Ninjamini

Is this DVD audio feature only on the tech package?

How is the non tech radio in comparison?

weather

^^^ The DVD-Audio is indeed only available in the tech package. I wish I could comment on the non tech version as I never listened to it. If you live close to a dealership, the best advice would be to bring a CD (reference material) and play it in both to get a good idea for yourself. The thing about audio quality is that its hard for others to chime on whether or not one is as good as the other. No two people will hear things the exact same way and for some, they are more audiophiles than others.....

Sorry I could help out more.

Doug W.

The base RDX radio if fine, but that's not the biggest determinant of fidelity. Speakers (quality, placement) are more important. In the base model I surmise the speakers are of lower quality that what comes with the ELS system, but I don't have facts on that.

We have the base model. IMO the audio quality is average - not bad, not wow. I think the acoustics, also a factor, are okay for a CUV. To my hearing, highs are almost good, mids & bass are fair. My wife is not an audiophile, and as the primary driver she is satisfied with it.

Overall, the base RDX audio is nowhere near as good as my '08 TL with ELS, particularly if you consider DVD audio. (And that, of course, is not as good as my home audio system - hey, it's a car ).

TampaJack

I have the Base system, and at first I was a little disappointed. But I kept playing with the sound settings and now I'm extremely happy with it. One thing that helped a lot for me was to adjust the fade so that there's more volume in the rear -- which probably isn't great for rear seat passengers, but we hardly ever have anyone in the rear seat anyway.

I was very surprised at the difference that the sound settings make. I know this is probably a "duh" thing to say, but it's worth experimenting on different sound settings before judging the quality of the Base system.

madrye28

I agree, the factory settings are very "safe" sounding if you will. Once I played with the bass, treble, Subwoofer, etc. its very, very good. It is 360 watts, very impressive and powerful for a base car.

hawkeye62

I am definitely not an audio expert, but, 5.1 surround sound, which is what DVD-Audio is, has six channels of recording, all from different locations. So when you play a DVD-Audio in a system designed for 5.1 surround, you get sound delivered from the speakers as it was recorded. Playing stereo mp3 or m4a from several speakers would never give the same effect. Adding channels to mp3 would defeat the purpose, small size, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for quality improvements to mp3.

Regards, Jim

Colorado Guy AF Ret.

Well, since I'm the one who started this thread...I have done quite a bit of research on it. I do not consider myself an expert in the audio world...but, I learned enough to answer the questions I had...and maybe for some others.

DVD-A OR DVD Audio only.....was developed in 2000. Great idea actually. Listening to 5.1 surround sound like on your home theatre system. I don't know what discs cost 10-12 years ago. Acura liked the idea back a few years and had Elliot Scheiner design the system for Acura cars/SUV's. A demo disc comes with your new Acura with the ELS system. Sounds GREAT!!

There ARE some DVD-A's available...but, selection is very slim. Costs are too much, for me, for many of them. I did buy a couple due in today I think from Amazon. They are on Best Buy..on line ONLY. And some other music web sites. Lots of classical stuff available.

Also, just after the DVD-A came out....SACD's (Super Audio Compact Disc)... came out to try and compete. Those won't play in a "coded DVD-A system."

In time, not enough were being bought/sold...so many of the original music companies that made them...dropped them. Some still make them.....buy FEW!

At home, of course, 5.1 Surround Sound is great.....and in the cars/SUV's really great also. Acura continues to put the system in the MDX, TL, the new ILX......and I'm not sure why.

I've already made my "formal complaint" on line....AND on the phone to Honda Motor Corp, Acura Division. It's a "tease" to me to have the system and then very little music to buy in order to enjoy it. They must know, that that music venue is extremely limited and expensive....for many of them.

I guess they think we're all rich....not me! Even if i was I don't think I would pay $299.99 for a Led Zepplin disc. That was on Amazon.

So, to sum up...the idea was a great one, I think....but, overall....the public in general really didn't have systems to play them on in their vehicles. We did have home systems to play them on....but, not enough were sold.
And....for whatever reason....Acura keeps putting them in to the latest new vehicles.

