Upgrading the Ferrari California T Sound System with Aftermarket Components

Where are you located? I would visit an absolutely top shop (like La Jolla Audio in San Diego) because they may have specific experience with the Cali T. If you are going to change out the speakers, you may as well upgrade your power, not necessarily more power (probably though), but better, cleaner and better. This is especially true if cost is not really a factor. You aren't adding much labor if you are changing out the head unit and speakers already.

 

Can u tell me where i can find out how to remove radio on california t

 

First off. The Gladen stuff is okay, but absolutely ridiculously priced in the US. It's not a high end brand and here in its native Europe, it is priced much more reasonably. If you want to use high quality amps, either Zapco or Brax is a good choice.

Unless your installer is willing to spend a lot of time figuring out placement etc. of those tweeters, don't go with the Focals. Yes, they are very nice, but they are also extremely sensitive to placement. Not sure why that is, but many Sound Q competition guys have actually given up on them after fighting overly bright spots and issues with reflections for months. They are not a good choice for stock location installations.

If you want to go high end on the speakers, go with the Dynaudio Esotar line. They integrate well, and are in the ears of some of us, superior to the Utopia stuff.

If you go this route, you need to run the system fully active with something like the Audiocontrol DM810, Zapco Gen 5 DSP or Audison Bit One. You need to be able to time align the drivers to your seating position. If you don't, there's no point in throwing that much money at the system.

If you want to keep it more simple, and not upgrade the electronics, the Dynaudio Esotec line is a great choice. It will accept an input that is less than stellar, but still put out a very nice and smooth sonic image. The weakest point of that "upgraded" "JBL" system is those low budget drivers. They are utter China garbage and has zero to do with the JBL Pro stuff of the 70's and 80's.

A nice middle ground would be an active system that uses the Dynaudio Esotec drivers with the Audiocontrol D-6.1200 amps. While budget is unlimited, you have to consider what works well in your installation. Simply throwing the most expensive components at it won't give you the best result. As long as you use the stock headunit and stock locations, there's a chance that the most expensive speakers with the highest resolution could cause more issues than a lower level setup. Don't get me wrong, the Dynaudio Esotec is by no means free or cheap. It is just not stratospherically priced like the Esotar and Utopia M. They are still very nice components and more than capable of fulfilling the needs of most critical listeners.

So, for option A. I'd do this

5 x Dynaudio Esotar 110 highs
3 x Dynaudio Esotar 430 mids
2 x Dynaudio Esotar 650 lows for front
2 x Dynaudio Esotar 650 lows for rear (not sure why you would want these though)
1 x Focal SUB10WM

Amps
2 x Zapco Z-150.6AP for components
1 x Zapco Z-KD.II for sub

DSP
Zapco HDSP-Z16 V AD-16

Option B.

5 x Dynaudio Esotec MD130 highs
3 x Dynausio Esotec MD142 mids
2 x Dynaudio Esotec MD172 lows for front
2 x Dynaudio Esotec MD162GT Lows for rear

Option C.

Same as B, but with the addition of the Focal sub and the following DSP amps.

Audiocontrol D-6.1200 x 2 for components
Audiocontrol LC-1.800 x for sub

As long as you don't change the head unit, I'm a fan of option C. The Audiocontrol stuff works so well for integrating with OE systems, and the stock head unit is a bit of a bottleneck.