Audio Discus Getting the most out of our Bose & B&O Stereo's

[Gullwing]

I've been using Tidal app on iPhone on hifi mode recently. It's supposedly super high quality and the amount of mobile data it uses is immense. Satisfies the large choice & high quality when connected via USB.

[boff]

One is 1tb, the other is 500 or 750gb, I can't remember. They are spinnys. One of them seems to take longer to spin occasionally, so the car goes to the other disc when starting now again, maybe a start up current issue. Pretty sure if I swap them around I.e. Use the mp3 disc for FLACs then it will always start the FLAC disc without issues.

Very encouraging stuff Mike - looks like the FL stereo is quite powerful (in my industry I work with Nvidia, so I know it has power, as I know what the engine behind is - glad you can exploit)

I reckon with current prices, and reliability SSD maybe worth looking at on USB3? discs spinning and a 600BHp freaks me out from a reliability POV

[boff]

What film dude?

That silver stuff

[boff]

What film dude?

That silver stuff

Dynamat!!!

[MikeFish]

Lol, I thought you started talking about movies! Derr, im getting tired.

It's silent coat 2mm. Weighs a ton. My auto boot lid wouldn't open on the rs4 when I coated it. None of the pros use dynamat anymore.

[Surrey Sam]

Audio with 192kbps and below is akin to watching Standard Definition television - it sucks more than a turbocharged Dyson cleaner!

A musical experience is only as good as its source; buy a CD and rip it at the highest level possible.

[Leo-RS]

The talk so far has been about the input, no mention of the actual sound settings that people are using to get the best out of the speakers?

I run mine directly from my iPhone and I'm not sure whether to have the sound settings on my iPhone set the EQ on the phone to off or whether to select a pre selected EQ output (Dance, Rock, Acoustic etc) With respects to the specific sound settings in the car, I like a bit of bass so have that set to around 3pm position on the dial, treble around 11pm, not really sure what the surround offers but have that around 2pm also, I don't really notice a lot of difference with surround and not really sure what the audio pilot selection does. It sounds okay but have heard better audio in many cheaper cars, it's probably due to running from my phone rather than CD quality though.

[MikeFish]

Yes the built in DAC in an iphone / ipod is awful. If you want quality I'd recommend using an aftermarket protable DAC. But then you lose control from the MMI.

I have the surround turned off (or lowest setting, I can't actually recall) as it doesn't make it sound any better. I like it bass heavy and had mine set at about 3 o'clock too. Then I played an old R&B swing album that was very light on the bass so it went all the way round to the penultimate setting and has stayed there since. My treble is past the 12 o'clock, maybe heading towards the 3 o'clock.
I think the biggest improvement will come from disconnecting that awful centre speaker that is so heavily biased and taking away the stereo imagery. I tried to pop the centre speaker cover off in the dark but gave up as i didn't want to damage the grille. According to ELSA it should just prise up.

[doodlebug]

Be warned the centre speaker is a known rattling hot spot.

[MikeFish]

Earlier in the week I added an amp and sub to the boot. Makes a huge difference. And because it is an avant rather than a sealed boot of of a saloon the gain on the amp had to be turned right down (have no sepearate sub control yet, have to tweak using the bass setting on MMI and gain on amp). As the bass has been taken away from the door speakers it means the Bose amp / speakers can go louder without distortion.

So I thought I'd try to pop out the centre speaker grill in daylight this time. It came out easily enough using some trim tools. There are 2 bolts holding the centre speaker in (5.5mm which I thought was an odd size). I unplugged it then put it but bolted the speaker back in for safe keeping.
Initial sound difference was that it sounded much duller. It needed more volume to get the mid range out but as there is no control for mid range it means the overall volume needs to come up. So after turning the bass down further and turning the volume up it now sounds better. I played with the treble a little too but ended up with it back at the 4 o'clock position.

With the added bass and getting rod of that awful centre speaker I am much happier with the sound. Could I leave it like this now? Yes... But I know that will never happen.

I had a go at popping the tweeter covers off and they started to lift but seemed to click rather than pop out like the centre channel so I pushed it back in before doing any damage. I'll take a look on ELSA to see if I was going the right way. My goal was to see if I could easily drop in some better tweeters because the mods have now highlighted these as the next weakest point. Also, it is in dire need of some proper equalisation. I almost installed my processor this week to give me that ability but it would mean full amplification from my aftermarket amps and having to use a high-level input rather than a low level or, even better, a digital signal as is possible with pre facelift cars.