Auto Surround - Technology: Grrrrrr

[Fourplay]

Test drove a 2022 Acura Integra A-Spec with Tech Package today. I was very excited to do so, as it is clearly marked with the ELS STUDIO 3D branding, so I was looking forward to trying (and maybe buying) a surround sound car.

I brought a USB 3.0 64 gig thumb drive - formatted FAT 32 - with a selection of Flac surround files. Upon inserting the drive, it looked at first like it might not recognize the drive, but then it did come up and display the name of the drive. Next the screen helplessly rotated through the titles of each song, even displaying a small photo of the album cover, but was unable to play any of the files.

The seller is a private party, and I am sure he was not a little chagrined to learn that he was not selling his car for 10s of thousands of dollars because the music on my thumb drive would not play.

OK, what went wrong, and what would have to change to play 5.1 flac files in an Integra?

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I've seen on other posts that the amount of flac compression is a factor with some of those MCH systems. Flac 0 Is the level that works I think.

 

[Fourplay]

OK, went on another round of test drives on Saturday. I brought with me a 64 GB USB 3.0 thumb drive formatted to Fat 32 (not ExFat) and loaded with DTS Wav files and Flac 5.1 files (8584 kbps bitrate). Every Acura I tested from 2017 to 2023 model years failed to load the thumb drive. The drive did not even show as available in the screen menus. This was at an Acura dealership, and I tested 5 or 6 TLX and RDX models. All were promoted as having the ELS system or the Tech package - all were said to be capable of surround. By now I am pulling out my hair with this process.

Next door was a Subaru dealership. They had a 2023 Ascent with the Harman Kardon audio system. I didn't even take this thing out of park - I just wanted to see if I could get sound out of it. I plugged in the drive, and Lo and Behold it worked! I had dozens of familiar surround files with which I could gauge the accuracy of the reproduction, and I was mostly impressed. On Edgar Winter's Frankenstein it seemed like the separation could have been better, but with Hendrix' And The Gods Made Love and Miller's Fly Like An Eagle things sounded correct. And the menu navigation was easy and intuitive.

My wife says that reports on the actual cars favor the Acura, but I felt vindicated that at least my demo thumb drive could and did work.

Any comments? Anyone else driving a Surround Subie? Other threads talk about problems with USB drives in Acura. I thought that the 2022+ models were supposed to be clear of those issues, but this was not my experience.

 

[Larry Geller]

Integra ELS 3D does NOT play surround. Only MDX, RDX and TLX do. Betcha the forthcoming ZDX won't either. Check Oblio's posts on this issue for USB requirements. If they're not playing in the RDX then something is wrong.