I hope this helps to clarify....bundled into one post from others I had written.

Take care!!

Rocketsfan

Since you asked, Colorado Guy, I decided to look up what I paid for some of the first DVD-A discs I bought for my 3G Acura TL back when I bought it. I bought it back in October 2003. Here is what I paid for 4 DVD-A discs on a purchase on April 2004 from Amazon :

$14.99
$14.99
$17.98
$14.99

Rocketsfan

This happens with a lot of technology. For example, we all chuckled when the 3G TL continued to be produced with a cassette player. "Who the hell still uses cassettes?! COME ON, ACURA!" was the battle-cry for that one. In the defense of cassettes, at least they were ubiquitous and popular at some point. DVD-A and SACD were two rival formats that never really caught on.

Sculldog3

Good article where they interview Scheiner

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-EMjO6ir..._scheiner.html

Also, appears Acura has released more than one demo disc over the years, I picked up a previous version on ebay that has a different track list than the one I got with the RDX. Agree the price for used dvd-audio discs is nuts, but the sound is surreal. The China Grove comparison on the 2013 demo disc is about all you need to hear to truly want every disc out there for any artist you remotely like. I'm looking at some in the $75-100 range and they are starting to appear reasonable!

Colorado Guy AF Ret.

Wow...you just had to make me feel worse about the whole issue...huh?? LOL!!! That's what happens when something pretty cool becomes fairly rare..........prices are way up now for sure. You know....back then I really didn't know anything about them. If I did I'm sure I would have bought up some that I really wanted. Now, I can't afford most. Or, at least, won't pay 2 or 3 hundred for one. That's crazy.

I got 2 today from Amazon. A "Rush" disc my wife wanted....and the Beatles "Love" disc. I quickly put the Beatles in the RDX.....and holly cow...never heard their music and voices sound like that!!! What a difference listening to "Help" on DVD-A!!!
Both of these discs actually came with a CD and the DVD-A. Total cost was $44.83 delivered. That was reasonable. But, I wanted a "Chicago" disc that was way too much. The real good ones are much too pricey.

Thanks!!!!

Sculldog3

Colorado Guy -- Keep an eye out on the buy.com site that I posted about previously. I ordered a "Heart of Chicago" DVD-A earlier this week that was listed for $1.21 plus shipping from a vendor called Alibris Books (I posted their site too.) Shipping was another $3. Haven't received this yet, and in reading some reviews of this on Amazon it's not 100% clear how solid the DVD-A remastering was, but for basically $5 I'm holding my breath and hopeful! Appears that we are at least fortunate that there are still lots of used discs out there that seem to become available with some regularity. I'll re-post once this disc arrives. Could be that it is used and unplayable, or might have issues on some tracks, seemed worth the risk, since Chicago and their horns would sound pretty wild on this system.

Problem is that amazon, buy.com, ebay, etc., all have ever changing inventory, so tracking stuff down is becoming an obsession!!

superblast

SACD was first by maybe a year but I believe the first player by Sony was a stereo only model. Too bad Acura didn't make a universal player that played SACD and DVD-A... then we'd have double the out of print titles to choose from.

Some good news is that several of the rare Warner/Atlantic titles have been reissued in Japan on SACD in the last couple of years. That brought the prices down a bit on some titles like Eagles - Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac - Rumours.

The R.E.M. Warner Brothers titles (all the later period albums) were reissued in 2005 as limited edition two disc sets with a CD and DVD-A. Most are still available on Amazon Marketplace for under $15 but you have to get creative in your searches. Some are listed as DVD-A, some are listed as DVD+A. I think they all have a release date of 2005 though. Check with the seller beforehand to make sure they're the two disc sets because I did get one mis-ship of a regular CD when I purchased them last year. I know at least some of the earlier IRS titles were also released on DVD-A but they are more expensive.

Another excellent title to look out for is the Perception box by The Doors. It contains the main six studio albums in both CD and DVD-A form and can be had for under $100. There were two versions released. The original had a little more elaborate packaging but the content is apparently the same on both sets so buy by price.

