I felt like an idiot when I realized after the fact that Bowers and Wilkins is the same as B&W that I have in my home! I had just never seen is spelled out in full.

Anyway, I am increasingly impressed with the sound. My wife had me put some Adele on last night and wow did that showcase the capabilities!

I become more and more pleased with my purchase every day.

 

Cool. Were u playing CD or ipod? Nowadays these premium car audio systems are simply incredible. I heard the Audi B&O system costs $5700.

 

Good for you , happy musics lol

 

I had a saab before this car, and its 13 speaker premium sound system can't even compare to the sound quality I get from this b&w sound system.

 

I loaded all my "stuff" on a USB key and just leave it in the console. I know these features have been available in lots of cars of late but first I have owned that has it.

I've heard many Bose systems, the premium stuff in the Audi A8, and the Levinson Lexus stuff....and I have always wondered what the big deal was when they have a closed environment to play with....not like a home where you throw down your gear and every room is different. The B&W is much more engaging.

 

I read a few reviews that stated the B&W system was rated as the best in car system they had ever heard. You can't get much better praise then that.

I love it as well. My only complaint is that there are a few rattles when the bass hits and the sound level isn't even very high.

 

I have to say I have the opposite feelings.

I play Sirius Radio 90% of the time.

When the system works it sounds great. However, I just had them replace a speaker because it "blew" out and the sound was horrible. I got the car back and a week later it happened again, and now another 1 or maybe 2 are bad.


I do not have everything cranked (treble, sub, bass), nor do I play the volume past 1/2 way or maybe a touch over 1/2.. so its not like I am abusing the sound system.


What do you guys have your settings on? Dolby II? and how far up are your bass, treble, and sub?

I do not know why this is happening. I don't even play it blasting with everything up... I am upset because I now will have to go back and have them do more stuff.

Anyone experience this? Or maybe the amp is bad and causing the issue for the speakers to go bad? I would love some feedback as when I 1st got the car back after they replaced the 1 speaker it sounded terrific.

 

I generally run a few ticks above normal for sub and bass and treble at mid point. I don't over-drive anything but have notices a bit of buzz from trim on some very bass heavy material....but I don't know how you would ever avoid that. There is an entire business around sound damping material for car stereos so its a common issue in a closed environment.

WRT to failures...can't comment but I would think that with a variable climate a car is a pretty harsh place to be...so maybe harder on drivers etc.

 

Jackals,

It sounds like there is something else causing your issues. The amp might be a good bet. I've never had an issue. I don't think I've turned it up to half way though and I haven't really changed my settings other than turning the bass down a bit (less rattle) and the treble up. Everything else should be at default in my car.

 

I get mine up to around 2/3s but haven't blown any speakers. I use an ipod mostly and know some songs with low bit rates don't sound very good. But the bigest problem I have is the front door speakers covers rattle a bit on higher bass music.

 

I really like my B&W system.. The sound is clear and crips which is more then I can say for the Bose that I had in my infiniti M56. That thing had no real bass to speak of and the sub woofer only worked when you where using DVD base music.
My only down side with this system is it doesn't seems to like my IPOD. No matter what, I do, It gives me the warning, Please Dock Device. I didn't have this problem, 3 months ago when I first bought the IPOD and plug it in. Now its happening almost every time I connect the thing. Every 15 minutes, I get that message. My Ipod plays every where else without a problem but in my car.. Has anybody else had this problem with the B&W system?

 

Mine won't recognize my USB jump drives which has been very annoying. The dealer found a issue and replaced some cabling but there was still no change. Then they came back and said the drive I was using must not be compatible. I have two and neither works. One is a newer 64GB and another is an old 4GB. They are completely different brands and it happens that neither works. Seems odd to me. Maybe both are too large.

 

I bought the cheapest 16gb lexar at bestbuy. Works perfectly. The cheaper ones don't have a bunch of security features. Perhaps that is the issue. Try a plain jane one.

 

I believe I recall reading in the manual that there is a maximum size of USB drive that will work - and it was laughably small, so I am sure that the drives you are using are just too big. Pathetic really - it is the only complaint I have about the system is that it does not have a hard drive or realistic compatibility. Solved for 2012, I know. The sound quality is terrific though - much better than the Bose "upgrade" in my previous 2008 Audi S4.

