Dynaudio Premium Sound System disappointing
 

I got my S80 one week ago. I am sort of an audiophile, and ordered it with the best available audio. I used to have S60 with Premium Sound, and liked it very much. As for S80, I am rather disappointed with the Premium Sound + Dynaudio. Sounds very nasal, and front seats seem to lack highest frequencies. Violins sound like cardboard, brass lacks depth, and bass is not very disciplined, you can hear a lot of boomy noise but the notes of the lower scale seem generally to be indistinguishable.

I do not like very much what Dolby Prologic does to music, so I switched it off first thing(this of course is my personal preference).

I played for a while with the Sound Stage settings. I found that it worked best with the sound optimized for rear seats. I tried the equalizers as well, but as with all equalizers they do some damage to the sound (especially for any cross-over frequencies).

After a while, I decided to use spectrometer and played some white noise from a CD. With EQ set to linear, and the mic placed in the front seats, I got the following: a big resonance around 60Hz, decreased mid-low (around 200-300 Hz), very prominent peak around 3,000 Hz (probably resonance of one of the tweeters, responsible for the nasal sound), and 10dB decrease when you go above 10kHz.

The sound in the rear seats was much more linear, and I also felt the sound was subjectively much better there.

This is truly disappointing. I tried to play with the EQ, having balanced it as much as possible it sounds much better - but there are some phase problems at speaker cross-over frequencies. I used to have an S60 with Premium Sound until last week, and to me it did sound MUCH better.

I wish I could go for a decent post-market audio, unfortunately this is a leased company car and I am not allowed to modify it.

I anyone has had similar experience and managed to fix the sound, I would be veru much grateful if you could avice here.

I wonder if something is wrong they typically are good acknowledging the in car limitations

Iam quite happy with mine in house i run an old michel/meridian /quad system so like you can be a bit fussy

Steve

is it the hardware or the environment / location in which it is placed that is causing the problem..

I am currently driving a new mondeo whilst waiting for my XC70 to be delivered.. and though the car has really excellent sound proofing of the external world compared to other cars I have had.. the sound from the Sony stereo is simply dreadful..possibly the worst.. particularly in the front.

does the dealer have the same equipment on a listening board in the dealership?..

did you check the quality before you ordered the car..

I did not check it, just trusted Volvo based on my previous very positive experience.

I have a feeling that DSP on this car may be using some sort of dynamic system adjusting the tone (having played with the EQ I managed to get some better sound, yet the setting looks like anti-correction of bass and treble). I am now trying to find out how to switch this off (probably there is some hidden menu option, but I cannot find it - the audio system is quite new and I cannot find it on the web).

Is there a "loudness" setting?
 

I don't know anything about your problem apart from what you have said, but some car stereos have a "loudness" setting,supposed to boost bass and treble at low volume levels, to compensate for the human ear's inadequacies. My stereo sounds right weird if it's on, loads of bass boom without any real depth and lots of treble, 5k to 20k, but very coarse. That's a Pioneer unit, though.

Some stereos can turn down the effect as the overall volume increases, changing one's perception of the effect.

Just a thought.

Hi CPJ,

Have you had anymore joy with the stereo settings?

I know where you're coming from, its the same with my new XC70, the sound is better with a CD or via my iPod, but the radio is all bass. I hated it the first few days I had the car and spent 30mins changing the settings.

I've got it a little more to my liking, I still think the stereo in my old XC70 sounded better, but think I've just got used to it now.

Hi Chaddie,

I spent another weekend playing with noise generator and spectral analyser, at the end I go something sensible with the EQ settings, but I feel this is just masking some problems. Nothing even close to previous S60. I look forward to finding out the hidden setttings for this audio system - I read they are 'pre-loading the frequency curve", which I suspect this may be the source of the problem, so I would very much like to try 'unloading' it.

I am reluctant to believe these are the speakers themselves, with Dynaudio being a respectable company. But who knows, in the era of mp3 (apologies to everyone who enjoys mp3) everything is possible, as people do not seem to care about sound quality anymore (all they care are digital processing, which to me is just serves as a cheap way to mask system/speaker imperfections).

As to the radio, I won't even mention it. The sound was pathetic on S60, and it is on S80. I used to have a Rover 75 with BMW Harman-Kardon/Alpine several years ago, the sound was fantastic!

I have been complaining enough...

CPJ

Hi CPJ,

Can you print what setting you have set your EQ at so I can see how it compare to how I have setup mine.

Thanks

Hi Chaddie,

I have now set sound stage to rear seats. For front seats EQ: +3 bars for 3kHz, +5 bars for 12kHz. This produces a lof of trebles which is not very pleasant, but at least it masks the annyoing resonance in the middle range. The rear EQ is flat.

What are your settings?

Thanks,
CPJ

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'll check it tomorrow and post it.

Cheers.