Best Audio Quality and Experience

[ian stuart]

USB is going to sound better than BT, especially if you encode files in FLAC format.

However, as has already been stated, the player is currently a joke. Interface needs a LOT of work to be usable, and I personally can't get FLAC files to playback reliably despite trying many things.

Hopefully V9 software resolves these issues and gives the USB player a massive overhaul, because the USB with FLAC playback was one of the things I was most looking forward to with this car.

Spend $30 on the high bit rate slacker option and you will have a great sound

Unfortunately Slacker is no longer supporting the Premium features of slacker according to their management and you can't even construct playlists with the Tesla account or choose your favourite tracks. The rest of the world gets Spotify but the US gets Slacker which seems about to go out of business

(LiveXLive acquires Slacker Radio for $50 million)

 

[Candleflame]

the new blutetooth is pretty good. I still remember how bluetooth used to sound just aweful.

 

[mswlogo]

I’m using a 128gb USB stick with 10,000 MP3’s at lowest compression. No human would here the difference in FLAC vs MP3 (at lowest compression) on that system with a very high noise floor (road noise).

It does sound good, a little sluggish since it seems to scan the stick often.

Problem is the UI is a mess. Tons of albums are split one song per album. I’m gonna to figure out what triggers that that because some albums are fine. But I can’t even browse albums or play full albums. It’s probabky some meta data that trips it up.

If I can fix that, I think it will be usable. Not the first time I’ve run into issues like this.

That all said Slacker sounds better than bluetooth from phone. I also really like tunein app that does podcasts etc.

I sure hope they do work on the radio. It has huge potential and a great start.

They should label the radio as “beta” too

Oh and I want my Random Play (by artist or entire library)

 

[TeeEmCee]

I give you this, the stereos on the S and X are *sugar* but I disagree on the one in the Model 3. I'm quite the sound quality nazi and for me the 3's stereo is fine. It's reasonably capable in the bass and treble and a bit muddled in the mids, but it's definitely quite decent for a car stereo. While it has different pros and cons, I'd say it's on par with the Bose in my one Audi and close to the Bang & Olufsen in my other one (a touch less crisp).

If we want to split hairs, sure, my McIntosh/Proac home system does indeed sound a bit better, but it would be difficult to place inside the car. That and the 12V outlet may struggle with powering it just a bit.

After a long-enough solo drive, I take some of this back. The mids are really muddled and depressed on the model 3, I feel I have to turn the music much louder than usual to hear them properly (yes, the EQ can help a bit but not enough). When I turn the volume up, the bass and treble end up overemphasized and for me it detracts from the enjoyment with most kinds of music. The amp's probably alright, I bet the speakers and the baseline equalization were selected such as to "pump it up" for certain styles of music. Everything's a compromise in audio and this is probably what they felt would most impress shoppers for a given price point.

I hate hifi, not much that's any good is less than a gazillion dollars these days.

 

[sduck]

No human would hear the difference in FLAC vs MP3 (at lowest compression) on that system with a very high noise floor (road noise).

Speak for yourself - this human can often tell the difference. There are various fairly obvious distortions that (even the best) mp3's often have, especially evident in some electronic music. These distortions can be subtle, but they're obviously there - I've done numerous A/B tests with mp3's and flac's made at the same time from the same source disks.

 

[Megapsychotron]

I’m using a 128gb USB stick with 10,000 MP3’s at lowest compression. No human would here the difference in FLAC vs MP3 (at lowest compression) on that system with a very high noise floor (road noise).

It does sound good, a little sluggish since it seems to scan the stick often.

Problem is the UI is a mess. Tons of albums are split one song per album. I’m gonna to figure out what triggers that that because some albums are fine. But I can’t even browse albums or play full albums. It’s probabky some meta data that trips it up.

If I can fix that, I think it will be usable. Not the first time I’ve run into issues like this.

That all said Slacker sounds better than bluetooth from phone. I also really like tunein app that does podcasts etc.

I sure hope they do work on the radio. It has huge potential and a great start.

They should label the radio as “beta” too

Oh and I want my Random Play (by artist or entire library)

Look at my post "Lessons learned from USB" for help in file organization to get the car to read the files nearly organized

 

[mswlogo]

Look at my post "Lessons learned from USB" for help in file organization to get the car to read the files nearly organized

I know "highly trained" ears can hear artifacts on some genre's of music in very controlled conditions.
All of which are not the case here

Thanks for your link. Here is my "lessons learned" post and I have fixed the disorganized mess.

Work around for albums being Split on USB Flash Drive Music

I agree with all your points in your thread. Thanks.

 

[sduck]

I know "highly trained" ears can hear artifacts on some genre's of music in very controlled conditions.
All of which are not the case here

I did my testing both in my old volt and the model 3 while driving. I can tell the difference even in this situation. Most people would not.

 

[mswlogo]

I did my testing both in my old volt and the model 3 while driving. I can tell the difference even in this situation. Most people would not.

Whatever.

 

[Shizzrock]

I did my testing both in my old volt and the model 3 while driving. I can tell the difference even in this situation. Most people would not.

