AUDI Q7
The subwoofer chosen was a 10-inch one from Helix. A custom, complex enclosure was crafted over a long period of time to fit precisely into the limited space of the Audi Q7’s trunk.
As a result, the trunk underwent significant changes, but its functionality remained unchanged. Here are two photos of the Audi Q7’s trunk before all the changes and after we relocated the stock amplifier and installed a new subwoofer enclosure.
And as promised, here’s our video about this project – we explain everything in detail about improving the car audio in the Audi Q7 and demonstrate it on a real car – enjoy, and come see us for new music!
