chassis

Thanks for the Tidal suggestion. I started a free trial and I think I will continue with it. I intend to cancel SiriusXM, I hardly ever listen to it. The main channel I listen to is Bloomberg and seems like 75% advertising anyway, and the price for Sirius is out of whack for value delivered compared with Tidal.

I have been comparing back to back to iTunes downloads and Tidal on AirPods. There is a noticeable difference in mid and high frequencies - Tidal is better. I'm out of the country now so can't hear Tidal in the Cayenne yet

Lower quality (Sirius, iTunes) sources boost bass and change mixing to emphasize human voice (rock music, for example). High frequencies (male tenor, cymbals, female soprano) are hissy, compressed and clipped with the lower quality sources. I can hear clear separation in higher ranges with Tidal. Examples: Guns'nRoses/Axle Rose, Rush/Geddy Lee, Faith Hill. These artists sound they way I think they should on Tidal, and sound much worse on iTunes downloads.

Similarly, mid-ranges are less distinct with low quality sources and much better with Tidal. Examples are Lifeson's rhythm guitar and Geddy Lee's synthesizer.

Back to the Bose in the Cayenne - the Cayenne is a great listening chamber because of its size and heavy (literally) damping materials (leather, carpet, insulation). I think the Bose speaker hardware is sufficient. The higher quality Tidal source could challenge the quality of Bose signal processing. I will give a listen when I am back in country and update this thread.

silversurfer6

Make sure you choose the hifi or master setting on streaming or download quality.

Also uncheck the normalise volume option.

silversurfer6

Screenshots for tidal settings

silversurfer6

Any specs or photos of the system?

Vapordan

A word of caution.


There is no free cheese…

silversurfer6

We have unlimited data plans here but still the plyalists I listen in the car I prefer them to have them downloaded so I do not depend on 5g signal.

So you have the option to create playlists or favorite songs and then you can download them to your phone. Just make sure you choose HiFi or Master quality for downloads also.

chassis

Agreed. The music providers (iTunes etc) strip out quality until the consumer complains, then charge premium prices or subscriptions for what was formerly the quality norm or standard. No different than car companies, eg Porsche removing selected leather in color panels, cheapening seat adjustment buttons, SportChrono dial and center rear seat belt in deviated color. All car companies do it, not just Porsche. AMG C63 went from a V8 to a four banger+electric drive.

What Porsche is good at is upgrading trim levels with the power of the previous higher trim (eg V8 in the .2 S and similar examples in 955/957/958). Of course it’s not free as indicated in the previous post.

Rischey

Pics show setup in my office/studio of Sanders Sound System equipment (and needing to be replaced emotiva dac). Esl speakers, his amps and a pro dsp he includes with programming aimed at perfect timing between fast woofers and the electrostatic panels. Chair is exactly in the sweet spot where sound is awesome imo, great anywhere else in the room. Anyone wanting to learn more about stereo, sources etc should read his white papers which dispel myths propagated by snake-oil salesman in the industry. http://sanderssoundsystems.com/technical-white-papers.







Tape shows where chair needs to be as carefully measured equidistant triangle position. I put a flashlight on top of my head to make sure, when I am critically listening, the reflection off of membrane in speakers are in exact position in the grid on the speaker. Speakers are not placed in same position on back-wall so as to reduce chance for sound waves coming back at same time and upsetting reproduction.

Schnave

^^^ April issue of Panorama magazine on the table — Nice touch!

Oh, and nice sound system!

silversurfer6

Good info about Sanders. I also love electrostatic speakers.

silversurfer6

Here is a photo of my main system. Please note I do not use the clearaudio turntable much. My main source is streaming Tidal, Berlin Philarmonic and Apple Music lossless. But 95% tidal.

Rischey

Wow, nice! Clearly we’ve gone off topic. I switched from Tidal to Amazon’s premium stuff, have you tried it yet? People like to rip on Bose, really not sure why. I’m not “impressed” with the system in my GTS, but honestly there are many gripes I could have with the pcm. Sometimes it’s hard to get appleplay going after even a gas stop, it grabs my wife’s phone instead of mine, many many quirks. If I’m in the mood to get irritated it helps the cause. The driving experience makes up for it. I have an 84 Euro MB 500SEC I put a $1000 Kenwood Elite system in, 6x9s in the trunk shelf, blows away the Bose in the GTS when playing things like the Cars. Maybe I’m just reliving the 80’s when I enjoyed Jensen 6x9s in the 70 Camaro?

silversurfer6

To get this back on track. In order to check the audio system in your car I suggest the following:

1) Use one of the services below that offer lossless streaming. Lossless streaming means there is no compression or there is lossless compression in the file. You can also call it cd streaming for simplicity

2) Make sure you choose the "most expensive" non family option for these services in order to get the lossless option
a) For Tidal this is called Hi-Fi
b) For Amazon it is called Amazon Music Unlimited
c) For Apple Music it is part of the single package they offer
d) For Deezer it is called Hi-Fi
e) For Qubaz is included in all options I think

3) On your phone make sure you choose the highest quality options - i.e hifi or lossless - for streaming and downloading as shown in the screenshots above for tidal

4) Remove any Volume normalizations or other affects by the app or phone

5) Connect the phone by cable to the car and use apple car play or the google option. I am not sure which PCM version offers the above services and it they offer the lossless versions but personally I prefer to use apple CarPlay so I have the same interface on all devices and less things to go wrong.

6) Make sure you disable any sound effects in the car and bass and treble at are zero. Now you can start listening

7) To check if the system is good it is important as above the source to be good. i.e sh..t goes in sh..t comes out. A further step is the recording or the quality of the song. Here are some songs and artists that you can test that the system should sound good:
Eagles - Hell Freezes Over - Hotel California
Disturbed - The sound of silence
Norah Jones - Most of the top hits
Adele - Most of her hits

8) Now you can adjust if needed the bass and treble but at least you have tested what the system can do. I am sure you will be surprised how much the bose system will sound improved by just using a wired lossless source and a good recording.

My first suggestion to do the above through Tidal. By the way I consider the audiophile hobby like food. you learn very easily to distinguish good, medium and bad food. Your ears can do the same with music and now it is a golden era to do so since we have all the music in the world available as a streaming option in the best quality possible.

silversurfer6

Since I am in this line of business I currently have subscriptions to tidal, apple music, berlin philarmonic and Spotify. I really believe that Spotify should release their Hifi lossless option very soon otherwise they will loose the game in the long run. I also like a lot that tidal, berlin and apple have music video clips.

For apple car play my solution is simple: Both for me and my wife in all our cars we have bluetooth off and we force ourselves to use the cable. This way apple carplay always works and I think this is the only way to send lossless audio. The article below is surely for apple music - you will only get lossless by using USB with apple carplay. I am not sure if it is the same for tidal or amazon or qubaz but since the cable works and I also charge my phone I do not have a reason to go wirelessly.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT21...%20or%20region.

silversurfer6

Adding more about the data cost. Yes lossless will cost more phone data. For those that do not have unlimited data plan do the following:

Create a playlist and choose to download the playlist over wifi on your phone. When your are in the car you can set the app to offline mode or even if you do not that playlist will be playing from your phone sdd not from the cloud.

All of the above services allow you to download the songs so data does not really matter if you have a few playlists downloaded.