Audio: Sound System Quality?

[Larry Chanin]

Is it just me, or do the transport controls disappear when playing a WAV file?

No insult is intended, but I suspect its something unique to your setup. Last night I watched a friend try out his 128 GB thumb drive filled with WAV files during his orientation with our local delivery specialist. It took a little while to load, and in the short run through it seemed that everything was working fine, various tracks were selected and played.

To be certain I just downloaded a short WAV file sample and played it in my Model S. It played fine and the transport controls were there and functioned.

Larry

 

[ClearwaterBchSteve]

My initial opinion of the sound system is quite positive. I've only had the car for a few hours and unfortunately had to go to work for a while Tomorrow, I will play more. The HD FM sounds good and it appears Dolby Surround (at least with V4.0 software) does not enable for radio sources. If you go to that setting, it's somewhat "greyed out". When I switched to USB, you could disable or enable Dolby. I turned it off and will leave it off. The sound has much more punch and clarity with it off. I suppose if there was a surround encoded file, it might truely play in "surround mode" and there would be a benefit to it. I put a variety of different styles of music onto a USB stick for testing. I encoded directly from CD to 24 bit FLAC @ 44.1Khz and the music sounds very clear. There is album art and you can list/search by artist, album or title. I think there is plenty of clean power and it will crank up quite nicely. I set the EQ to +2.5 bass, 0 mid and +2.0 treble for now. The system is most definitely oriented towards the front which I don't find a problem. I like to hear some sound from the rear so I've set the fader to about 3 towards the back - balance centered.

 

[MikeK]

My main problem was the focal point of the audio

I had a similar impression until I turned off the Dolby. To me, that opened up the soundstage nicely and also got rid of some of the tinny character. The Dolby does not seem to improve the sound much IMO.

 

[elreydetodo]

I had a similar impression until I turned off the Dolby. To me, that opened up the soundstage nicely and also got rid of some of the tinny character. The Dolby does not seem to improve the sound much IMO.

I do remember specifically that the Dolby PL2 was enabled in the test car, and it was playing an audio file off the local hard drive. I went to the Natick store a couple days ago and listened from the rear seat while the guy in the front flipped it on and off a few times. It is WAY better with PL2 disabled.

For anyone unfamiliar: PL2 does not require many-channel input to generate surround sound. It takes what it gets (often 2 channels) and splits it out in some magic way to improve spacial orientation based on related frequencies of sound. The result is often that one instrument will seem to come from a particular speaker, another instrument from a different speaker. It's usually on the same side as the original instrument, but can be moved between front and rear areas of the car. If the instrument was evenly split between left and right, it might choose to move it between front and rear channels. In Logic 7 (a similar, competing algorithm to my understanding), it often shifts drums to the rear and vocals to the front. It does all this magic by artificially delaying audio playback by a predictable amount (in the < 10ms range) in order to pass the audio stream through one or more algorithms which take N (usually 2) channels as input and M (15.1, in Model S w/ studio sound) channels as output.

My guess is that there will be future updates to the Dolby PL2 implementation to improve its behavior. I will be leaving it off most of the time based on my current opinion of its behavior, but I promise I'll re-test it any time I see a firmware upgrade that sounds like it might affect it. It's software, so they can continue to re-release it until they get it right

 

[DrTaras]

There is also some discussion of the base sound system in this thread:
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/show...stem-yet/page2?p=242261&viewfull=1#post242261

 

[tomas]

I spent about 30 minutes this am with the speaker diagram checking it out. All speakers appear to be working (including subwoofer). I believe that there are 3 elements of the audio design that make it quite different from an other auto stereo design I've ever experienced:


1) The huge balance of the speakers are forward, making the stereo very biased towards the front. Even the driver door speakers are considerably forward of driver. Most car systems have largest speakers in package shelf behind rear seat, and are therefore very biased towards the rear. In the Model S, it sounds much better with balance moved towards the rear to overcome the forward-biased design... however because the rear speakers are relatively small, if you dial it too far towards the rear, the sound degrades, and the peak volume decreases. I was pretty happy with -8 to the rear.


2) The Model S "Flat" equalization is very treble-biased. I've never before had to use equalization to get what I would consider a good "flat" EQ, but with experimentation I've found if I boost the low about +4 and mid +2, I get a good sound that I would consider flat in most systems. Without doing this, the sub-woofer barely comes into play, which is perhaps why I questioned if it is working.


