gatorfast

For those audio experts out there - any tips on how to set the Bose stereo for best sound quality? I primarily listen to rock music on siriusxm (lithium, turbo, etc) if that makes a difference. I have messed with some of the settings but each time I change something I cant tell if it sounds better or worse lol

chassis

Following. Bose adjustments are too basic and the sound quality is not impressive, rather it’s just adequate. The tick box filter settings in the PCM are strange. Bass performance seems reasonable but mid range imaging is lacking.

Base hk on MB was surprisingly good and easy to adjust.

Mr_Marty

Why a high-end brand like Porsche chooses to partner with Bose is a mystery. Almost any other auto audio brand is better: HK, Mark Levinson, B&O, etc.

My recommendation is to take it to a car audio shop and have them put in some better components.

LDT

I’m no audiophile so for me the Bose is fine. I’ve played around with the settings…+ treble and - bass ever so slightly. Adjusted the front to rear balance in favor of the front. That said, you’ll find lotsa Bose haters here.

pinion

If you are interested in audio quality then starting with satellite radio as your source isn’t going to do you any favors no matter what kind of components or tuning you choose.

chassis

Thanks. Having never upgraded car audio, what are the typical low hanging fruit components? Speakers/sub, amp or something else? I wouldn't mind taking a step or two down this path.

gatorfast

True - but I also play files via USB drive and I cant say it sounds much better. I still have plenty of CDs from back in the day but modern cars dont have CD players anymore!

LSR

Agree 100% - satellite radio audio quality is less than stellar. If you want to hear your car's Bose system sounding better, start by feeding it better source material. Give a listen to Radio Paradise (over CarPlay, whatever the Android equivalent is, or a wired connection; not Bluetooth). The difference in sound quality compared to satellite radio is instantly noticeable.

Oldboy52

Here is what I'm using. Fader, 2 to the front gets sound centered between driver and passenger. Base 7, treble 6. Surround mode checked, Soundtrue media checked, and Autopilot checked.

I am hearing challenged, so there might be some tweaks to get to what sounds best for you. I listen to 70s & 80s rock and roll from CDs copied to a usb drive.

Woofman

You need to listen to SiriusXM on a great car audio system. I listened to SiriusXM for 8 1/2 years on what apparently was an exceptional car audio system - 10-speaker JBL with front and rear subwoofers. I was shocked when I listened to the same SiriusXM stations on my Cayenne's Bose.

The Bose is disappointing regardless of the audio source but I didn't buy the Cayenne to listen to music.

pinion

About the time Sirius merged with XM is when I noticed a major increase in digital compression artifacts in the satellite feeds making them basically intolerable for me to listen to. Some stations are worse than others of course… but they seemingly do not have nearly enough bandwidth to broadcast all of that content at once (which is what is happening since by design they can’t beam selective feeds to individual receivers).

I don’t need much of a system to pick up on the difference and once I hear it I can’t stop hearing all the distortion.

All that said I am more likely to crack the windows, shift my GTS to manual mode+sport, and play the instrument I paid an illogical amount of money for to the massive detriment of my MPG.

FlyPenFly

The secret is that they’re all just licensed names. None of them actually produce the speakers that go in the car.

mafpolo

Regardless of where components are manufactured, the components are designed and sepced by the audio manufacturer. Bose is really disappointing. The Nakamichi system on my LS400 in the late 90's was far better. I have different settings for the different modes. For USB, I have the treble at +3, bass at +2, balnce +2 to the right in order to have some sound stage, and fader -1 to the rear. I don't like any of their surround sound or other options. I am surprised that they haven't dumped Bose and gone to B&O (negotiate a better deal, since Audi is already uses B&O). I'd like to upgrade the system starting with amps and then speakers and subwoofer, but it's probably a royal pain, and I don't want to risk any electrical issues.
You almost have to play around to find what you like.

Vapordan

A lot of bose haters here 4 sure. Unwarranted imo. My thoughts. I start with a high bitrate source. Then, I run all my music thru a 10 band EQ. All of that is on my iphone, I have no extra stuff in the S. The bose are good because I cannot hear distortion at the volumes I listen to (I can hold a conversation while the music is playing). They arent as good as the burms, which are tuned to the high end but light on base to give a sense of clarity. But I can go all the way up on the burms without much perceived distortion (noise). The bose won’t do that but they are good enough. They are objectively better than MB HKs which are tuned to the mid-low end and dont offer much clarity at all e.g., cymbals do not sparkle. I don’t turn these up at all because i don’t like what i hear at mid to high volumes. Source is key. Its not possible to get satellite anything (64 kbs???) to sound good. That is a fool’s errand. Bitrate, a measure of compression, is the culprit. Compression artifacts, which some folks here talk about is something different. Usually, untrained ears cannot discern compression artifacts so we should not talk about those. Take a listen to relaxingjazz.com setting the stream to 320 kbps on the same ‘****ty’ bose system and you will hear it come alive. Set the stream back down to 32 kbps and you’ll immediately notice the difference. There isn’t a way to ‘fix’ a 32 kbps stream because most of the audio info is removed from the stream and cannot be put back in using software, better speakers or a bigger amp. These streams are suitable for talk radio but not music. Even media-based music (USB, CDs etc) needs to be encoded (put in) at the correct bitrate or they will not sound good. My better half insists on bootlegged mp3 on the burms and that irritates me to a whole other level. The abject sacrilege of a radio recorded mp3 on Burmesters!!! Dieter would roll in his grave 4 sure. Once the source is good, an EQ can be used to compensate for speaker/system shortcomings, cabin noise, poor listening environments etc by surgically altering the offending frequencies (tuning the system). I own a studio btw and i am also a music lover.

gatorfast

This is great information everyone - thank you! Sounds like I may never be able to achieve "great" sound considering the sources I use.