Disappointed with sound system...

[wayner]

I have a tiny 64GB USB drive ( Amazon.com: SanDisk Cruzer Fit CZ33 64GB USB 2.0 Low-Profile Flash Drive- SDCZ33-064G-B35: Computers Accessories ). Depending on length, a FLAC album seems to be between 300MB and 500MB. So, very conservatively, you'd get at least 100 albums on there. Mine's a mix of FLAC and high-rate MP3/AAC.

120 albums or so wouldn't do it for me. But you can now get 256GB USB drives for $120 or so and that would hold 500 albums. And then there is the SSD option that I mentioned but you are paying about $220 for a 512GB SSD.

I just happened to come across this story today which discusses Tidal, a streaming music service that streams lossless FLAC's at bitrates up to 1411kbps.

Watch out, Spotify, Tidal is upping the ante for streaming-music sound quality - CNET

 

[randompersonx]

I use one of these to store all of my music in FLAC format:

Amazon.com: PNY Turbo 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - P-FD256TBOP-GE: Computers Accessories

I agree with what others have said -- the Tesla is actually a pretty good stereo, but it's not what people are used to ... People are used to over-compressed over-boosted sound nowadays, and Tesla is geared towards playing Lossless. It's a good thing, but people's ears aren't used to it.

My biggest complaint with the Tesla is that it doesn't seem to have any way to do a playlist or to play the next album after an album is finished. It's very distracting to keep having to select a new album while driving.

 

[wayner]

What is the UI like when you have files on a drive of some sort? Does it read in the tags and arrange by Artist/Album, etc or are you essentially just browsing folders? Any album art?

One other thing that is disappointing is the XM radio UI - it seems like an afterthought. There are no graphics for the XM stations - I have driven other vehicles that have this (like a low end Ford with the MS UI) and a lack of favorite presets. Maybe they are pushing people away from XM and to be honest, why would you pay $15/month for XM when you can get Slacker Premium or Spotify Premium for $10/month - unless you had to listen to Howard Stern or tend to be doing a lot of driving on Sunday afternoons during NFL games? My XM subscription from my Lexus expires in July so I may as well use it occasionally until then.

 

[LaTache]

You don't need a paid acct. Tesla slacker acct has option for higher quality in controls.. Settings.. Apps...Media.

Understood, but does Slacker Premium offer an even higher quality sound then the "free" Tesla version?

 

[Gizmotoy]

What is the UI like when you have files on a drive of some sort? Does it read in the tags and arrange by Artist/Album, etc or are you essentially just browsing folders? Any album art?

It reads the tags, mostly. It won't use embedded album art, and insists on trying to find the art itself, with (IMO) poor success. Unicode characters have proven troublesome in the past, but I noticed recently it seems to be handling the examples in my collection correctly. Collection albums are still an issue (multi-artist hits CDs, soundtracks, etc.) even when tagged correctly and you often have to revert to the "dumb" folder browser to play those sequentially, which unfortunately causes the car to ignore the tag info completely even after you've selected music.

As of this weeks 6.1 update, we finally get repeat and shuffle options.

In summary, though, consider the Media tab is pretty bare-bones. If you want anything fancy, you'll likely be disappointed.

Understood, but does Slacker Premium offer an even higher quality sound then the "free" Tesla version?

Tesla's paying your Slacker subscription. As far as I'm aware, it already includes the highest quality Slacker offers.

 

[tsarlsy]

As of this weeks 6.1 update, we finally get repeat and shuffle options.

What?! That's just sad. LOL!

 

[tc4542]

