Thanks guys for all the nice comments!
I spent the day yesterday trying things and took a short trip for a "family visit". The car is surprising brisk on the highway. I didn't peg it, but when I needed to get around a moron it did quite well for a 4.
I tried a bunch of stuff with the audio system. I administer a surround sound website so the surround sound aspect of the ELS system has always been important to me. Since I've owned an 04TL (First ELS system), an 05 RL (Bose surround system), 07 RDX (2nd Gen ELS system) I am always curious about the differences. Now with this 3rd generation ELS system I gave it a real test. Some disappointments ensured.
First off, I was hoping that with the "death" of DVD-Audio, they would have removed the watermark (copyright protection) circuits from the deck so that it would play copies of DVD-Audio discs. Many new home players (Oppo for example) do not have this circuitry and will play DVD-A copies. Unfortunately, the ELS system still has this crap in it, and a copied DVD-A stops and ejects after 10 seconds or so (as it should).
I tried putting a DTS encoded .wav file on a USB stick, and on my iPod. I soon found out that the USB stick must have an .mp3, .wma, or .aiff file in order for the unit to see the files. It won't read a .wav file. I then tried converting the .wav file to .aiff, but the resulting file did not have ID3 tags, so again it would not play. I then imported the .wav file into iTunes, put it on my iPod, and tried to play it from there. All I got was the 'static" that you get when you play a DTS file without a decoder. So, that did not work either. I guess I won't be making USB sticks full of DTS files!
However, I was impressed with the iPod connection. I have 2197 tunes stored in Apple Lossless on my 64Gb iPod, so on first try, I was presented with an alphabetic listing of all 2000+ tunes. That was a bit overwhelming. However, it was very easy to get to the 'Playlists', 'Artists', 'Albums", etc selections just like the iPod menu works. All on the NAVI screen.
Once I turned the Dolby PLII on in the ELS system, the sound was pretty good. Of course, it's file dependant, and some tunes sound better than others. Still, the iPod connection sure beats those old iPod adapters that were available for the earlier ELS units. (The ones that never worked! )
I own a lot of DVD-Audios, and have many that I've made (and others have made) from Quadraphonic recordings of the '70s. These all sound great. The home created discs play fine, and the surround presentation in the TSX is far superior to that of my RDX.
The RDX put the front channels in the rear doors, which really distorted the surround field. The large(r) speakers in the back support columns of the wagon fire straight back at the driver/passenger, and the front/back separation is terrific. I created a DVD-A test disc that put audio sweeps in each channel, and except for the very low frequencies, the factory speakers did a great job and there were no rattles at all.
The early ELS players had problems with DTS CDs, but this unit played store bought and home created DTS CDs with ease. So for that it gets high marks.
The one thing I haven't tried yet is the internal Hard Drive. It really makes no sense to me. Reading the manual, it appears that it reads in EVERY CD you put in the player! And, that's the only way to put files on the Hard Drive. With the USB and iPod connection, I think I would have preferred a multiple disc changer in place of the HDD. Time will tell.
Can anyone here elaborate on using the HD? Seems odd to me.
Anyway, rambling on here, hope this info helps others, and I'd love to hear your experiences with the audio system. I am really liking this car and it's only been a few days. Thursday I am having the back up sensors installed which is something that I am used to having, even thought the camera is great, the Back Up Sensors really help when backing into a garage, as you get one tone for what's behind you and one tone for what's on the side. Very helpful.
Thanks again for the kind words about the wagon. (I'm still a bit in shock that I bought a STATION WAGON!!! YIKES!)
