Model Y Sound System Upgrade

[dystien]

Do you guys have any recommendations on what sound system upgrade to have installed for the the Model Y? Looking for a fuller, richer sounding midrange. Don't listen loud at all.

Does anyone know what type of amplifier the factory uses? Class AB or Class D?

Was thinking of finding a reputable shop to add Audison Prima speakers and an amplifier. Or possibly Hertz or Focal. Any recommendations would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance

 

[fiendskillz]

Orella Acoustics

Orella Acoustics car audio systems are designed and engineered as a plug & play premium upgrade for select vehicle makes and models.

orellaacoustics.com

Can try these. They’re plug and play and have install instructions online.

 

[DerbyCityY]

Have you adjusted the mixer or sound position?

 

[unclejesse816]

Man out of all the cars I’ve owned bmw, Mercedes built a show car 20 years ago use to win every sound comp this MYP 22 sounds so damn good! I was surprised with how well the system sounds for stock

 

[dystien]

Lol it sounds meh.

 

[NovaY]

Man out of all the cars I’ve owned bmw, Mercedes built a show car 20 years ago use to win every sound comp this MYP 22 sounds so damn good! I was surprised with how well the system sounds for stock

Agreed! I also built competiton car systems when I was younger and now work in the audio industry. The Tesla Model Y audio system is really good. It has great clarity and dynamics, with plenty of headroom. The imaging is also done really well and I am generally impressed with the capabilities of the engineers that put this system together. People may feel the need to use the EQ to "season" the sound to taste, but that's about it.

 

[dystien]

The reason I made this post is because I feel that the midrange(specifically male+female vocals) aren't rich sounding. It is somewhat hollow sounding and there's no midrange presence. I don't listen loud at all either.

I know it's impossible to compare to home hifi equipment, and so I'm just trying to get the midrange to sound as close to what tube amplifiers and decent hifi speakers such as what dynaudio produces.

Doesn't help that the dash speakers where the vocals are produced, are pointed directly towards the windshield. Glass tends to bounce sound waves in ways that make our ears perceive the sound to be bright and harsh. Would've preferred the door speskers to produce the midrange.

 

[dystien]

The size of the magnets in the 4" stock tesla speakers are laughable but i also understand that the factory amp is pretty weak forcing tesla engineers to chose those speakers for high efficiency. I would assume that replacing the 3 dash speakers with hertz dieci or audison ap 4 would improve the mids somewhat. In home audio, focal(with the exception to their high end utopia line) speakers tend to sound lean and bright which likely translates similar characteristics in their car speakers also.

But to make drastic improvements, one would likely have to add a 8ch amp along with DSP so that the frequency of each woofer can be adjusted by software on laptop.

Albeit from a YouTube demo, this system sounds nice(Skip to 52 seconds mark)

Another good sounding system:

 

[NovaY]

The reason I made this post is because I feel that the midrange(specifically male+female vocals) aren't rich sounding. It is somewhat hollow sounding and there's no midrange presence. I don't listen loud at all either.

I know it's impossible to compare to home hifi equipment, and so I'm just trying to get the midrange to sound as close to what tube amplifiers and decent hifi speakers such as what dynaudio produces.

Doesn't help that the dash speakers where the vocals are produced, are pointed directly towards the windshield. Glass tends to bounce sound waves in ways that make our ears perceive the sound to be bright and harsh. Would've preferred the door speskers to produce the midrange.

Funny enough, I also feel like the lower midrange in the Model Y could use a slight boost of maybe 1-2dB centered around 100-200Hz. This should fill out the body of male and female vocals nicely. I just need to take some measurements to figure out which EQ slider this frequency range best corresponds to. I also would be dialing down the treble by 1-2dB as I believe it's a little too bright as is. That said, the fundamentals of the system is very nice. The frequency spectrum sounds pretty smooth, with no obvious peaks or dips. The clarity is good (lack of harmonic distortion), and there seems to be plenty of power and dynamic headroom to produce high playback volumes.

