Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

farting noise in "Studio Sound" package - NORMAL!

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
so any hip-hop heads out there can probably attest to the, um, lacking audio quality in the "upgraded" stereo system. in particular, there are certain bass frequencies that produce a "pphthhh" sound from the front speakers that sounds very much like a paper-cone speaker that has blown out.

mentioned this to the Service team as my car's pano-roof creak was being fixed. they could not replicate. so I broke out a specific track that it happens pretty bad in (the end of Kanye West's "I Wonder") and the tech immediately said "yea, that's not good".

so, to see if it was "normal" or not, we took my iPhone to a brand new Model S with Studio Sound that hadn't even been unwrapped yet. paired the phone, played the track, EXACT same crappy, terrible, horrible bass response. my Speak 'n Spell from 1983 had richer bass.

i don't mind the fact that Tesla cut corners in some places to afford it in other places, but in no way should the "studio sound" be a $950 option. it should be the standard sound that comes with the car. And then they should have contracted with Mark Levinson or someone to offer a cray-cray system for a few thousand or something.

/rant.
 
Has anyone done a "side-by-side" comparison between the stock and upgraded systems? I have the upgrade and feel it is not bad, but not as good as the Bose systems I had in my past two GM cars. I have no idea what the base Tesla system sounds like.
 
so any hip-hop heads out there can probably attest to the, um, lacking audio quality in the "upgraded" stereo system. in particular, there are certain bass frequencies that produce a "pphthhh" sound from the front speakers that sounds very much like a paper-cone speaker that has blown out.

mentioned this to the Service team as my car's pano-roof creak was being fixed. they could not replicate. so I broke out a specific track that it happens pretty bad in (the end of Kanye West's "I Wonder") and the tech immediately said "yea, that's not good".

so, to see if it was "normal" or not, we took my iPhone to a brand new Model S with Studio Sound that hadn't even been unwrapped yet. paired the phone, played the track, EXACT same crappy, terrible, horrible bass response. my Speak 'n Spell from 1983 had richer bass.

i don't mind the fact that Tesla cut corners in some places to afford it in other places, but in no way should the "studio sound" be a $950 option. it should be the standard sound that comes with the car. And then they should have contracted with Mark Levinson or someone to offer a cray-cray system for a few thousand or something.

/rant.

Strange. Crossover should be driving low frequency to the rear door speakers and sub.
 
I agree. First time my car went in to the service center, I had them listen to a track on my flash drive and they heard the bass distortion. They played the song on another Sound Studio car they had, and heard the same thing.

Overall, the system is OK but the bass is a bit weak and too easily distorted.
 
Agreed, I have a whole playlist of songs (well, songs I Shazam'ed) that all do this, it's annoying, and certainly not limited to any particular genre. The Bose system in my previous A5 did a much better job of handling the bass. This is one of the features that didn't live up to the hype.
 
Hi guys! A few things. First, I too have that "farting" noise with certain tracks. It's actually and issue with the software and not the speakers from my understanding. There is one center channel and the two A pillar tweeters if you have sound studio. I had the Reus upgrade and it dramatically improved the sound to the point where it blows away my previous 2011 M3 enhanced sound package (top of the line audio for the M cars). The "farting" noise is still present but less pronounced after the upgrade.

The most important and best thing you could do with cars equipped with studio sound is to play 320kpbs files or higher. Don't use itunes downloads. Also, BT audio doesn't sound great as well. Essentially, the studio sound can handle high quality files to the point where it should impress. High quality files is key. Now, the audio upgrade added a better sub and tweeters and a separate amp for the sub...so now more power is available to the rear speakers (and it sounds fantastic in the back). Everything is zero'd out on the EQ as well and the sound is now natural. This has made an improvement to all sources of sound. Hope that helps a bit...

Oh and I do hope a future tesla update addresses the abnormal noise from the front. One last thing, believe it or not but the Tesla speakers in studio sound are actually great quality! Found out first hand in a demo of speakers side by side.
 
That's really good to know, but most of my stuff isn't at 320 (mostly 256vbr), and certainly I don't think Slacker is, which accounts for ~50% of my music listening. As you say, hopefully they can fix the software.....
 
I will be the lone dissenter in this thread.
We actually like the sound system in our MS. I am comparing this to the system that was in my 2012 Porsche 991 (upgraded Bose) and with the upgraded Meridian system in our new Jaguar F-Type. It may not be the best stock system out there, but compared to a lot of the OEM stuff , it's pretty good.
 
