Just to give you an idea how little car manufacturers care about audio in cars...a lot of these "performance" cars...like BMW... are piping in motor sounds into the car through the car speakers..trying to give their 4 and 6 cyclinder cars the sound of V-8 engines...
OFFICIAL Vehicles with Factory Surround Systems
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cliffbig
Member
Test drove a 2016 Infiniti QX60 with tech and theater packages; it DEFINITELY plays DTS CDs in 5.1 surround sound (took several that I had burned from DVD-Audio conversions), and it also plays the 5.1 audio tracks from DVDs (so if the DVD-Audio also has a standard DVD sound track, it will play that in 5.1). Sounded quite good... better than DTS on my 2014 Acura MDX.
Was it Bose?
Mark Levinson?
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alk3997
500 Club - QQ All-Star
Levinson's are on Lexus vehicles only. There is a rarely ordered standard standard radio for Lexus. The standard upgraded Lexus A/V (the "Premium" model) is a Pioneer system with Dolby Digital.
The upgraded upgrade system is a Mark Levinson. My 2012 Levinson has DVD-Audio / DTS / Dolby Digital with a six disc changer.
Over time, the Harmon folks (who owns Levinson) and Lexus have decided that people are more likely to care about MP3s than 5.1-channel. I fear they are right for the general public or even the public who buys Lexus. So, the first to go was the changer and DTS followed. I'm unsure if any 2016 models can play DVD-Audio.
Unfortunately the Lexus documentation is often confusing in regards to Levinson audio system capability. In other words, don't trust the brochures unless you confirm with a test drive.
Andy
The upgraded upgrade system is a Mark Levinson. My 2012 Levinson has DVD-Audio / DTS / Dolby Digital with a six disc changer.
Over time, the Harmon folks (who owns Levinson) and Lexus have decided that people are more likely to care about MP3s than 5.1-channel. I fear they are right for the general public or even the public who buys Lexus. So, the first to go was the changer and DTS followed. I'm unsure if any 2016 models can play DVD-Audio.
Unfortunately the Lexus documentation is often confusing in regards to Levinson audio system capability. In other words, don't trust the brochures unless you confirm with a test drive.
Andy
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Quadradude
Member
A friend flew in to help his aging parents this past week and rented a car, a small current model Cadillac SUV, I have no idea which one.
We had been sitting in my living room listening to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, an album he knew well and has always really liked in stereo but had never heard in Quad, then I played him some Santana, AWB, and Blood Sweat & Tears quad discs, then he wanted to take a drive to a certain restaurant about an hour away for dinner so I grabbed my box of discs, we got in the Cadillac, and we quickly became disappointed as it didn't know what any of the DVD-A's or DVD-V's were and failed miserably on the DTS-CD we tried... It wouldn't read the DVD's at all and although it recognized the DTS-CD as a playable disc it chose to provide digital data hash noise as the audio instead of decoding it... Very disappointing...
A couple of weeks ago I brought a few of my discs to a friend's house who has a far more expensive A/V stereo setup than I do because he's heard DSOTM in quad and wanted to hear more...
His younger brother, late 30's or maybe early 40's I think, was sitting on the sofa browsing the web as we began listening to some of my quad stuff.
My buddy was totally happy, all excited, and trying to get his baby brother and 20-something daughter to pay attention to the music.
His baby brother summed it up in a nutshell and without intending to do so his daughter's comments reinforced her uncle's perspective...
His comments were that if he can't take it with him on his morning runs with his media player and ear buds he's not interested.
His daughter (and almost all of her friends) don't care what it sounds like as long as they can hear the beat, usually coming from the crappy speaker on their cell phone or the other ear bud that's not dangling loose or in the other friend's ear... They don't actually understand the concept of 2-channel stereo, much less 4-channel and sadly none of them (including the uncle) cared about the sound stage or audio quality at all. Consumer "Good enough" attitudes have come full circle again and it's why these amazing formats don't ever gain enough momentum in the consumer world.
It's so frustrating to anyone who truly appreciates and enjoys music, and/or electronic gadgetry fans who may not really appreciate the creativity but are fascinated by the results of the technology...
Show them a working victrola and they'd probably complain about the sound quality but ironically a 64k mp3 seems to be totally acceptable because most of them really don't care...