 

When you say that it will not recognize your usb memory stick, what symptoms do you have? The reason I ask is that I have found that even though the manual claims the system (at least in my car) is supposed to be compatible with music files of several different types e.g. aac, mp3, wav etc. it is only compatible with mp3 files and then at a restricted sample bit rate.

The music also has to be in root of the drive directory, even though that is not what is indicated in the manual.

The effect of having either the wrong format music or it is not in the root directory is that the system cannot see any content and nothing is displayed on the screen.

My older classic iPod works well enough (the newer flash based iPods or iPhones do not charge and require an adapter). The sound is excellent and has good clean sound. There is a slight bass "resonance" at around 100 Hz, but not enough to ruin the sound. However the so called iPod/iPhone compatibility is poor (no charging capability) and playing from a usb drive downright poor due to the lack of support for anything other than lower bit rate mp3s.

 

I've had no issue with different bit rates. I have a bunch at 320 (far beyond the human ability to hear diff from a CD) and they play just fine. I have a folder structure at the root of Artist/album/songs and I can traverse the structure through the screen. Wonder what would happen if I had one "music" folder in the root, then the structure above.

Keep in mind with USB keys that many come with security schemes built in. I think these expect to drop a bit of code on a PC when plugged in so that they can have that secure handshake. Clearly this can't happen in a car. Try the most basic, non secure USB storage....the added bonus is that its cheaper.

 

I cannot get my car to play mp3 with a bit rate above 256 kb/s vbr or constant and, unfortunately, I can hear the difference between mp3 and, say, aac encoding which my car will not support (in general aac sounds better to me than mp3 at equivalent bit rates). I could debate the observation that there is no difference between an mp3 at 320 kb/s and a CD but that is all subjective and much less relevant in a car environment. My problem is that I do not want to have compressed music standards that are different for each of the listening environments I use. Bottom line is that my car will not support anything other than mp3s at 256 kb/s on a USB stick and that is not good enough as a compression standard for me when listening in other environments. So this would require copies of music in various encoding schemes dependent upon where I was going to listen to them!!

Anyway my point was that if the car does not recognize the encoding standard the music tracks will not appear and the usb stick looks as if it is not recognized. I also have the issue that the music cannot be in any sub folders. It looks as if my system is somewhat out of date and maybe a software update is required, maybe.

If the encoding standard is recognized (mp3 only in my case) and the music correctly located then they will not play if the encoding bit rate is above 256 kb/s. All very tedious and may, along with your suggestion that the stick is one of those with encryption security built in, give the appearance that the usb stick is not recognized. This is much more complicated than it should be.

 

I won't debate quality and what one can hear. Almost religious and un winnable discussion because everyone is different.

I share the grief on file formats and music management...big pain in the butt. I am not an Apple guy so got away from anything proprietary.

I'm happy to test things if it helps anyone.

 

I have just the “standard” system that comes with the ’11 XF Premium and it is the best OEM car audio I have ever heard. I can’t imagine how great the B&W must sound.

 

I agree, the B&W system sounds great! I set mine on the 3D setting (I don't recall it's exact name), as it seems to provide the fullest, most spacious sound. Beautiful, detailed sound. Crisp highs and detailed midrange. Bass is full without being boomy. I have noticed, however, like others, that sometimes one of the speakers has a bit of a buzz on very low notes, even though I set my tone controls flat (no increase in bass, sub, etc.). Still the best factory system I've heard in any car. Not the best compared to aftermarket, of course, but it will easily hold its own against all but the very best aftermarket systems.

It seems that CDs sound just a bit better, more detailed than iPod music, although it could be the placebo effect (i.e. I assume CDs should sound better because MP3 music is compressed, so naturally my brain tricks itself into thinking CDs sound better). As a bonus, the CD player is a 6 disc changer. I didn't realize that until I actually fed one into it the other day (yes, I'm sure it's in the manual but who reads it, and until now, I've used an iPod so didn't notice).

BTW, as to the guy whose system keeps blowing speakers, I agree most likely there's a defect in the amp. A dirty signal from a bad amp can do that even if the volume isn't turned up much.