So on Monday I flew down to SoCal for a funeral, and I had to rent a car. So I wan't in a good mood anyway, so I rented a new A6 Quattro from Hertz for $110. The car I got was an electric blue color and had 150 miles on it.

Drove great, loved it after I figured out where everything was. But the Bose system!

First off, it has a pared-down version of BMW's I-drive to run the radio. Works OK but hard to figure out as a rental.

It had the Bose DSP system. Like three or four drivers of different sizes in each F door, and a metal grille strip across the whole front dash, so I don't know what was up there.

There was no CD slot up front - only a changer in the trunk (agrgh!)

But the worst part was the sound! Clear highs, decent mids but they sounded kinda hard and brittle when you turned it up, but NO bass. None. I ended up turning the bass ALL the way up (which I never do) and it still didn't sound very good - but OK.

Unless I used the Bose DSP settings to optimize for Driver's listening. Then all the bass went away again. With Front as the optimized setting there was some bass, but with Driver selected, none.

Which wasn't terrible, since the Driver setting actually moved the stereo image to my left- not in front of me.

All in all, probably a very expensive factory sound system, but another dismal failure for SQ.

I can't wait to get my hands on one of these... it could sound great.

 

I believe you 100% - I have only heard a few cars with factory "upgraded" Bose systems that sounded decent. Bose is pretty much a joke in their home and car audio venues, but for some reason people are mesmerized by the name, but they are really not getting much quality at all; just a bunch of equlization and crappy speakers. my parents paid $2000+ for a Bose home theater setup. after we turned it on, we were stunned with the weak/clock radio type sound, then we laughed and took it back that day. There are so many other choices for so much less that sound much better I dont know why car companies still waste their time with Bose.