With the possible exception of a Maybach (other Marques are available...), a car is the worst possible space in which to try and achieve high quality sound reproduction.

A set of noise cancelling headphones hooked up to an MP3 player will do better.

Once you accept this, your life will be a much happier place - and you can have no end of fun tormenting sales staff on test drives through the use of carefully selected tracks played through the optional "hifi" upgraded stereo.

HTH

 

I tried these settings. They are pretty good but I think the bass is too strong and distorted and the mid range is a bit hollow. Part of the issue is that the sub isn't that good and it just seems like a boom box than an accurate low frequency speaker. Probably the worst sub I have ever heard.

I found a setting I prefer which is: Pro Logic mode, I kept bass at 50% but turned sub down to 30% and raised treble to 75% and now it sounds great.

 

I have the solution.....upgrade your exhaust system. lol. There's no need for "music" when you have the greatest sound track in the world right behind you. In all seriousness though, thank god I'm not the only one! I remember driving the car back home from the dealership the day I bought it, and I heard some windy, blown sound coming from one of the subwoofers. It kind of irritated me because I literally just bought the car and I thought the speakers were already used and abused! My solution to the problem was....turn the stereo off and drive in the higher RPM's. Just a suggestion, solved my problem.

 

Had a long freeway drive today to LA and did some testing on the sound settings. As was pointed out, the Meridian DSP mode causes a very strange distorted bass when the bass tone control is turned at or above the mid-point. With the DSP set to DTS or Dolby, the sound is good. Almost sounds like there is a hardware (or firmware) issue for how the Meridian DSP mode is processing bass.

 

People are going to drive themselves nuts over radio. Either you spend big bucks or you got what you got. Move on, sell the car or live with it! There are plenty of suv's with great sound systems.

 

Thank you!!!!! The angst is unbelievable, but the same dissatisfaction about audio systems always seems to ensue on every car forum I've ever been on.

In fairness, there does seem to be a higher percentage of problems in the F-Type, judging from the number of reports here, but it also appears that most of the dissatisfied aren't taking them back to dealers and/or getting it reported to JLR corporate.

Even though mine doesn't rattle, I'm usually only listening to the exhaust note anyway.

 

There might just be a quick fix(es) that solve some of the problems. In the last six months I haven't seen anything concrete -- wrap the wires in the door? Stuff some foam in a rear panel? Put an enclosure around the subs? Or??

 

They've already done this to my car and it's not fixed!!!! I really want them to take all that junk out ideally!!!

This problem Is really easy to fix, but it's not being escalated to the right people to action the design of a new cabinet enclosure or to even remotely diagnose the issue. If it had been then more recent customers of coupes would not have the issue. And let's be candid, the car and it's problem is now two years old this month.

Having spent 30 or more hours (really!!!) on the phone with JLR staff on this, it's really clear their operating procedures don't facilitate the smooth movement of issues up the tree. This starts from the dealerships and goes right up the organisation. And these procedures are absolutely rigid to the point of inflexibility. This can't happen with a BMW or any VW Group (from Seat to Porsche) product as any and every procedure carried out on a car is fully recorded from the point it enters the shop.

In my case Jaguar have no records for the first three attempts to fix this with 2 seperate dealerships over a period of 3 weeks despite the fact that I was speaking to the CRC literally every day for updates!!! Their only comment on this is that the guy at the CRC is no longer with the company. Like that makes it better.

Please escalate your cases to Ryan at the CRC and record it here so that we can keep JLR to account!

 

With our Maserati, worst "premium" ever, it took a year to find an upgrade. Amp taken out of car and EQ re-programmed, head unit re-programmed. Marginal improvement! Dealers came up with fix for bad vibrations and got Maser to cover it. It would be nice if Jag dealers figured out some type of insulation/dynamat fix as they are in the car! I don't have problem but due to Maser experience I sympathize.

 

BJG, yes driving ourselves nuts is right, to get something that should be right fixed, and yes, we did spend big bucks. I own two Jags, and the XJL base unit Meridian is fine, sounds nice and never clips, rattles, or anything. I wanted the 770, but this car was one of the last and it didn't have it. I settled for it, and am happy, also spending big bucks on this car, and I got what I got and am happy with it.

As for the "F" type, the same thing happened, and was told that the system was the same as the XJ, and therefore thought...."small cabin, should be good enough". My expectations were not met, and they weren't set "high".

Some people who pay money, and a lot of it, have expectations that should be met.

As for my friend Foosh, here you go again. I like the sound of the engine as well as anybody else, but also get tires of hearing it, and want to crank out a nice mix of songs on a drive to the shore. I/we have expectations, and to your point, I did take my car last week to the dealer, and it is still there. They are giving it a ton of TLC (thank you Jaguar), and I am hoping that it comes back good. I have two excellent techs, and when they say something is fixed...take it to the bank. They said that it was just this, fixed and sounding good. What did they do?

1. - Dynomatted both doors in order to stop the rattles
2. - Replaced both rear speaker covers which were cracked

They claim that this took care of the issues, and I will know when I go back to pick it up next Monday.

Forums are opinions, and sometimes people go overboard with their inputs, but I do believe that you guys are accurate in that people do need to go to their dealers (who haven't already) and get this fixed and reported to JLR "for the record". Not doing this and complaining on the forums is a pain in the *** for us all, as we will never get to the bottom of this without constructive inputs from customer, to dealer to reps to JLR and back.

Signed...."hopefully fixed F-Type S stereo" in NJ

 

The Definitive Solution to the Meridian System....is......exactly what?

I was all excited by the topic, hoping for a solution, then lost the will to live!

 

30 hours of time on the phone with Jaguar over stereo issues sounds like masochism to me.

I think the definitive solution is to take the car to your local hi fi shop and let their best tech remove and reinstall all the speakers, building proper enclosures where warranted, using dynamat as needed, building custom crossovers etc.; this is what I was hoping to see in the thread.

The solution is not to listen to a certain type of music or with certain EQ settings or volume levels. I have 4,000 songs on my IPod. I expect them all to sound good, at any volume, top up or down. I am sure a decent shop can make that happen. Just add money.

 

+1 Is Dynamatting the solution?

 

+1.

 

Have you done this? What does it cost?

Also wouldn't the dynamat reduce the transmission of exhaust sound into the cabin? If it is sound damping and you do the doors and the rear firewall then I would imagine it will reduce the F-Type's biggest selling point which is the sound of the car.

 

Hope dealer fix works. Nice to see a dealer take the lead!

 

I have not done it on my Jaguar yet. I would estimate 15-20 hours of shop time. There are other threads where people have done some of this work.

I didn't start a thread claiming to have the definitive solution, then just suggesting E.Q. settings. I did read all the threads on the issue and the only people who claimed to have fixed the common complaints took the approach I suggested, replacing only the door midrange speakers outright as I recall.

The exhaust will sound great, especially top down, regardless of Dynamatting. The dynamatting would probably be used in the doors and on the rear bulkhead. It might reduce a little of the rear tire noise but the main benefit of the product is reducing reflected sound and attenuating natural resonances. At 1/2 inches thick, Dynamatting is not a complete sound proof barrier.