Its not a matter of liking the sound system. There is definite distortion in the front a-pillar, that is a fact. I've heard it on a variety of tracks from slacker and USB thumb drive. Need to find a low bit rate and a high bit rate sample of the same offending track to see if that helps.
 
Pete and Spatters - Yes, a better control over crossover frequencies would help. But as I found out, having the sub on a separate amp (which is how most high end audio car systems are done) will provide less "stress" on the overall system and improve the sound to the remaining speakers. So, just a crossover or better speakers alone won't help. The other thing is Slacker and BT definitely don't sound great because of the "lower" quality stream...that was one of the reasons I did the sound upgrade since I want to enjoy better audio from Slacker primarily.

There are several threads on poor audio from sound studio (myself being one of the contributors), but I found out that the DAC and audio converter that Tesla uses is top notch! It's a matter of using high quality audio. People (myself included) are re-ripping cd's at 320 or higher and you will notice a difference. Some of the distortion people here is likely due to too much load on the system...but I think the majority is poor quality files (and 256 is in the same category as "poor quality" considering CD is 320).

Just experiment as people have mentioned with poor quality and good quality...should be quite noticeable.
 
I've tested 128 kbps vs. 256 kbps vs. 320 kbps vs. FLAC from the same source. It doesn't appreciably improve the bass distortion, although obviously the sound quality overall improves.

If it's software, then hopefully Tesla addresses it. At the current pace of software development, I won't expect it for a few years. I have to crank the EQ up quite a bit on the low freqs (I've got mine set to +6.5) and still it feels a bit too light.
 
I'd like to add to the consensus that high quality audio files make a gigantic difference. Also important are the EQ / fade / Dolby settings. Tweaked appropriately with high quality files I am actually content with the sound studio system.

As a data point, for FLAC files I set the bass to +10.0, mid to 0.0 and treble to +2.0 with fade to -7, Dolby ON. For all other sources the Dolby must be off and the fade set farther back, - 8 or - 9, with the same EQ settings.
 
Todd - also agree. My eq is zero'd out with the small extra amp powering the sub. That makes the majority of the difference. I've had friends and family sit in the car, and though subjective, they are impressed with the sound. Never had heard that reaction in any of the other cars i've had. If I set the lows or highs to 6.5 at this time, it would rattle the car apart and the high freq sound would be intolerable...

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, ddruz is correct here too. With the studio sound, I kept having to place the fader to the rear of the car as it never seemed "full." No more with the upgrade. I had similar settings previously though bass was 6.5.

I'd like to add to the consensus that high quality audio files make a gigantic difference. Also important are the EQ / fade / Dolby settings. Tweaked appropriately with high quality files I am actually content with the sound studio system.

As a data point, for FLAC files I set the bass to +10.0, mid to 0.0 and treble to +2.0 with fade to -7, Dolby ON. For all other sources the Dolby must be off and the fade set farther back, - 8 or - 9, with the same EQ settings.
 
Last edited:
so any hip-hop heads out there can probably attest to the, um, lacking audio quality in the "upgraded" stereo system. in particular, there are certain bass frequencies that produce a "pphthhh" sound from the front speakers that sounds very much like a paper-cone speaker that has blown out.

Are you reefing to some kind of distortion (not that distortion that speaker can't handle it but strange noise) while certain base is played out from front side of car? I think I heard them in some songs and just noticed more on "deadmau5 hr 8938 cephei" this morning. If remember right, it's 320KBP ripped MP3. Also, I noticed some very short pause/skip during playing back MP3s. I wonder if there's some issues with DSP processing.
 
There are several threads on poor audio from sound studio (myself being one of the contributors), but I found out that the DAC and audio converter that Tesla uses is top notch! It's a matter of using high quality audio. People (myself included) are re-ripping cd's at 320 or higher and you will notice a difference. Some of the distortion people here is likely due to too much load on the system...but I think the majority is poor quality files (and 256 is in the same category as "poor quality" considering CD is 320).

I agree, and I understand, but I guess my point is that the average buyer will likely connect via Bluetooth, and be playing a source that's less than 320, especially considering that Tesla make such a big deal of being able to play any song, any time, none of which will be lossless or 320+. I'm hopeful for a software fix sooner rather than later, there's a few issues with the sound, such as the horrible implementation of Dolby surround, so perhaps all these things will be bundled into a single fix, and, who knows, maybe the on-board hard-drive will be exposed as well!

- - - Updated - - -

sound like this? lol

Basically yes, but without the smoke!