Maybe between 128k mp3 and flac, but 320k mp3 and flac you're not being honest or it's placebo effect. The speakers simply don't have the frequency response for you to hear the difference, and even then you need a highly trained ear. On top of it, the way most modern music is mastered, there's not enough dynamic range for it to matter.

New Loudness Trends in Music Mastering


That being said, 64k slacker vs. USB audio is night and day.

 

[Megapsychotron]

Maybe between 128k mp3 and flac, but 320k mp3 and flac you're not being honest or it's placebo effect. The speakers simply don't have the frequency response for you to hear the difference, and even then you need a highly trained ear. On top of it, the way most modern music is mastered, there's not enough dynamic range for it to matter.

New Loudness Trends in Music Mastering


That being said, 64k slacker vs. USB audio is night and day.

I've ripped my music into mp3 LAME v0 VBR (typically around 275k) and it sounds fantastic in the Model 3. And you're right about no discernable difference of high bit-rate mp3 and FLAC. I wouldn't fault anyone for using lossless codecs, but I personally like the high fidelity sound with space savings. USB audio definitely is superior than the Slacker source.

 

[mswlogo]

For those that have been running USB for a while while. How stable is it?

I can deal with a long scan every time I get in. And that it rarely picks up where I last left it. But it sometimes seams to get stuck in the scan. Or no scan at all.

If I “reboot” the screen it works every time. And it will work fine most times. And once full scan is done it works perfect. Except for lack of random play etc.

I think what might be happening is I go in the car to get something out and it starts things. It’s starts a scan then I leave with it not done scanning. Then I come back and it doesn’t know to restart the scan or continue the last one and wedges itself. It probably takes a good 2-3 minutes to scan.

I have ~10K MP3 at fixed 320 bps.

On some cars I’ve stripped the Tags down to barebones. And in one case I stripped all the artwork out. I wonder if this would help.

Anyone seen this?

 

[Goosby]

I know this thread is more focused on the source format for optimal sound quality, but I am wondering if anyone has any recommended audio settings with (or without) immersive sound. While I know this is a highly subjective question and I don’t mean to derail the thread, I only ask because it seems there are plenty of folks with better ears than mine posting here and my wife and I have yet to be able to agree on settings.

 

[mswlogo]

I know this thread is more focused on the source format for optimal sound quality, but I am wondering if anyone has any recommended audio settings with (or without) immersive sound. While I know this is a highly subjective question and I don’t mean to derail the thread, I only ask because it seems there are plenty of folks with better ears than mine posting here and my wife and I have yet to be able to agree on settings.

You mean the EQ? I've been running mine flat and it seems pretty good. I might try to run REW on it one day and see what it looks like.
With it flat it seems to have plenty of bass without being boomy.

I'm also on the middle immersive sound setting.

 

[sduck]

The usual audiophile advice is to start with everything flat, immersion off, and then adjust to taste. I generally listen to a large variety of stuff, over the course of several weeks before making adjustments. And then I only make small ones, then listen for a few more days before doing anything else. Even the smallest 0.5 increment changes you can make will make a big difference. After having my car for almost 4 months I've still got most of it flat, except the 2 high end ones - the end one is at 1, and the second to last one is at 0.5 - mostly to compensate for older ears. The system sounds really great without much tweaking.

The immersion sound settings are highly subjective - generally I hate the phasing effects these introduce, but in this car it's actually mostly ok sounding. Especially at highway speeds, and with the tire noise, I sometimes find turning it on at the lowest setting sounds nice. Plus it seems to enable those little speakers right over your head when you turn it on - I'm not sure they're totally disabled without immersion on, but it seems like it.

Watch out for the low end eq faders - that lowest one can be dangerous if you crank it up too much - it's centered around the subaudio frequencies. If you like a lot of bass, try boosting the second to lowest one first, you might like that better.

 

[JAG]

Your best choice is to get a standalone music player with its own speakers and plug it into the 12V outlet.

I am not kidding. That's how bad the music player system on Teslas is. It's clearly not a priority for them since they have not fixed any bugs in the S/X system in 5 years, and have introduced several new bugs. If you care about music quality, just treat it as a car which doesn't come with a radio.

@neroden

You hit the nail on the head. It's really blatantly stating the Emperor has no clothes.

It's really hard to fix the issues. With FLAC 24/48 on a fat32 formatted USB.. and a lot of messing around with the balance, seat position for your ears, and tone controls (and you'll have to try several times) you can get "barely acceptable" sound and certainly not worth the money spent. (Draping a wool scarf across the top of the dash helps with tempering some of the harsh glass re-reflections..this really helps)

Unfortunately , some "car audio expert at Harmon" thought he could use a tiny midrange driver (and have Tesla produce their own 3" driver instead of using a carefully voiced driver developed over a decade by people who make it their sole business to deliver emotional impact with the music.) That 3" might work for the confines of a silent electric Porsche Cayman but for cars with the interior volume- you just have almost no slam and just a bit of whump. It's like playing a clock radio in a gymnasium.

