2021 Acura TLX Audio Review

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Just bought a ‘21 TLX A-Spec. I brought a USB with Money converted from DVD by DVD Audio Extractor to WAV to confirm discrete 5.1 playback. The coins moved around! It worked and I loved the car’s looks and ride, so I opened up the wallet. The sound overall is impressive and big. I would say more immersive than my home set up due to the number of speakers and close range. FLAC files were variable - Atom Heart Mother, Echoes worked. No go on Sgt. Pepper’s, Division Bell. These were my first conversions to USB. Used 24 bit/48kHz. 32 GB San Disk Cruiser USB. DAE didn’t have uncompressed option for FLAC but files seemed similar size to WAV ~2GB per album. Wonder if I’m doing something wrong. When converting does it make any difference conversion from DTS vs AAC? Still experimenting with naming files so the tracks play in order rather than alphabetically. Any questions or comments are welcome.

The MOST bus is very particular in what it accepts, so your 24/48 flacs have got to be at zero compression for the car to play them. The conversion is a snap with foobar, which is free. Just open up the files you have, be they wav, flac, 24/96. 16/44, whatever, and set up and save conversion setting to end up with 24/48 flac at zero compression.

The output that you get will play in the car, be it 4.0, 4.1, or 5.1. The only other thing you may have to deal with is the number of channels. If you have quad or 4.1 stuff, it needs to be in a 5.1 file, so the center and lfe channels will have to be empty and present if they are not there.

It's a pain for sure, but once you get it down you won't even think about it
 
The MOST bus is very particular in what it accepts, so your 24/48 flacs have got to be at zero compression for the car to play them. The conversion is a snap with foobar, which is free. Just open up the files you have, be they wav, flac, 24/96. 16/44, whatever, and set up and save conversion setting to end up with 24/48 flac at zero compression.

The output that you get will play in the car, be it 4.0, 4.1, or 5.1. The only other thing you may have to deal with is the number of channels. If you have quad or 4.1 stuff, it needs to be in a 5.1 file, so the center and lfe channels will have to be empty and present if they are not there.

It's a pain for sure, but once you get it down you won't even think about it
I don’t think I did anything differently for the FLACs but it was odd how some worked and others didn’t. Sticking with WAV since those are working for now. Any advantage you see WAV vs FLAC for this purpose? And any difference AAC vs DTS as the source? Thanks.
 
Wav's work fine, but the car will not display the graphics if you tag the files. If all you care about are the tunes, then sticking with wav is not an issue
 
You will probably find weirdness in the sorting. Check out freeware SDSorter or DriveSort. They have a few sorting options. I can only speak to the 2015 Acura models, but they just play the files based on when the songs were placed on the USB stick.

I've found that some players don't like certain sample rates. Check your sample rates to see if there is a difference.

You're lucky. The 2015 TLX only supports AAC lossy files. I can still do 5.1 but have to drop to 320kb. Still, with road noise, I'd rather have the loss of some sound then having to continue to carry around 100 or more DTS CDs (which is the only other way to get multi channel into the car).
 
Hi all. Long time listener. First time caller. I'm looking to upgrade from my 2011 TSX (w/ DVD-AUDIO and all that), to hopefully a 2021 (or 2022?) TLX, assuming I can figure out this USB drive thing. As long as I follow the excellent instructions Jon provided on this site (and recommended by Acura ELS themselves), I should be good to go, right? Do all the TLX audio system models support that format (Premium, ELS Studio Premium, & ELS Studio 3D Premium)? or just the ELS 3D?

I have lots of surround format discs going back to the DVD-A days. I still believe in, love and support multi-channel music as a format. Y'all (especially Jon) are doing the lord's work here. Bless you all!!
 
Hi all. Long time listener. First time caller. I'm looking to upgrade from my 2011 TSX (w/ DVD-AUDIO and all that), to hopefully a 2021 (or 2022?) TLX, assuming I can figure out this USB drive thing. As long as I follow the excellent instructions Jon provided on this site (and recommended by Acura ELS themselves), I should be good to go, right? Do all the TLX audio system models support that format (Premium, ELS Studio Premium, & ELS Studio 3D Premium)? or just the ELS 3D?

I have lots of surround format discs going back to the DVD-A days. I still believe in, love and support multi-channel music as a format. Y'all (especially Jon) are doing the lord's work here. Bless you all!!

Welcome to the forum. I have not myself verified that the non-16 speaker systems do 5.1, so I can't speak with authority. I hope someone else can chime in
 
Hi all. Long time listener. First time caller. I'm looking to upgrade from my 2011 TSX (w/ DVD-AUDIO and all that), to hopefully a 2021 (or 2022?) TLX, assuming I can figure out this USB drive thing. As long as I follow the excellent instructions Jon provided on this site (and recommended by Acura ELS themselves), I should be good to go, right? Do all the TLX audio system models support that format (Premium, ELS Studio Premium, & ELS Studio 3D Premium)? or just the ELS 3D?