3) The Dolby should only be used with Dolby 5:1 input, if at all. All it seems to do is mess up the sound of normal stereo recordings. I've used other Dolby simulation in car audio systems that enhances just about everything, but this one doesn't. It's better left off.


So, I've been able to achieve quite good sound via tweaking. But for those of us who have owned other cars with premium sound systems (which I believe accounts for vast majority of Tesla owners and reservation holders), we are not used to having to tweak to get "premium" sound quality. Expectation is it should sound good right out of the box, because that's what we're used to with other cars. I believe Tesla has 3 options: a) leave as is and let each owner discover how to adjust, b) document so owners know what to expect and how to adjust, c) change the EQ and front-rear balance "flat" settings to something more conventional - which would be achievable via software.

 

[Todd Burch]

So, I've been able to achieve quite good sound via tweaking. But for those of us who have owned other cars with premium sound systems (which I believe accounts for vast majority of Tesla owners and reservation holders), we are not used to having to tweak to get "premium" sound quality. Expectation is it should sound good right out of the box, because that's what we're used to with other cars. I believe Tesla has 3 options: a) leave as is and let each owner discover how to adjust, b) document so owners know what to expect and how to adjust, c) change the EQ and front-rear balance "flat" settings to something more conventional - which would be achievable via software.

Thanks for that--I agree with your assessment. I expect the software side of the sound system will receive quite a few tweaks, but it probably wasn't considered high priority as the cars were coming off the line.

 

[efxjim]

I wold like a loudness button.

 

[ClearwaterBchSteve]

So, I've been able to achieve quite good sound via tweaking. But for those of us who have owned other cars with premium sound systems (which I believe accounts for vast majority of Tesla owners and reservation holders), we are not used to having to tweak to get "premium" sound quality. Expectation is it should sound good right out of the box, because that's what we're used to with other cars. I believe Tesla has 3 options: a) leave as is and let each owner discover how to adjust, b) document so owners know what to expect and how to adjust, c) change the EQ and front-rear balance "flat" settings to something more conventional - which would be achievable via software.

tomas, It sounds like you've come to exactly the same conclusion I have... The system is most definitely physically oriented towards the front and it does need some fade and EQ tweaking, but overall I feel it is an acceptable "high-end" system. My settings are very similar to yours. I'm coming off an awesome B & O system in an Audi. The Model S has more flexibility regarding streaming audio off my iPhone so that's a plus. Apps like Pandora and SiriusXM stream off the phone effortlessly and sound quite good.

I agree that Tesla's approach is somewhat non-conventional. I don't recall ever owning or even being in a vehicle that didn't have the largest and most powerful speakers in the rear. Maybe Elon did not want his kids in the jump seats blasted out. Enjoy.

 

[Larry Chanin]

3) The Dolby should only be used with Dolby 5:1 input, if at all. All it seems to do is mess up the sound of normal stereo recordings. I've used other Dolby simulation in car audio systems that enhances just about everything, but this one doesn't. It's better left off.

Thanks tomas for your remarks.

As far as I know there is no way to input 5.1 content to the system. Do you know of a means of doing this?

Thanks.

Larry

 

[ClearwaterBchSteve]

As far as I know there is no way to input 5.1 content to the system. Do you know of a means of doing this?

Larry, I'll be the first to try once somebody can figure out the acceptable file formats for multi-channel (>2) audio. It's funny that this has been such a concern of ours when the car is so amazing to DRIVE. :tongue:

 

[Larry Chanin]

Larry, I'll be the first to try once somebody can figure out the acceptable file formats for multi-channel (>2) audio. It's funny that this has been such a concern of ours when the car is so amazing to DRIVE. :tongue:

Hi Steve,

I'm greatly enjoying both the car and sound system. However, I am curious to hear discrete multichannel music in the car since I have greatly enjoyed it in my home theater, more so than two channel music.

Larry

 

[ddruz]

For those folks with the Sound Studio Package: What is your impression of the effect on the audio when you select Dolby? What do you think is happening since the system is clearly not decoding Dolby encoded audio when playing stereo sources? Do you get the impression a pseudo-Dolby surround sound is being emulated? Thanks.

 

[ckessel]

For those folks with the Sound Studio Package: What is your impression of the effect on the audio when you select Dolby? What do you think is happening since the system is clearly not decoding Dolby encoded audio when playing stereo sources? Do you get the impression a pseudo-Dolby surround sound is being emulated? Thanks.

