New 2015 Passat With Fender Audio

[rustycat]

Originally Posted by tadawson

To an extent, but technology and science is capable of measuring audio, unlike art . . . and I have known folks that though absolute crap sounded good (typically fans of (c)Rap, ironically . . .), so while I respect your opinion, you did duck the question! We know what we like and don't like, and most can describe why that is . . .

Not wanting to really get into such a complex area of discussion (as you said in your comment) "To me, you have frequency response, impulse response, distortion, and level, and that pretty much defines it" works for me.

I'd simply say, yeah, that pretty much covers it. The real question is how do you recreate a sonically accurate reproduction of the artist and the mastering engineer's efforts.
Tube based headunits would probably be the best and cheapest to build, but that isn't going to happen. And, even though they had record players for cars in the 60's, I don't see that happening either.....

[tadawson]

But, ironically, the appeal of both tubes and vinyl are theie *inaccuracies*, which many find pleasing. To me, to create the "sonically accurate reproduction" means as few variances from perfectly flat response as possible . . . *that* will be what was mastered (well, assuming no colorations in the studio gear, and studio monitors are typically build for accuracy . . . ). That, or build a duplucate studio, and sit in exactly the same spot as the mastering engineer . . . Ultimately, (setting personal preference aside), accuracy is not unique to any particular technology. Heck, most of the gripes about CD's when they came out were that they were too accurate! Folks though they were 'too bright and brittle' when in reality, they were just (finally) hearing what had been on the master tapes all along, and which prior technologies were losing . . .

My goal is always a baseline system as accurate as possible, and *then* the user/owner can tune for taste. If the colorations are inherent inthe design instead, you can't go back the other way . . .

[rustycat]

Originally Posted by tadawson

But, ironically, the appeal of both tubes and vinyl are theie *inaccuracies*, which many find pleasing. To me, to create the "sonically accurate reproduction" means as few variances from perfectly flat response as possible . . . *that* will be what was mastered (well, assuming no colorations in the studio gear, and studio monitors are typically build for accuracy . . . ). That, or build a duplucate studio, and sit in exactly the same spot as the mastering enginee /r . . . Ultimately, (setting personal preference aside), accuracy is not unique to any particular technology. Heck, most of the gripes about CD's when they came out were that they were too accurate! Folks though they were 'too bright and brittle' when in reality, they were just (finally) hearing what had been on the master tapes all along, and which prior technologies were losing . . .

My goal is always a baseline system as accurate as possible, and *then* the user/owner can tune for taste. If the colorations are inherent inthe design instead, you can't go back the other way . . .

Fair enough. Guess you aren't "frending" Seniors Fletcher/Munson. CDs were terribly compromised, esp. in the early years.

[Mixchump]

Just to be clear here, I'm talking about stuff that is ABSOLUTELY measurable. Sometime, if I have an evening off, I'll swing by my pal's studio, who happens to own an AudioPrecision Porta1Plus, and run some sweeps.

To me, there's at least an octave missing at the top, and in the time domain, I'm positive that the slew rate of the entire system is WAY slower than it should be, and depending on how an AP reports the distortion measurement when seeing digital signal degradation similar to comparing WAV to MP3, you'll see that too.

The sonic difference between an old 741 opamp and a 90's Burr Brown 2604 opamp is night and day ('awful' compared to 'pretty good for an opamp'), and that's easily measurable. I'm not interested in Audiophile-speak, just real cold, hard science.

If you can hear the difference between an SACD (DSD at 2.8MHz) compared to an MP3 (at 128mpbs), that's how radical it sounds to me, when comparing our 2003 Jetta to the 2015 Passat.

Complete and total $hite...

[thundershorts]

auto audio is just not for serious listening. Alpine actually used burr brown dac's in one of their top radios and it was decent, well above the fender system. Loud, distortion is not good sound. Very few people here know what slew rate means...

[tadawson]

Originally Posted by Mixchump

Just to be clear here, I'm talking about stuff that is ABSOLUTELY measurable. Sometime, if I have an evening off, I'll swing by my pal's studio, who happens to own an AudioPrecision Porta1Plus, and run some sweeps.

To me, there's at least an octave missing at the top, and in the time domain, I'm positive that the slew rate of the entire system is WAY slower than it should be, and depending on how an AP reports the distortion measurement when seeing digital signal degradation similar to comparing WAV to MP3, you'll see that too.

The sonic difference between an old 741 opamp and a 90's Burr Brown 2604 opamp is night and day ('awful' compared to 'pretty good for an opamp'), and that's easily measurable. I'm not interested in Audiophile-speak, just real cold, hard science.

If you can hear the difference between an SACD (DSD at 2.8MHz) compared to an MP3 (at 128mpbs), that's how radical it sounds to me, when comparing our 2003 Jetta to the 2015 Passat.

Complete and total $hite...

That's fair! I have been planning to sweep mine with SMAART, but need to fab a cable to get test signal into it, so have not really been rushing. My 'seat of the pants' reaction, though, is that it is still better than most automotive systems I have heard (endured?). For some reason, car companies seem almost obsessed with putting bad audio in cars . . .

[shuck]

I'm not an audiophile, but I do enjoy a nice sounding system. I recently got a Passat TDI SEL with the Fender system and was also extremely unimpressed at first. There was bass cutout and a number of other perceptible nuisances in the sound quality. So, on a hunch, I turned off the speed adjustment for the volume. This made all the difference in the world. I recommend anyone who is concerned with level sound reproduction turn off this feature and use the steering wheel controls to manually adjust your volume for speed. Once I did this, I'm VERY happy with the Fender system's sound quality for a stock system. The interface response, on the other hand...

[1alfie]

Next to the incredible fuel economy, the Fender system in my 2015 Passat is my favorite feature of the car. I must admit that on listening to the system for the first time, I was not impressed with Sirius Satellite Radio sound quality, however, when I used the bluetooth feature and listened to downloaded music via my phone, it took the sound quality to a whole new level. To my ears, the sound is exactly as billed from VW and Fender.