Bowers & Wilkins - bass

[Gneissnz]

If you have Spotify, try maxing the quality and download “Train Song” by Holly Cole. It was a recommended test song from a sound website I went to. I put it on half volume in the XC60 and my wife shut it off as the bass was hurting her ears. I hadn’t played with the equaliser, it was all flat. If that isn’t doing the same for you, I’d suggest the speakers haven’t been hooked up properly.

[JC888]

Originally Posted by Gneissnz

If you have Spotify, try maxing the quality and download “Train Song” by Holly Cole. It was a recommended test song from a sound website I went to. I put it on half volume in the XC60 and my wife shut it off as the bass was hurting her ears. I hadn’t played with the equaliser, it was all flat. If that isn’t doing the same for you, I’d suggest the speakers haven’t been hooked up properly.

I've got a Premium trial just to test the quality for my commute. A few buffering incidents along the way with the lowest quality but updates could be running in the background.

I've tried the max quality and overall I have to say the sound (especially the bass) sounds best on Spotify.
On my USB some songs sound great but in the end I supposed it's down to the compression on the file.

[neon]

I use the best quality setting on downloads on my phone on spotify and then play through carplay and the sound is great with the standard system with sub.

[Gneissnz]

I think the mistake that a lot of people make, myself included, is that we have historically downloaded music for maximum storage rather than quality. Using a basic car stereo it made no real difference to sound, but I could get an extra 2000 songs. Changing to the B&W meant I required a shift in my thinking. I redownloaded my entire collection to a much higher quality and I’m now able to hear extra instruments and sounds in songs I’ve listened to hundreds of times before. Am loving it.

[PaulDrives]

Originally Posted by JC888

It's not the ear deafening thump on some systems with massive subwoofers and amps that will power a whole village I'm after.

I just like the rich, clear sound that the B&W system provides. No matter how low you turn the volume up the system can handle it, without having the speakers sound like they will burst anytime.

Agree with this post. I'm really enjoying the B&W system. It's possible to get thumping bass by tweaking the equalizer as some have pointed out - but personally I like the B&W's natural bass rendition, I find it adds well defined lower tone without thumping.

[DeZemBer]

Things I listen more after getting this car is audible. Dam... the words are so much clearer compare to my old car.

And also listening people arguing on LBC is so much more realistic

[Clan]

Originally Posted by PaulDrives

Agree with this post. I'm really enjoying the B&W system. It's possible to get thumping bass by tweaking the equalizer as some have pointed out - but personally I like the B&W's natural bass rendition, I find it adds well defined lower tone without thumping.

I have noticed over the years that car Hi-Fi in general artificially increases bass in music to unrealistic levels , you can hear it a long way from the car but when you get these top of the range B&W or Harmen Karden systems , It is all contained within the interior of the car and Bass is not over processed .
One song in particular demonstrates this , Airport by The Motors has some deep Bass which sounds impressive in a car with standard Hi-Fi ( like a thunder storm ! ) but when played on B&W or Harmen Karden or my Yamaha / Acoustic Research Home Hi-Fi it just does not stand out , ie is More Realistic .

[NigelDay]

There's bass and bass. As others have alluded to, there is a difference between bass extension (very low frequencies, always challenging to reproduce in smaller speaker systems AND smaller rooms) and 'mid-bass volume', typical of the 'pumped-up' boom in much synthesised music.
What you need to evaluate bass response is a either a test CD or test tones. There are many sources of these, but the attached link is free and provides a very comprehensive set of test tones.

https://realtraps.com/test-cd.htm

As has also been said, the quality of the signal source is also important. Correctly recorded, without frequency attenuation, 'reference recordings' can be the test of any system, in-car or home hi-fi. My home system uses (quite old) TDL Transmssion Line speakers supplemented by a REL subwoofer. It's amazing how some recordings - where there should in theory be bass extension - have this part of the frequency range attenuated.
It's also interesting to see how modern digital audio systems have tried to resolve the problem of reproducing low bass from a small speaker enclosure. I have a B&W T7 bluetooth speaker - not cheap - but incredibly engineered. The low frequency output is attenuated as a function of the volume, so the speaker is never over-stressed when the volume and bass content rise.
BOSE speaker systems (which I personally don't like) achieve their 'bass reputation' in quite a clever (almost deceptive) way. Mid-bass is amplified somewhat at the expense of low bass, so the listener thinks 'these speakers have good bass', when actually it is something of an audio illusion.

[gregwlsn]

I had the same complaints about bass for the first few days. The sub has to be broken in. The clarity and separation, even at loud volumes, might be my favorite thing about this car ('17 S90 T6 Inscription)