Dash speakers firing into the windshield is not an issue in and of itself if it is engineered correctly. Windshield glass is very rigid since it is curved and securely bonded to the structure of the vehicle body. Consequently, there is likely very little absorption and transmissive loss. The only potential issue is destructive cancellations between the driver's direct sound path and the windshield reflected sound, centered on the frequency that has a wavelength of 2x the distance between the driver's acoustic center and the windshield. I can't find any Model Y measurements but found plenty of Model 3 measurements, which are similar. It seems Tesla engineers were able to prevent the destructive nulls to the point where it doesn't show up at all.

In summary, some EQing should be all that's needed since the system seems to be fundamentally well-engineered.

 

[bpobill]

Man out of all the cars I’ve owned bmw, Mercedes built a show car 20 years ago use to win every sound comp this MYP 22 sounds so damn good! I was surprised with how well the system sounds for stock

These comments are always so funny. Nobody cares about how you think stock it’s fine. He wants an upgrade and you share your feelings. It’s so helpful…..

 

[dystien]

I was told that starting late 2022 and 2023, the model Y's no longer have the tweeter in the middle of the dash. I'll start by upgrading the 3 dash speakers to audison ap 4's and see how that goes. The magnet is much beefier than the stock 4" dash speakers meanwhile still being very efficient at 92db.

 

[NovaY]

These comments are always so funny. Nobody cares about how you think stock it’s fine. He wants an upgrade and you share your feelings. It’s so helpful…..

I thought it was pretty helpful, but not in a direct way. As I also explained, the system is pretty well-engineered. If the OP feels some midrange is missing, then some EQ adjustment should be enough. Changing just the speakers in a highly integrated audio system is a terrible way to go about things because the system's DSP is tuned to work with the specific speaker drivers installed. Unless the OP is prepared to completely re-engineer the system, not just with new speakers, but with a new DSP, new amps, and hours upon hours of tuning the DSP to achieve proper time alignment and a good summed frequency response at multiple seating positions, it's very very unlikely that changing the speakers will actually improve the sound system. It'll sound different, sure, but probably not better. The only "easy" upgrade for a car stereo like this is the subwoofer.

 

[NovaY]

I was told that starting late 2022 and 2023, the model Y's no longer have the tweeter in the middle of the dash. I'll start by upgrading the 3 dash speakers to audison ap 4's and see how that goes. The magnet is much beefier than the stock 4" dash speakers meanwhile still being very efficient at 92db.

Apples and oranges. The stock speakers use neodymium magnets, which are always smaller than ferrite magnets for the same strength. I've not taken apart a Tesla speaker's dash but there may not be space there to fit a driver with a standard ferrite magnet.

 

[dystien]

Apples and oranges. The stock speakers use neodymium magnets, which are always smaller than ferrite magnets for the same strength. I've not taken apart a Tesla speaker's dash but there may not be space there to fit a driver with a standard ferrite magnet.

Thanks for the clarification; I didn't know tesla stock speakers used neodymium.

 

[CyanideDN]

Funny enough, I also feel like the lower midrange in the Model Y could use a slight boost of maybe 1-2dB centered around 100-200Hz. This should fill out the body of male and female vocals nicely. I just need to take some measurements to figure out which EQ slider this frequency range best corresponds to. I also would be dialing down the treble by 1-2dB as I believe it's a little too bright as is. That said, the fundamentals of the system is very nice. The frequency spectrum sounds pretty smooth, with no obvious peaks or dips. The clarity is good (lack of harmonic distortion), and there seems to be plenty of power and dynamic headroom to produce high playback volumes.

Dash speakers firing into the windshield is not an issue in and of itself if it is engineered correctly. Windshield glass is very rigid since it is curved and securely bonded to the structure of the vehicle body. Consequently, there is likely very little absorption and transmissive loss. The only potential issue is destructive cancellations between the driver's direct sound path and the windshield reflected sound, centered on the frequency that has a wavelength of 2x the distance between the driver's acoustic center and the windshield. I can't find any Model Y measurements but found plenty of Model 3 measurements, which are similar. It seems Tesla engineers were able to prevent the destructive nulls to the point where it doesn't show up at all.