I have lots of surround format discs going back to the DVD-A days. I still believe in, love and support multi-channel music as a format. Y'all (especially Jon) are doing the lord's work here. Bless you all!!

I can confirm the 2021 TLX A-spec and Advance support 5.1 on USB (as per above must be wav or flac 48/24 on FAT32 formatted USB) I did not try the other packages (Tech). I suggest bringing your fav discrete 5.1 tunes on a USB with the above specs and try all the trim levels. Please report back. The USB can be a little fussy. I have the best luck inserting the drive soon after starting the car while the ELS logo/video is being displayed. Make sure you use the far right USB in the under arm console. Also under sound settings the Neo Surround must be OFF. Good luck! The sound in the car is fantastic! Happy to help with any specific questions as well.
 
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The MOST bus is very particular in what it accepts, so your 24/48 flacs have got to be at zero compression for the car to play them. The conversion is a snap with foobar, which is free. Just open up the files you have, be they wav, flac, 24/96. 16/44, whatever, and set up and save conversion setting to end up with 24/48 flac at zero compression.

The output that you get will play in the car, be it 4.0, 4.1, or 5.1. The only other thing you may have to deal with is the number of channels. If you have quad or 4.1 stuff, it needs to be in a 5.1 file, so the center and lfe channels will have to be empty and present if they are not there.

It's a pain for sure, but once you get it down you won't even think about it

Aw, I just saw this... yes, the MOST bus. It connects to the back of the NAVI head end, which also hosts the controls for the audio system. Standard Honda/Acura design.

We currently have an '18 Passport Elite. Can't replace it because the dealer has NO inventory.. With COVID, we have low miles on it.

It turns out the cars all had a defect, this affected Passports, Ridgelines, Pilots and MDXs. All the "big V6" Honda vehicles.

For the first year and almost a half, our car kept issuing POPs over the speakers... The sound of bugs hitting your windshield at 80 mph in a summer day when you drive through an agricultural area with fruits and tomatoes? THAT's what it sounded like.

The popping would come and go. During these episodes, if you hit the horn, a burst of LOUD static would come over the speakers. When the pops hit, the audio would cut out for a second or so... just so you knew the system was popping on you. Heck, I felt like pooping on the system.

It made no difference if the stereo was on... because, yep, it's always on for the engine sound mitigation system. WTH?

The dealer undid and tightened the entire CAN bus... removed the front seat, redid it, four times. Added a fix to put in some strain relief on the MOST connector, etc, etc... We stopped at having them remove the entire dash ( another possible can of worms). Nada.. We did a couple of trips to the Pacific NW... trust me, we had the patience of Job.

We even had factory engineers come and take a look at our car. They also looked at a number of other cars that the dealer had gathered for this "research expedition". They were taking this seriously as an AHM VP had one such vehicle affected... so you don't piss off the VP of your own company.

Nothing. They had no clue.

The only thing that saved us was that with COVID we seldom went anywhere. Before long drives, we'd have the dealer tighten everything and the popping episodes would last about half an hour and then go away for five hours or so... only to come back just as we were most grooving to the music. :p

Eventually the factory realized the problem was the MOST connector itself but, yep, because of COVID they were back ordered.

So, finally, after almost two years, the dealer got a hold of our replacement connector, installed it and since it has worked fine.

Connectors are the most problematic problem with electronics. But who would have figured out it was inside the connector, not the wiring interface?

We became experts at MOST.

I wonder if our Passport has built in 5.1 playback. I only use Android Auto to play 24/96 Tidal HiFi downloaded files from my phones 512GB stick. It'd be nice if I could "mount" the Android file system this way and play FLAC files. I normally use the "main" USB connectors for Android Auto and powering up the phone. I would figure you have to plug the USB stick into the "main" USB plug huh? So that means I have to charge my phone off the wireless charge pad or one of the other USB connectors (our Passport has four in total).
 
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NICE!

PM coming your way
John, I am in the same boat as the person you replied to was trying to get the disc from Acura and they are absolutely clueless. I even showed them an article and they looked at me like I was from outer space. I would appreciate any assistance on how to get the USB.
Thanks
Dale
 
John, I am in the same boat as the person you replied to was trying to get the disc from Acura and they are absolutely clueless. I even showed them an article and they looked at me like I was from outer space. I would appreciate any assistance on how to get the USB.
Thanks
Dale
I'm that guy!
Have tried EVERYTHING, including BEGGING, my GM, & Acura CS
They're totally, CLUELESS!
They swear, it was a one off USB, for DEMONSTRATION, purposes, ONLY!
Someone, has this thing; I'll pay royally, to get it
If anyone, is the wiser, DM, me, & lets talk
TY!
 
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