Rush fans may want to pick up the Sector boxes. Kind of annoying because they've packaged fifteen albums in three box sets but only one album in each box has a DVD-A surround version. The other four albums in each box are CD only. But, they can still be found for ~$30 each, used on Amazon.

DVD-A ISO files can be found as someone pointed out but most players won't play them correctly because of copy protection. I've never tested one in my 1st Gen RDX. DTS CDs however, had no protection, and ISOs can be burned to a standard CD if you want to test the capability on the 2nd Gen RDX (1st Gen plays them).

Regarding The Police, I don't think there was a Police title released on DVD-A. The Every Breath You Take: The Classics greatest hits set was released on DTS and SACD in surround. The rest of the albums were released on SACD in stereo only and are considered mediocre by a lot of the fans. Many actually prefer the original CD releases to the SACDs. I will vouch for the Every Breath You Take set though... very cool (although some of the earlier tracks were pseduo-surround because the multi-track tapes couldn't be located for them). There was also at least on Sting DVD-A and a couple of his albums are on DTS CD.

superblast

Forgot to mention that there were some issues with Fly By Night on the Rush Sector 1 box but free replacement discs are available:

http://www.rushisaband.com/blog/2012...t-disks-update

cudfoo

I'm new to this Forum and I'm considering an RDX. What attracts me the the ELS system is excellent sound quality - not so much the 5.1 option. I think Acura looks at this as an added feature at this point not so much a selling point. Why remove it. If ELS was only offered as stereo I'd still be interested and I'm sure it would still be better then 90% of the OEM car audio systems out there. If I buy the RDX I'll search out some used DVD-A discs but I'm sure what I'll enjoy most is the over all quality of the system itself while listening to lossless rips from my iPod.

robuckj

Thanks, that perspective does make me feel slightly better about the lack of DVD-A discs and Acura's approach.

I agree the system sounds great even with regular CDs, and even with my iPod. On my 05 MDX Touring with its "special" Bose system, after only a few months I turned it over to Crutchfield in Charlottesville, VA and asked them to just make it sound decent; a couple hundred $ later I was much happier (out with all the cardboard-looking Bose speakers, in with Infinity Kappas and some Dynamat behind the subwoofer).

On the 13 RDX Tech I am completely happy with the sound from the factory system, and that has never happened to me before.

robuckj

In general, I agree. I was bowled over, and started trying to beg, borrow, or buy any likely-looking DVD-A discs I could find. But my experience so far is that MOST, but not ALL, sound very good.

The Beatles' "Love" and Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" both sound fantastic, with an "expansive sound stage" and super-clear lyrics.

The Who's "Tommy" DVD-A, which I listened to for 2 hours today, didn't have those same qualities--I am not sure it sounds much better than a regular CD would, at least at highway volume. To be fair, I'd need to listen to a regular CD version under the same conditions, but that DVD-A version was disappointing.

weather

robuckj...I think what you will notice is that, as with everything else, some DVD-A recordings will be exceptional and others will be mediocre. It is all dependant on the music producer on how he did his mixing and the source of the material. They often tried to re-master a non multi channel recording into a multi channel and the results are not always great... as you have already noticed.

n-spring

The other major difference between a DVD-A and a CD is the sampling frequency and bit depth. CD is 44.1kHz/16-bit and DVD-A is typically 48kHz/24-bit. Think "DVD-A is to CD as HD-TV is to SD-TV". DVD-A uses a lossless compression technique (Meridian Lossless Packing) to store its data on disk. This is one reason DVD-A and movie DVD soundtracks are not compatible.

I use HD-Audio Solo Ultra to upsample regular CDs and convert them to 5.1 DVD-A. They don't sound nearly as good as a genuine DVD-A discs, but they do sound better than the original CD.

I find that the Dolby PRO-Logic in the ELS system flattens the sound and I prefer to leave it turned off when listening to regular CDs or my iPod. BTW, I highly recommend getting an iPod Classic with the 160GB hard drive and rip everything in iTunes using the Apple Lossless encoder. Playback sounds as good as the original CD.

Newbie New

Guys, you can use Cirilica DVD-A Solo soft to make your own DVD-A disks. http://www.cirlinca.com/useincar.htm