A 4.5" midrange going to a pair of 6.5" mid basses in the doors with 1" tweeters would have made a much better choice. A 10" sub crossed at 80hz and down in a sealed enclosure could have been put under the car in front to have true bass up front since there is no transmission tunnel.

It could have been one of the best audio systems ever. And with the skateboard architecture if you really wanted to be innovative you could have made 3d space around the battery layout for a virtual transmission line enclosure for the bass driver. (yes that IS overboard, but it is possible).

The only other possible solution to those awful midranges might be trying out 3 Boelender Graebner NEO 10 drivers in the dash.

And the tweeters in the pillars ... whose idea was that? Its just another way of messing up arrival times.

Frankly with self driving around the corner a lot more attention should be focused on the ICE (In-Car-Entertainment) quality. I find literally almost no joy in the stock system unless it is so carefully adjusted. And without question Just 2 channels of 100 watts each running some Jehnert Doorboards in my 1994 E Class E500 Mercedes Using a scan speak 12M midrange driver completely blew away the "you gotta be kidding me 560 watts of the ha ha ha ha (actually crying) "Ultra high Fidelity Sound System " for $5000 or $2500 or frankly even for $800 its just not worth it over the horrible stock system.

So I went to the factory to see how Model X was built to fix the system in mine.. I even saw Elon walk right by our little tour ( which was fun and unexpected) . I looked at the honeycomb like aluminum structure which is hollowed in front (while the cars were being assembled ) - and modding this car to accept a 4.5" mid range is nigh impossible.

SO Neroden is spot on about putting some other actual speakers (in this case Kickpanels) in the car and making an entire new audio system to fix it.

 

[JAG]

I also have driven nearly every version of MS and MX with every audio configuration and battery (I was given an endless stream of loaners while my car was being built) and it seems that every system, in each car is different and requires different EQ .

I tune rooms And top audiophile systems for CES and RMAF and T.H.E. Show Newport Beach , and also can do an amazing job with car audio parametric EQ. I can tell you that it makes a huge difference when speaker manufacturers match drivers and levels on their speakers to .5db or better. Chapman Audio Systems discards a fairly high percentage of their drivers, and SCAN SPEAK of Denmark has some of the better QC and consistency amongst drivers . There are better (like Accuton which laser drills their drivers to balance the cones) but its pretty easy to hear large inconsistencies from Tesla to Tesla (But when it comes to dimensional consistency I saw this measuring machine that keeps the dimensional sizing accurate to thinner than human hair - measured by robots) so Tesla is about accuracy and consistency but the audio system is many orders of magnitude away from this.

So while I had planned to post my EQ curves, I decided it was pointless.

 

[TEG]

Jag... this is a thread in the Model 3 forum, but you are talking about problems with your Model X sound?

Have you listened to the sound system in a Model 3 ?

 

[mswlogo]

The usual audiophile advice is to start with everything flat, immersion off, and then adjust to taste. I generally listen to a large variety of stuff, over the course of several weeks before making adjustments. And then I only make small ones, then listen for a few more days before doing anything else. Even the smallest 0.5 increment changes you can make will make a big difference. After having my car for almost 4 months I've still got most of it flat, except the 2 high end ones - the end one is at 1, and the second to last one is at 0.5 - mostly to compensate for older ears. The system sounds really great without much tweaking.

The immersion sound settings are highly subjective - generally I hate the phasing effects these introduce, but in this car it's actually mostly ok sounding. Especially at highway speeds, and with the tire noise, I sometimes find turning it on at the lowest setting sounds nice. Plus it seems to enable those little speakers right over your head when you turn it on - I'm not sure they're totally disabled without immersion on, but it seems like it.

Watch out for the low end eq faders - that lowest one can be dangerous if you crank it up too much - it's centered around the subaudio frequencies. If you like a lot of bass, try boosting the second to lowest one first, you might like that better.

Wow, this is the first post I’ve read on the forum(s) that correlates at all with what I measured. And they tweaked it all by ear.

 

[Trevor B]

The usual audiophile advice is to start with everything flat, immersion off, and then adjust to taste. I generally listen to a large variety of stuff, over the course of several weeks before making adjustments. And then I only make small ones, then listen for a few more days before doing anything else. Even the smallest 0.5 increment changes you can make will make a big difference. After having my car for almost 4 months I've still got most of it flat, except the 2 high end ones - the end one is at 1, and the second to last one is at 0.5 - mostly to compensate for older ears. The system sounds really great without much tweaking.

The immersion sound settings are highly subjective - generally I hate the phasing effects these introduce, but in this car it's actually mostly ok sounding. Especially at highway speeds, and with the tire noise, I sometimes find turning it on at the lowest setting sounds nice. Plus it seems to enable those little speakers right over your head when you turn it on - I'm not sure they're totally disabled without immersion on, but it seems like it.

Watch out for the low end eq faders - that lowest one can be dangerous if you crank it up too much - it's centered around the subaudio frequencies. If you like a lot of bass, try boosting the second to lowest one first, you might like that better.

Can you please share your settings? Maybe a pic if that is easier? Thanks.