Franky I feel the upgraded sound system truly sucks considering how its billed. I'm a professional audio engineer with Platinums on the wall and I can tell you it is far from reference. It has no low mids to begin with. This is a driver compliment/design issue and can't be "EQ'd" in. I took a pin drive with .WAV uncompressed studio master files on a pin drive to the 85D demo drive and was in shock by how badly it performed. I played around with all the settings (knowing already what I wasn't hearing couldn't be fixed) and it made little difference. There is no way I could reference mixes in this car. They need to partner with B&O, Burmeister, Harman/Lexicon and design a real system worthy of the advertised title. I'd like to know who the studio engineer is that supposedly designed it, wouldn't want him mixing my records... Rues's upper tier system will no doubt improve it but its just ridiculous to pay Tesla the upgrade price, then Rick another 4K to make it right. And yes it will sound a lot better if you load .WAV files in but still that won't fix what's missing in the driver compliment. Of course XM and all the rest are dreadful now that they compress the living daylights out of everything.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course I know power drainage is an issue. The bigger amps required suck juice no doubt. My problem is they way they advertise it. They should call it the upgraded sound system and leave it at that. It really discredits their reputation to bill it as anything other, makes you feel the wool is being pulled over your eyes. And don't think for one minute they don't know the difference between good and bad So for people who aren;t expecting the aforementioned high-end brands you'll most likely be happy. For the rest, don't get your hopes up and/or plan on upgrading if its important to you.

 

[majorlance]

My new P85D will have a Reus System's upgrade in a two weeks... Can't wait.

The upgraded system is okay but not great compared to all of my prior stock audio systems in my last two cars (Audio A8L, MB S550). Turn off Dolby, move the fader to the back, dial down mid-range, tweak up bass and barely move up treble. Best I could do (based on info in prior threads). It sounds okay loud but at softer levels you lose everything.

I do like the new shuffle mode with 6.1. I have a mix of flac (converted from Apple Lossless), 320 kbs MP3's and 256 kbs apple files. I use a 256 gb flash drive to copy my playlists from iTunes to individual folders and then rename the Genre to reflect the playlist name. You end up with a number of duplicate files on the flash drive but I can play music by genre (i.e. playlist) in shuffle mode with song name, album name, artist and artwork. Nice and an improvement over 6.0. It's a multi step process compared to syncing an iPod classic but I do notice a big difference in quality compared to bluetooth playback of the same songs from my iPhone. Labor of love?

I'll post my thoughts on the new Reus System installed.

There is a high price to being an early adopter...

 

[gzerninplatz]

Hmmm....something changed since I got my car a few months ago....it definitely is better (much!) with Dolby OFF now, for all inputs...bluetooth audio was better with it on before. Maybe they do change the profile with firmware upgrades...

 

[SeminoleFSU]

120 albums or so wouldn't do it for me. But you can now get 256GB USB drives for $120 or so and that would hold 500 albums. And then there is the SSD option that I mentioned but you are paying about $220 for a 512GB SSD.

I just happened to come across this story today which discusses Tidal, a streaming music service that streams lossless FLAC's at bitrates up to 1411kbps.

Watch out, Spotify, Tidal is upping the ante for streaming-music sound quality - CNET

Thanks for the tip on Tidal. Will check them out. One thing to remember though, if you're using the Tidal app to stream from your smartphone to the Tesla over Bluetooth is I believe it will just convert it back to lossy format because of the Bluetooth protocols. I don't believe it supports lossless streaming, does it?

 

[wayner]

You're right about that, and I don't think Tidal makes sense over a mobile connection due to the high bandwidth connection.

Does anyone know what bitrate you get for Bluetooth streaming?

 

[andrewket]

Tidal allows for offline storage, so that helps the cellular bandwidth concern. The BT issue is valid. I wouldn't bet on tesla adding native tidal support. Additional bandwidth use on 3G is the last thing they need. The best thing tesla could do is support direct connection via USB.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

I'm a bit of an audiophile and after two years with my old P85 and a few weeks with my P85D, both with the upgraded audio and on the same source material on USB (lossless flac and high bitrate mp3), I can say that the system has improved in some areas, but regressed in others.

The newer system has MUCH stronger, cleaner bass. Less resonance, better tuned, tighter, more controlled, more power with less distortion. Overall, a significant improvement.

The front however just doesn't have the expansive, holographic soundstage of the older system. It also has a more digitized quality to the mids and highs. It sounds like the difference I typically hear between class D amps and class A/B amps.

If I had to guess, I'd say Tesla replaced the prior class A/B amp with a class D one. Class D amps are more efficient and work well to drive subwoofers. But they also, to my ear, typically don't sound right for mids and highs.

