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MCU2 Upgrade Audio EQ Balancing - Coming From MCU1
- Thread starter agtdDelirium
- Start date
Did you get your car back and done any tests? Check the sound coming out of the rear doors. Do you hear middle range and vocals or just bass notes?
There is no possible way they will rewire the car as this I believe is the way MCU2 works to get more bass out of the system. Front door speakers are for 50-350 hz and the rear doors produce 300 hZ and above Those of you with MCU1 and UHFS/Premium systems can you listen to the front and rear door speakers to see what you hear and report you findings? Fronts should be bass and the rears you will hear vocals. Rear 300hz and above and fronts 40-350Hz
Standard sound does not count for this discussion as they seem to have the reverse situation when upgrading to MCU2
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I have MCU1 and Premium audio. When I turn "Dolby Audio" on, it sounds just like you describe. If I turn Dolby Audio off, then it sounds like every speaker is trying to create every frequency.
Cheburashka
Active Member
This is exactly how it is for me with standard sound. I would say the rear door cutoff is a bit lower than 300hz but not by much.
I'm pretty certain this is a software thing not a wiring thing.
OK we might be getting somewhere. MCU2 does not have Dolby anymore. It is now called "Immersive Sound" and has options from Off, Standard and High. From what I can tell it just widens the sound stage in the front but does not change the front and back door speakers as you describe with Dolby and MCU1. This tells me this is just the way it is with MCU2 and not much we can do to change unless they rewrite the MCU2 DSP settings to put it back like MCU1 used to be. This would take a lot of unhappy customers bitching and many has stated in other forums that they like it. (more bass) Could be that they have never really played with their settings or even know how to adjust a EQ or listen to content that really does not matter how it sounds. I am very critical of my music and adjust EQ setting for almost every song to get my sound to my liking. I also have a extra sub system that has a control knob that I can add as much bass for which I adjust for most songs to get the proper amount of bass for my listening pleasure.
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I did get it back with MCU1 still, and haven't done anything comprehensive other than fading front to back to determine thresholds. I did notice something though, which is it seems like I can hear just about all the same frequencies from the rear speakers, including some low bass frequencies.They just aren't amplified like the front speakers are. For example, the song Wow by Beck. I can still hear the lower bass frequencies from the rear speakers, though they are pretty quiet. I'm not an audio guy so forgive me if I use the wrong terms, but that would seem to tell me that those frequencies aren't being cut, just not amplified.
Actually in hindsight, I need to climb back there to be sure I'm not hearing them from the front speakers just really faded away. I'll do that today. And since I bought this car used it's entirely possible that a previous owner added some form of audio equipment, though I have no reason to believe that since things seem pretty typical for a higher-end factory system.
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Cheburashka
Active Member
That's all correct and how mine sounds as well. You wouldn't think that it's like this at all sitting in the front seat with the fade set at the middle of the car, I guess it's the way Tesla decided to set up the soundstage and it sounds pretty decent.
My plan is to add a NVX sub/amp to the trunk + rear fill speakers on a separate amp in the liftgate. This will give a lot of granular control over the sound in the car.
The way I have been testing is to get your ear right next to the speaker so you are not getting sound from other sources/speakers. With MCU2 I get all bass from the front doors and vocals and higher frequencies from the rear doors. What we need to determine is if they changed the way the crossover are handled between MCU1 and MCU2. So I am asking for input from UHFS sound MCU1 cars. Again it does not help for comments with people with MCU1 and the Standard sound system. That is a completely different discussion as they cross speakers over differently and you do not have a extra amp in the car.
Since there is no similiar thread for the MCU1/Standard sound that upgraded to MCU2 and lost half the volume and all the bass in the rear door speakers, it is not hard to test, nor do you have to be an audiophile. All you need to do is set the equalizer's left bar all the way up to 8 for maximum bass. Then search music for Techmaster PEB or any other ridiculous bass genre songs. Then put the volume on 8 and use the fader to go from the front left door to the rear left door. Not only can you clearly hear the volume and bass dissapear, you can also put your hand over the speakers and feel the front door thumping, and the rear door doing nothing at all. Now you can say all you want about how Tesla wants it to be this way due to sound stage for the driver, ect. But that is complete B.S. With MCU1 the rear door speakers were full volume and full bass. And almost every stereo system is designed with a rear sub or bass coming mostly from the rear. No one wants bass coming from the front center console (which it is mostly coming from now) or more bass coming from the front door speakers than the rear door speakers EVEN when FULLY faded to the rear. At that setting all bass and MORE, NOT LESS volume should be coming out of the rear 2 speakers as in MCU1. People in this situation can test and report back here please, because this is NOT normal, ruins the entire sound system, forces you to listen at 7 or 8 instead of the previous 4 or 5 volume to get the same level, and is not how the stereo system worked before on MCU1 which it worked properly.
I think at this point you need to be telling this to someone at Tesla to see if there is a fix for you or maybe an explanation to what is going on.
My car is in service now addressing this concern. I will report back when I get some answers or explanations to what is going on and I don’t plan on taking the car back until Tesla provides this. In addition to the poor sound performance I am also experiencing other issues after the upgrade. Sentry mode is setting off the alarm when supercharging, rear usb not charging anymore and I had to reboot the MCU or it has crashed over 5 times in a few weeks.
Ostrichsak
Well-Known Member
For the wish list it would be great if we had a software enabled 10 band configurable EQ that allowed for setting the gain and frequency range for each driver or set of drivers. The software processes this info already so why not allow for configurability with custom and standard settings? It would really be more like a software driven DSP.
Cheburashka
Active Member
Would be nice indeed, but I bet you 99% of owners are happy with the standard audio settings.
I am thinking you are right. I know I had a hard time finding a used car that had the UHFS as most just had the standard. I took me over a year to find it and I had to travel to KC to purchase and ship back to Calif. This tells me most don't really care how good it sounds and standard is good enough. So a little more bass is welcomed to them. Now for the UHFS they really messed it up with MCU2
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I would bet 90% of owners don't even touch the EQ, nor even understand the use of it. This is the main reason a manufacturer needs to give a balanced system to begin with. Let someone who knows what they are doing design the system and optimize the sound. Most end users are not going to mess with it after delivery. Tesla has been all over the place with changing the sound coming from the Model S during the years of production, with a steady decline in sound quality.
"It's time to jam!"
My favorite for testing bass is "DJ Shadow - Three Ralphs"
Just replace it with something better. Most stock systems aren't very good. The majority of car owners don't know better or don't care.
I can second that about the sound quality declining. My 14 Model S UHFS was 10 times better than my 17 MCU1 model S and now that I have MCU2 it just sucks.
