Audi Sound System

[cjwardy]

Morning all,

So I’ve had my FL S3 from new in March & really cannot fault it apart from one thing.... the Audi Sound System.

I find it really quite poor. Subwoofer? I get a better quality of sound & bass from my wife’s PFL A3. Even my A1 had a better sound.

What seems to happen is when a beat drops it kills the volume on each beat. So for example (& please don’t judge) I’ve been listening to the new Eminem album recently. When there’s a tune playing & he’s rapping at the same time the volume level feels like it is constantly going up & down so you can’t really hear the rap. Then if he raps independently with no beat or music he’s clear as day. There seems to be little or no bass.

What on earth is this? Is it to prevent speakers being blown?

I’ve seen a thread on this before, but can’t seem to find it. If anyone has any info it’d be much appreciated

Thanks
Chris

 

[AlS3BE]

It’s to prevent speakers blowing and what I gathered the amp that’s used has a limited power output that’s shared across all the speakers.
So as you say the bass beat kicks in which requires a lot of power so that leaves little for the other speakers. At high volumes you either hear the bass or the higher frequencies rarely both.

 

[larbel]

It has nothing to do with speaker blowing up, if you have PFL then FL you'll know what I'm talking about, your FL *** basically is missing the sub setting, although the sub is physically there, no low pass is being send there at all, all the bass are non crossed to all the speakers right now, same thing with B&O but Audi only released firmware to fix for the B&O and not ***.. It really made the *** sound horrible compares to PFL...

 

[Snake Pliskin]

It has nothing to do with speaker blowing up, if you have PFL then FL you'll know what I'm talking about, your FL *** basically is missing the sub setting, although the sub is physically there, no low pass is being send there at all, all the bass are non crossed to all the speakers right now, same thing with B&O but Audi only released firmware to fix for the B&O and not ***.. It really made the *** sound horrible compares to PFL...

That makes sense then as I have the audi sound sound system in my pfl and for the money it sounds excellent imo
It is no B&O but it is loud, clear and has good bass.

 

[Tej13]

That makes sense then as I have the audi sound sound system in my pfl and for the money it sounds excellent imo
It is no B&O but it is loud, clear and has good bass.

I would agree with that - I had the *** in my 2015 PFL and thought it was excellent value at the price I paid for it. £255 or something like that if I remember correctly, for the option at that time

 

[larbel]

Mine's PFL with ***, with a few minor tweaks, it actually a VERY capable system, I was totally happy with it, but then... I retrofitted VC, MMI2 and it became total sh!t… The only difference is it's now missing the sub woofer control, and it has no low pass frequency to the sub whatsoever!! So I know for a fact it IS the missing sub control ruining the whole system and not the system itself is sh!t...

 

[cjwardy]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Glad to hear it's not just me that's suffering in some ways (excuse the pun)

Do we know if Audi intend to release an update on the software to cure the problem?

 

[AlS3BE]

Mine's PFL with ***, with a few minor tweaks, it actually a VERY capable system, I was totally happy with it, but then... I retrofitted VC, MMI2 and it became total sh!t… The only difference is it's now missing the sub woofer control, and it has no low pass frequency to the sub whatsoever!! So I know for a fact it IS the missing sub control ruining the whole system and not the system itself is sh!t...

I’m assuming the amp is built in the mib2 unit so it could still be an amplifier problem. Mib2 unit might just have a poorer amp compared to the pfl that’s why the controls are missing.

 

[cuke2u]

Later firmware for the A4 B9 have the subwoofer control added and if a dealership can be persuaded to it can be installed on earlier cars. So possibly not down to hardware being the difference...

 

[JonW]

Ive Noticed this on my FL even without having a PFL, one of the reasons I’m upgrading to a black edition is the B&O system, is it worth the money, seems to get some great reviews. I have Naim at home and I’m pretty anal with it, isolation and placement etc, are you able to play with the settings more than you can with Audi Sound?

 

[Adam14]

Ive Noticed this on my FL even without having a PFL, one of the reasons I’m upgrading to a black edition is the B&O system, is it worth the money, seems to get some great reviews. I have Naim at home and I’m pretty anal with it, isolation and placement etc, are you able to play with the settings more than you can with Audi Sound?

I have B&O in my S3 and honestly the sound quality is immense, even on max volume I struggle to lose clarity on songs (even though I never have it max). You can change all the usual things, bass, treble, max, fade from front to back and side to side. Etc. Definitely worth the money.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

[Matt Titanium]

Ive Noticed this on my FL even without having a PFL, one of the reasons I’m upgrading to a black edition is the B&O system, is it worth the money, seems to get some great reviews. I have Naim at home and I’m pretty anal with it, isolation and placement etc, are you able to play with the settings more than you can with Audi Sound?

The B&O is great and worth the money. Punch, clarity, volume, SPLs and I wouldn't want to be without it. Unfortunately, a car really isn't an ideal environment for an audiophile listening experience and if you're going to compare it to a high end Naim system with a decent front end you'll probably be disappointed.

 

[JonW]

Hehe, no I’d never expect that from a car, I just like my tunes.

 

[DaytonaS3]

Morning all,

So I’ve had my FL S3 from new in March & really cannot fault it apart from one thing.... the Audi Sound System.

I find it really quite poor. Subwoofer? I get a better quality of sound & bass from my wife’s PFL A3. Even my A1 had a better sound.

What seems to happen is when a beat drops it kills the volume on each beat. So for example (& please don’t judge) I’ve been listening to the new Eminem album recently. When there’s a tune playing & he’s rapping at the same time the volume level feels like it is constantly going up & down so you can’t really hear the rap. Then if he raps independently with no beat or music he’s clear as day. There seems to be little or no bass.

What on earth is this? Is it to prevent speakers being blown?

I’ve seen a thread on this before, but can’t seem to find it. If anyone has any info it’d be much appreciated

Thanks
Chris

I completely agree, and having the same thing. Really disappointing sound system. I was going to get b&o but the cost took me over my £40k limit, and wanted the other options more at the time. Had I known, I would have dropped something for it.