Not to mention that the creativity of pop consumer music has more to do with a driving beat and gangsta attitude with samples of other people's actual music than any real creativity on the part of today's artists... Of course there are exceptions, but few and far between... Think about it this way, how much of today's current pop music would hold up to trying to mix it much less actually sound better in quad...
Pardon the rant, it was just disappointing to watch and hear the younger generations' perspectives of "...and???" when we tried to show them quad mixes, even when some of the artists were classic rock songs they actually really like. Seeing my buddy all excited by the quad stuff I brought over, then seeing and hearing the next 2 generations' "whatever" attitudes was just such a shock and really depressing to me.
Plus getting to hear a DVD-A in another buddy's 6 year old Lexus recently, watching him get all excited by it, then having a current year Cadillac fail to play any of my quad discs was again depressing...
We had been sitting in my living room listening to Kraftwerk's Autobahn, an album he knew well and has always really liked in stereo but had never heard in Quad, then I played him some Santana, AWB, and Blood Sweat & Tears quad discs, then he wanted to take a drive to a certain restaurant about an hour away for dinner so I grabbed my box of discs, we got in the Cadillac, and we quickly became disappointed as it didn't know what any of the DVD-A's or DVD-V's were and failed miserably on the DTS-CD we tried... It wouldn't read the DVD's at all and although it recognized the DTS-CD as a playable disc it chose to provide digital data hash noise as the audio instead of decoding it... Very disappointing...
A couple of weeks ago I brought a few of my discs to a friend's house who has a far more expensive A/V stereo setup than I do because he's heard DSOTM in quad and wanted to hear more...
His younger brother, late 30's or maybe early 40's I think, was sitting on the sofa browsing the web as we began listening to some of my quad stuff.
My buddy was totally happy, all excited, and trying to get his baby brother and 20-something daughter to pay attention to the music.
His baby brother summed it up in a nutshell and without intending to do so his daughter's comments reinforced her uncle's perspective...
His comments were that if he can't take it with him on his morning runs with his media player and ear buds he's not interested.
His daughter (and almost all of her friends) don't care what it sounds like as long as they can hear the beat, usually coming from the crappy speaker on their cell phone or the other ear bud that's not dangling loose or in the other friend's ear... They don't actually understand the concept of 2-channel stereo, much less 4-channel and sadly none of them (including the uncle) cared about the sound stage or audio quality at all. Consumer "Good enough" attitudes have come full circle again and it's why these amazing formats don't ever gain enough momentum in the consumer world.
It's so frustrating to anyone who truly appreciates and enjoys music, and/or electronic gadgetry fans who may not really appreciate the creativity but are fascinated by the results of the technology...
Show them a working victrola and they'd probably complain about the sound quality but ironically a 64k mp3 seems to be totally acceptable because most of them really don't care...
Not to mention that the creativity of pop consumer music has more to do with a driving beat and gangsta attitude with samples of other people's actual music than any real creativity on the part of today's artists... Of course there are exceptions, but few and far between... Think about it this way, how much of today's current pop music would hold up to trying to mix it much less actually sound better in quad...
Pardon the rant, it was just disappointing to watch and hear the younger generations' perspectives of "...and???" when we tried to show them quad mixes, even when some of the artists were classic rock songs they actually really like. Seeing my buddy all excited by the quad stuff I brought over, then seeing and hearing the next 2 generations' "whatever" attitudes was just such a shock and really depressing to me.
Plus getting to hear a DVD-A in another buddy's 6 year old Lexus recently, watching him get all excited by it, then having a current year Cadillac fail to play any of my quad discs was again depressing...
cliffbig
Member
The 2016 Infiniti QX60 sound system is indeed Bose--I traded in my disappointing 2014 Acura MDX for the Infiniti yesterday, and I went with the 15 speaker audio system with DVD capability, and it's playing the multichannel 5.1 tracks from DVDs (and, I presume the DVD track from DVD-Audio discs) perfectly--shows up as 5.1, sounds great. I had a Bose system in a 2006 Acura RL that sounded pretty good--not as crisp as a Krell system in the RX that replaced it, but still good. I've used commercial DVDs and DVD-Audio discs and I've used home-burned DTS discs in it and both sound great. (It also does a good job of streaming Rhapsody and other services from my iPhone 6S, as well as playing back audio from my old iPod classic.) The only audio disappointment is that it doesn't have HD-Radio... something I should have checked on but took for granted (that'll teach me!). At the same time, I think I've listened to HD-FM three times in the past year, so it's not like it's something I'd be using very frequently. I find the sound of the Infiniti system more pleasing to the ear than the sound of the ELS system in the 2014 Acura; the Acura system sounded rather flat and lacking, especially on radio and streaming playback.
