There are certain things Porsche has taught me to approach with trepidation. One of them is sound. This is complicated for me as a result of having had a background in sound. In my 9YO Cayenne the Bose system came with hellish distortion. The best fix I found was to set the listening center at the rear seat center headrest. It was like sitting at a bar with your back to a band but it was the best solution I found. Since I listen to music at home I just diverted my attention to sports and talk radio instead of upgrading. In my 992, the door speakers fire into the door bin. That wasn't the only wackiness but it doesn't bother me because I prefer the sound of the engine when I'm in that vehicle.

To my great surprise, the Bose in my 23 GTS is really, really good. It's so Porsche for options to be unexplained by their name. For instance, Extended Leather also means upgraded leather. 18 way seats include a host of undescribed upgrades from the other seats. Well, the performance of the current Macan Bose is in a very good way, nothing like those other models. We're always constrained by our listening sources and recording quality but if you have good content the M Bose shines. It's good enough so that I'm going to invest in a couple of improvements. For some pretty good recordings things can get raspy at the high end, even moreso for sub-optimal recordings. So I'm gong to invest in some EQ. The other enhancement I'll make is at the low end with a separate subwoofer and amp.

So...if you like music and have a schooled ear, or remember the saying; no highs, no lows, must be Bose, this system is a different animal.

 

I have the Bose in my '23 GTS. I was really worried I was going to hate it, as I've had very good systems before. However, after playing with the settings a bit I am very happy with it and would say it's almost as good as the top B&O system I had in my M6 previously. For me, I have the bass dialed up to +5, which I wouldn't normally do out of fear of distortion, but it sounds nice and punchy there.

 

I wasn't super worried about the Bose, but was pleasantly surprised with it in my '23 Macan S. I have an extensive hi-rez music library, top tier home audio, and have spent some time as a recording engineer and semi-pro musician, and like @RussianMafia I do wish there were a more detailed EQ available, and in particular more detailed bass control, but other than that, it's pretty good.

 

I guess I’m not much of an audiophile because I find the standard sound system to be pretty good too. The 911 has Bose and I don’t find that better than the stock Macan S system.

 

The Bose in my 21 GTS is .. ok... but it's not what I'd consider even remotely good, just sufficient.

 

I have a Bose in my 2021 Spyder that is one of the worst I've heard. The 2023 Macan Bose is a completely different system and has a pretty decent high end and an adequate low end below 200hz. If there's a weakness it's the mid range but even that's acceptable and not fatiguing.

I like the idea of improving the low end with a better sub, but not sure an EQ is going to help. You'd need something pricey to sweeten the high end more than it is which isn't bad. You're right about feeding it high quality files, makes a huge difference.

 

I have no car high end EQ experience. But I have a lot of experience with it at home and in studios. It isn't the old 7 band kind, it's digital and places each octave in its own filter and produces measurable results as well as output curves showing target and actual performance for each octave. It takes processing power to do it. The target curve is neutral adjusted to account for room gain. I haven't met a listening space yet that couldn't be improved by it. So I'm hoping there's something equivalent out there for cars, I'm told there is in fact I saw a recent thread by a vendor promoting Macan audio upgrades. The nice thing about octave EQ is it's based on a mic and audio measurements in the listening space. So your impressions and mine which are different here and of course are subject to many non-objective things are avoided by seeking measurable target results instead of subjectives. Using it at home as I do, my ear goes straight to off curve sound in the car.

 

Very familiar with these systems, but I would say it's more like a parametric EQ because you can select each frequency and amplitude to adjust. They do need DSP to run. I use DIRAC Live in my studio to supplement room treatment and the room response/target page is a good visual for what you're talking about. The thin lines are the actual room response in 13 mic positions around a central "sweet spot". The yellow line is the target curve. Each dot is an adjustable frequency (moveable on the horizontal axis to select different frequencies), and you can change amplitude for each dot also. There's likely already some DSP tuning done on the Macan's Bose system, but you're stuck with whatever target curve their "expert" designed (which is not neutral). I'd prefer a close-to-neutral response since that's what I'm used to hearing at home and in studio.

 

Yes, something like DIRAC LIVE. I use ARC which is DSP and broken down into octaves and less targetable than DIRAC. In a car perhaps it would suffice. I haven't played much with adjustability of ARC's latest release as the automatic solution looked and sounds so good but maybe it's more targetable than previous versions. I presume wnlever chose DSP settings for the Bose had listening experience but I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't. When I can I'll try to find the thread by a vendor with a audio upgrade product for the Macan which I think included filtering but they may have just tested with a mic.

 

I have a rack of analog pro EQ's and probably 100 digital so right there with you. If you could add a digital (Weiss, Chandler, Fab etc) to the Bose it would definitely help. The stock bass/treble controls cover too wide a spectrum so I leave them at zero unless I want a little more low end. If you figure out how to add one let us know. That would be a game changer.

 

ARC is great! When I was running Anthem processors in my HT I loved ARC. I like it much better than Audessey, especially at the target curves.

If there is a way to load a different curve in the Macan that would be ideal.

 

I feel like the Macan just has bad interior acoustics. Even Burmeister in my 22 Macan GTS sounds just "OK". Whereas my 18 Panamera Turbo which just has the Bose sounds incredible, way better than Burmeister in the Macan.

 

I have the base sound system and it is really bad.

 

I have a bedroom setup where the mains fire right into my bed three feet away. The room dimensions are a bit awkward for sound. Yet ARC processing produces near perfect curves and sound. I would never have located speakers there except out of desperation but now that it’s so well EQd I wouldn’t change things if I could. So I’m not ready to give up on the Macan, the sound is SO close to being really good with the current Bose.