Gate 17

My concerns are two fold, (12 speaker ELS)

• Its not the Bass that I find missing, it is the mid-lows at volumes 10 or lower. Played at loud volumes the mid-lows come through. The system needs a dynamic range control or variable 'loudness' equalization. Generally, I find I can locate the subwoofer as it overpowers.
• The highs are harsh and hurt my ears at volumes above 15.

Settings have only treble, mid, & bass. There is no subwoofer control as in older ELS systems. My settings are negative in bass & treble.
The marketing shows a fantastic system, It does NOT do well enough to meet expectations of such a fine car.

My 2004 TSX audio was great and it was not marketed as 'studio sound'. Back then Acura used Alpine for the components.

anoop

What prompted my post was rear seat passengers complaining so I just wanted to make sure things were working as expected. So for those who think it sounds fine, was this your experience sitting in the back seat?

To my ears in the front seat the system sounds ok at low volumes. As I increase the volume, it is less and less pleasant. I'm not sure what it is, but somehow newer systems are lacking. The standard system in my 2003 325i sounded much better than my 2014 328i and 2015 328i. It sounds like many long time Acura customers are having a similar experience -- that the older cars had better audio systems. Or maybe this is about certain manufacturers cheaping out because I never heard Audi owners complaining about their audio systems.

Just generally speaking, going from the 2003 to 2014 BMW 3 series was big time buyers remorse for me. But then I got over it and just decided to treat the car as an appliance. Kind of sad 'coz I was really passionate about cars and driving.

Gate 17

Anoop, I agree, the audio for the rear passengers is poor, also agree with your other comments.
Marketing trumps practicality.

DR1

Just moving from my previous vehicle I was disappointed in the ASPEC system as well. Over the last few weeks i have spent a ton of hours learning about the system and how it works with different source material (IPhone, USB, Analog) and with different bit rate files which i will try to summarize in a future post. Listed below are some quick settings i personally found to be best by listening to mid to high bitrate female vocalist tracks.

1. DTS Neural = Off
2. Ceiling speakers turned WAY down (IMO this was shocking how much it cleared up the front soundstage)
3. Fader = Full Car & possibly move the slider 1 forward to the front passengers
4. EQ = flat (factory setting)

To help get the settings you like you may be interested in downloading a few HD tracks and trying for yourself. Last night i was testing the sound quality differences between the same audio track being played through Carplay, USB and the analog connection. The source was a demo file i downloaded for free on the net - Sona's Song (Yuko Mabuchi Trio) in 24b/88k AIFF-C format.

Good luck,
Danny

anoop

This is the kind of info I was looking for, but for the 12-speaker system in the Tech.

Dereileak