Quadradude
Member
I suspect that the Infiniti's Bose system is most likely playing the DVD-V audio tracks from your discs rather than the DVD-A content, assuming your DVD-A's actually contain both DVD-A content and DVD-V DD and/or DTS multi-channel compressed audio content for compatibility with systems that don't recognize the DVD-A format, which so many players do not...
alk3997
500 Club - QQ All-Star
Following up on my Lexus Mark Levinson comments a few posts earlier. We had a "loaner" 2016 RX350 this week with Mark Levinson. The Levinson was extremely smooth in sound quality.
From a 5.1-channel standpoint, it was what you would expect in 2016. The Levinson had a single disc changer. 5.1-channel Dolby Digital was supported. DTS and DVD-Audio was not. The DVD-Audio discs played the DVD-Video program in true surround.
Having said that, it was one of the best sounding decodes of Dolby Digital, significantly better than any Bose (Blows?) system I've heard in a Cadillac or Infiniti, but it was still Dolby Digital. I didn't have time to try out the FLAC or WMA capabilities but I suspect those were all 2.0 channel only.
The older Mercedes Harmon system is still better in sound quality but the Levinson is right up there, despite the lack of DVD-Audio in the later systems.
Andy
From a 5.1-channel standpoint, it was what you would expect in 2016. The Levinson had a single disc changer. 5.1-channel Dolby Digital was supported. DTS and DVD-Audio was not. The DVD-Audio discs played the DVD-Video program in true surround.
Having said that, it was one of the best sounding decodes of Dolby Digital, significantly better than any Bose (Blows?) system I've heard in a Cadillac or Infiniti, but it was still Dolby Digital. I didn't have time to try out the FLAC or WMA capabilities but I suspect those were all 2.0 channel only.
The older Mercedes Harmon system is still better in sound quality but the Levinson is right up there, despite the lack of DVD-Audio in the later systems.
Andy
cliffbig
Member
It was buried in my comment to which you responded, but I suspected the same thing. It's still a radical improvement over CD sound, though--although I wish that Meridian DVD-Audio was still a feature for all of these automotive audio systems!
Quadradude
Member
Warning: Personal opinion... (to each his own.)
Bose tries so hard to make "big sound" from little enclosures and a small sub, to be minimalistic in size within the listener's space while trying to sound "larger than life", and most of the time the end result is surprising perceived stereo separation and sound detail from such small speakers but such intense upper highs, excessive presence, lots of subtle holes in the overall sound curve, and lots of hollow boom. A lot of consumers seem to really like boomy bass and live mids as that combination provides a lot more perceived loudness and we all know louder is better, right?
Not to mention their use of bizarre lower impedance choices to attain more loudness with less power.
It's sort of like B&O gear which isn't always the best for functional designs but B&O gear is so very fancy and stylish aesthetically with quality exterior materials and decent sound and big price tags so it must be good, right??? I inherited a Beomaster, Beogram, and Beovox setup a few years back and most of the time it sits on the counter looking pretty and occasionally I fire it up to fill the room with background music as I do some household chores and I really do like its' sound better than most Bose systems I've heard but it's not my system preference for my serious listening sessions at all...
Bose tries so hard to make "big sound" from little enclosures and a small sub, to be minimalistic in size within the listener's space while trying to sound "larger than life", and most of the time the end result is surprising perceived stereo separation and sound detail from such small speakers but such intense upper highs, excessive presence, lots of subtle holes in the overall sound curve, and lots of hollow boom. A lot of consumers seem to really like boomy bass and live mids as that combination provides a lot more perceived loudness and we all know louder is better, right?
Not to mention their use of bizarre lower impedance choices to attain more loudness with less power.
It's sort of like B&O gear which isn't always the best for functional designs but B&O gear is so very fancy and stylish aesthetically with quality exterior materials and decent sound and big price tags so it must be good, right???