The downside to this, if true, would mean a Reus upgrade to the speakers wouldn't help. What I would like to know is if there are separate amps for the mains and the subwoofer. If so, I will be investigating whether the mains amp did indeed change, and if it's possible to obtain one of the older amps.

 

[wayner]

As far as I can tell the highest bitrate that you can get with Slacker is 128 even with a fixed internet connection. Spotify, which I also use, has options of 96,160 and 320. Maybe that is why Tesla chose Slacker?

 

[Gizmotoy]

I'm a bit of an audiophile and after two years with my old P85 and a few weeks with my P85D, both with the upgraded audio and on the same source material on USB (lossless flac and high bitrate mp3), I can say that the system has improved in some areas, but regressed in others.

The newer system has MUCH stronger, cleaner bass. Less resonance, better tuned, tighter, more controlled, more power with less distortion. Overall, a significant improvement.

The front however just doesn't have the expansive, holographic soundstage of the older system. It also has a more digitized quality to the mids and highs. It sounds like the difference I typically hear between class D amps and class A/B amps.

If I had to guess, I'd say Tesla replaced the prior class A/B amp with a class D one. Class D amps are more efficient and work well to drive subwoofers. But they also, to my ear, typically don't sound right for mids and highs.

The downside to this, if true, would mean a Reus upgrade to the speakers wouldn't help. What I would like to know is if there are separate amps for the mains and the subwoofer. If so, I will be investigating whether the mains amp did indeed change, and if it's possible to obtain one of the older amps.

Interestingly, this is nearly the exact conclusion a few of us with Model S in my apartment building came to nearly a year ago. Or at least in regards to the sound qualities, as I'm not well-versed enough to know the differences between amplifier classes. We did a side-by-side test with two Sigs and my late 2013 P85. My car has substantially more bass from the subwoofer than the two Sigs in my building. On the other hand, its highs seemed rounded off or something and particularly sensitive to source quality, but your description may be more accurate. We fiddled with the EQs to even out the sound on all three using the same lossless source, the two Sigs ended up with nearly identical settings but mine was substantially different. An S85 moved in two months ago, and his sound characteristics seem nearly identical to my own.

I made a thread about it here and was pretty roundly criticized, with many comments to the effect of "Tesla has never changed any of the components in the UHFS package." I have a Rev 3 subwoofer, though, so clearly that's false.

In any case, I think it's clear that Tesla is making ongoing unannounced improvements/changes to the system. I'm interested to hear what you find regarding the amp. Keep us in the loop!

 

[randompersonx]

It reads the tags, mostly. It won't use embedded album art, and insists on trying to find the art itself, with (IMO) poor success.

I have a large number of live recordings, which obviously do not have album art in any databases. The album art stored in the flac files are displayed by the Media player.

 

[kabirakhtar]

for what it's worth, i don't have any complaints with the Premium Sound in my MS, delivered two weeks ago. so far the only quality issues i've noticed look to be caused by file compression for streaming services.

 

[Gizmotoy]

I have a large number of live recordings, which obviously do not have album art in any databases. The album art stored in the flac files are displayed by the Media player.

Interesting. I wonder how new that is? My entire library has embedded album art (a weekend wasted for uniformity, perhaps), and my car constantly uses the Gracenote (I think) album art instead of the embedded versions. Maybe it only reverts to the embedded art if it can't find a match in the database? I'll have to investigate.

 

[tomas]

I have a large number of live recordings, which obviously do not have album art in any databases. The album art stored in the flac files are displayed by the Media player.

I am buffaloed on this one! My album art in flac files NEVER displays... only the crap the media player finds online somewhere. For stuff like live recordings, nothing shows up. I wonder if your flac files are somehow tagged differently. What software do you use to encode the flac files and attach the artwork?

 

[randompersonx]

I am buffaloed on this one! My album art in flac files NEVER displays... only the crap the media player finds online somewhere. For stuff like live recordings, nothing shows up. I wonder if your flac files are somehow tagged differently. What software do you use to encode the flac files and attach the artwork?

I maintain my music in iTunes on a mac, with 99% stored as Apple Lossless, with album art, and full metadata.

I converted the full library to flac using XLD, keeping the same directory structure as the iTunes directory.