In summary, some EQing should be all that's needed since the system seems to be fundamentally well-engineered.

Do you have EQ recommendations for the improvements you're suggesting?

 

[NovaY]

Do you have EQ recommendations for the improvements you're suggesting?

I have no idea. I just picked up my Model Y about a week ago and noticed the thin-ish lower midrange as I listened to it during an 850-mile road trip. I'm out of town and will measure the audio system when I get back. By then I can correlate the EQ bands with frequency.

 

[FreqFlyer]

I was told that starting late 2022 and 2023, the model Y's no longer have the tweeter in the middle of the dash. I'll start by upgrading the 3 dash speakers to audison ap 4's and see how that goes. The magnet is much beefier than the stock 4" dash speakers meanwhile still being very efficient at 92db.

I thought Tesla stated the center fill was no longer needed and they took out the mid and tweet there. Hence the 13 speakers.

 

[FreqFlyer]

I thought it was pretty helpful, but not in a direct way. As I also explained, the system is pretty well-engineered. If the OP feels some midrange is missing, then some EQ adjustment should be enough. Changing just the speakers in a highly integrated audio system is a terrible way to go about things because the system's DSP is tuned to work with the specific speaker drivers installed. Unless the OP is prepared to completely re-engineer the system, not just with new speakers, but with a new DSP, new amps, and hours upon hours of tuning the DSP to achieve proper time alignment and a good summed frequency response at multiple seating positions, it's very very unlikely that changing the speakers will actually improve the sound system. It'll sound different, sure, but probably not better. The only "easy" upgrade for a car stereo like this is the subwoofer.

Funny enough on the Honda Accord forums many found that out. Just replacing the truly horrible Honda factory speakers yielded no increase in sound quality. However more accurate speakers may yield better tonal sound.

Someone used Alpine speakers, though he is giving wrong technical advice regarding speaker magnet sizes and its effect on sound. He just changed the speakers and states yielded better sound.

 

[NovaY]

Funny enough on the Honda Accord forums many found that out. Just replacing the truly horrible Honda factory speakers yielded no increase in sound quality. However more accurate speakers may yield better tonal sound.

Someone used Alpine speakers, though he is giving wrong technical advice regarding speaker magnet sizes and its effect on sound. He just changed the speakers and states yielded better sound.

When they say "there is room for improvement" at the start of the video, my immediate question would be: in what way?

They tested the sound with hard rock and electronic music, two of the most processed and compressed low-fidelity music types. I don't think I heard any vocals, and certainly no acoustic string instruments or even a clean drum track. Electronic music always sounds good because there is no "correct" sound to synthesized notes.

When they listened to the replacement speakers, the only substantive improvement they could point to was a higher volume before the onset of distortion. It's very possible, and even likely, that the replacement speakers have a more powerful motor structure, and thus yield higher efficiency, therefore sounding louder at the same power level. It's common knowledge that listeners often correlate higher volume with higher sound quality - and this is infact an old trick in stereo shops where they would add 1-2dB to the output of the system they want to be regarded as "better". The musician mentioned that he liked the instrument separation of the replacement speakers, which I take to mean that the upper midrange and treble have been significantly accentuated, which most listeners correlate with "detail". I'm not going to criticize someone's personal preference - a lot of listeners prefer a V-shape response from their sound system. My only contention would be that this is a less accurate system overall.

 

[DoublePhister]

It took me a bit to work with the sound in my 2023 MYP.
Here's my settings:
Immersive Sound: Off. Any other setting here and it sounds hollow.
EQ 4.0, 4.5, 2.5, 0.0, -1.0, 0.5 (it's weird to me that the SUB being at 4.0 is visually higher than the BASS at 4.5 but whatever.)
I also pushed the balance about halfway forward.

I'm satisfied enough with how this sounds to not need to upgrade it. If I was going to upgrade I'd want a little tighter mid-bass.


If I had to complain I'd say I'd like a number to represent the volume.