I've found I generally prefer Dolby off. Sounds sort of muddied or muted with it on. Usually, a few songs sound better, but mostly I prefer it off.

The sound system hasn't excited me much so far. It's not bad, just doesn't fill the cabin. Most notably, the rear speakers really seem to lack impact and I feel the music much more from the front. I've tried shifting the fade/balance around and that works beautifully as advertised, but there isn't really a spot where the rear speakers don't feel a bit, uh, thin? soft? weak? Not sure how you describe such a subjective feeling.

 

[contaygious]

Yeah I had friends in the back and they asked me if there were even speakers back there and I was playing at 8

 

[v12 to 12v]

Larry, I'll be the first to try once somebody can figure out the acceptable file formats for multi-channel (>2) audio. It's funny that this has been such a concern of ours when the car is so amazing to DRIVE. :tongue:

I'm waiting with baited breath about this as well. I got some fabulous new 5.1 DTS audio for Christmas that I would love to take on the road. I'm trying to be patient but it is frustrating. I'm hoping FLAC with discrete 5.1 capability will be operable soon.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah I had friends in the back and they asked me if there were even speakers back there and I was playing at 8

I think that there should be some tweaks forthcoming in a firmware update. When I got the last update I was getting far more bass, but the rear output was still low. I have to adust the fade every time I change the volume to make things sound right. Front definitely has more power than the rear. I know that they are working on a variety of bugs that were in the latest firmware update before continuing releases. The revision may or may not fix the rear speaker sound issue. If you have not reported your rear speaker low output problem to service, you should. They need to be aware of it. The more info they have the better.

- - - Updated - - -

I've found I generally prefer Dolby off. Sounds sort of muddied or muted with it on. Usually, a few songs sound better, but mostly I prefer it off.

QUOTE]

Agreed. Dolby is terrible. I didn't mention it to service because I wasn't sure if that is worth mentioning for the service & engineering database or not. The rear speaker and fade issue is definitely something that everyone needs to report for the database.

 

[rcc]

The Dolby thing doesn't phase me because I have yet to hear a Dolby implementation that I like for music. Dolby PL for movies is fine. But for music on a good sound system with a well-engineered recording, to my ears the 2-channel stereo playback has always sounded better.

If I ever get any 5-channel music sources, I'll turn Dolby on for that and see what it's like. Until then, I'm fine with it off but impressed that they support it .

As for the front-bias, I admit I was surpised by this when I first heard the system on the test drives. It sounds good though and speaking as a parent with kids, I think front bias is a really good thing on long drives when you want the small children in the back seats to sleep.

 

[aaronw]

I test drove a performance model S yesterday at the Menlo Park showroom and one of the things I tried was playing some FLAC files I have on my keychain drive. Stereo FLAC played just fine but the 5.1 audio FLAC file I tried did not. Hopefully a future software upgrade will solve this.

 

[Larry Chanin]

If I ever get any 5-channel music sources, I'll turn Dolby on for that and see what it's like.

If we ever get to the point where the system is upgraded to accept 5.1 discrete sources we won't need to turn Dolby on unless you want to expand it to 7.1. I love using Dolby to produce 7.1 in my home theater where the surround back speakers are just as high quality as the side surrounds. The problem in our Model Ss is that clearly a soundbar in the rear of the car is not going to be the same quality as the side or front speakers so we might want to be careful how much of the content is redirected to the rear.

Larry

 

[ClearwaterBchSteve]

If we ever get to the point where the system is upgraded to accept 5.1 discrete sources we won't need to turn Dolby on unless you want to expand it to 7.1. I love using Dolby to produce 7.1 in my home theater where the surround back speakers are just as high quality as the side surrounds. The problem in our Model Ss is that clearly a soundbar in the rear of the car is not going to be the same quality as the side or front speakers so we might want to be careful how much of the content is redirected to the rear.

Larry

You're right Larry, 5.1 discrete music sources (SACD/DVD-A) put much more emphasis on the rear channels than movies or "ambient" processing algorythms do. However, I still think the rear speakers in the S should be ok for that purpose. I really do want to try 5.1 descrete! I've enjoyed many of the same discs as you have for multi-channel music albeit my "home theater" is my living room and nothing like yours, but the equipment's good and gets the job done . I know you're chomping at the bit to listen to Beatles LOVE.