I inherited a Beomaster, Beogram, and Beovox setup a few years back and most of the time it sits on the counter looking pretty and occasionally I fire it up to fill the room with background music as I do some household chores and I really do like its' sound better than most Bose systems I've heard but it's not my system preference for my serious listening sessions at all...One of the best car systems I've ever heard was in an older Jag which had a Bowers and Wilkins system...the speakers were stellar...even with a standard FM broadcast signal...speaking of Meridian...the upper tier system is pretty cool with the overhead speakers here
[video=youtube;-6wyvGHoZNQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6wyvGHoZNQ[/video]
Quadradude
Member
So far, not only was I surprised by what I heard from some of my quad DVD's in my buddy's IS-F, I'm actually very satisfied with DD/DTS 5.1 DVD-V quad audio quality on my home system in most cases, especially if it was sourced from a Q4 or other true discrete master tape. Heck, I've even been amazed by a number of discs that used CD-4 vinyl as their source (almost didn't realize it at first on some of them!) and even some Q8 source discs have been surprisingly enjoyable in spite of the numerous source issues associated with Q8 tapes, although most of the time discs that used a SQ vinyl source are usually obvious instantly and end up being somewhere between a bit disappointing and downright hard to listen to.
So the fact that some current generation modern automotive sound systems can even provide a quad sound stage at all, much less a good one, is amazing and impressive even if it is a DD/DTS decode...
So the fact that some current generation modern automotive sound systems can even provide a quad sound stage at all, much less a good one, is amazing and impressive even if it is a DD/DTS decode...
Silly BMW....Mazda already have 'zoom zoom" as standard equipment. I remember reading Mazda recorded the exhaust notes of the Alfa Romeo Spider roadster to emulate for the original Miata.
Any current advice on "most bang for the buck" regarding factory installed systems? I've been eyeing Acuras. Is the Technology package always the right system?
Also, are there any after-market systems that are killer? Looking for the most formats possible. Might be fun to piece together a system in my current, cheapy car.
Also, are there any after-market systems that are killer? Looking for the most formats possible. Might be fun to piece together a system in my current, cheapy car.
aquadad
400 Club - QQ All-Star
Hi Edison,
I test drove several Hyundai Genesis and various Acuras before coming to the conclusion that I would never be satisfied with either. As good as they were, the systems in both left me wanting more and the cars were not my cup of tea either. I opted to put together a system in my 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan. I soon found out that even the professionals who do automotive sound installation were not familiar with doing surround installations and several said that it could not be done because the hardware did not exist. I finally found a guy here in the Portland, OR area who was open to the idea and was willing to work with me to get what I wanted done. http://mwpdx.us/
My next step was to find a head unit that I thought I would like and I found a new in the box Kenwood Excelon XXV-05V on ebay for $850.00. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-jhZZvUP00f0/p_113XXV05V/Kenwood-Excelon-XXV-05V.html
My next step was to pick out speakers in line with my budget by listening to the choices available in the Mobile West showroom. I opted for Morel speakers for the front (in dash) left and right and center channel (in dash). http://www.crutchfield.com/p_210TU4...&awdv=c&awkw=+tempo++ultra++402&awmt=b&awnw=g
For the subwoofer I chose the Alpine to go under the drivers seat (best decision ever!) http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500PWE...=56143724963&awdv=c&awkw=pwe+s8&awmt=p&awnw=g
I left the four 6" x 9" factory speakers in the doors and rear sidewalls of the van for now. I will replace them with matching Morels in the future.
The actual installation was done in one day and the total cost was $2354.14. When I consider the thousands of dollars more than the price of my Dodge Caravan that I would have had to have paid to get a car I would not have been happy with for my lifestyle and needs, I came out thousands of dollars ahead with a van that I love and a sound system that exceeds all of my expectations.
Whatever you decide to do, just do it. Any surround sound in the car is better than none. I only spend an hour a day commuting, but it is by far my favorite hour of the day!!!
salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
There's also the opposite.
I believe Ford has a car out with "Active Noise Control" where they pipe in the opposing roads sounds into each speaker as to try and cancel the road noise out.
http://www.gizmag.com/ford-active-noise-control/40391/
Great, just what I need, a beautiful ES or SW mix, mixed in with opposing road noise in each speaker. puke
holland123
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Aquadad, great move on that kenwood, I saw it, watched it and almost pulled the trigger on it for a spare. That head unit is one of the three best that was ever made. I paid $1,200 for one back in 02'. I am ecstatic that it was purchased by someone who appreciates quality 12v audio. You now need to amp it and burn those stock speakers asap. I have an hour commute twice a day and I too actually enjoy that time immensely.
