Disappointing Surreal Sound Pro

[afk]

I test drove a GT earlier today at the Millbrae Studio. Car was amazing — ride was excellent even on the 21s, interior was beautiful and well put together, and the performance was next level.

The one really disappointing aspect was the Surreal Sound Pro system. I listened via Tidal, and there was next to no bass in the tracks I played — sounded like there was no sub (and would’ve been a letdown even in a $40k car with a base sound system). I’m coming from a 2019 Audi A6 with the B&O system, which is hardly the best in the world. The rep mentioned that the unit I drove was preproduction, so I’m hoping that this disappointment is a function of that, but wanted to see what others’ experiences have been. Has anyone else noted a lack of low-end audio in Surreal Sound Pro, or is this likely just a pre-prod issue?

 

[hydbob]

Ask @Impatient7536 who was able to test the sound in a production car today! Was very fun, minus the streaming issue we ran into. Was it a Dolby track? Did you adjust the equalizer? Was it running 1.2.75? Lots of variables here...

 

[Demosthenes]

I think @copper and others did a great objective analysis of the sound system. But yeah it sounds like either that pre-production car didn’t have the full system activated or you ran into the ‘bass drop out’ problem that some have reported previously on this forum.

 

[afk]

Ask @Impatient7536 who was able to test the sound in a production car today! Was very fun, minus the streaming issue we ran into. Was it a Dolby track? Did you adjust the equalizer? Was it running 1.2.75? Lots of variables here...

@Impatient7536 would love to compare notes! The tracks I tried were not Atmos. I did play with the equalizer a bit (brought it up to bass +5 just to see if that materially moved the needle — no dice), but didn’t check which version it was running. Will have to get back in there for another test once they have some production cars ready to go!

 

[Drendino]

If the car you test drove had Tahoe interior, it was a pre-production car.

 

[Impatient7536]

firstly, i'd like to thank @hydbob for letting me sit in his car today to play around with everything. also, this is a completely subjective review. This here would be a more objective review of the system done by @copper .

some disclaimer about myself: im a normal dude who listens to a normal range music, with a slight emphasis on EDM. i don't do anything musical related on a professional level, am not an audio head, and have no understanding the intricacies of music production. i have played a music instrument, namely drums. also, i currently drive a 1998 toyota camry. i repeat, a 1998 TOYOTA CAMRY. so EVERYTHING at this point is a step up for me.

during our experiment, we played a couple tracks on both the native tidal and spotify apps from the car directly. so whatever was played on the tidal, we played on spotify also, barring some streaming hiccups. i don't remember the songs though; we directly chose songs from the tidal dolby atmos playlist.

overall, when im sitting back, chilling, and enjoying the music, the dolby sound system easily felt fuller and more immersive. when i dialed in and focused on listening for differences, i noticed its precision, hitting the note ranges/spectrum. this sound system will give you the opportunity to rediscover aspects of your playlist, kind of like re-playing an open world MMO game and exploring secluded parts that you missed the first time around.

now, if you wanted me to point out the specifics of what, where, and how the sound system is better, i wont be able to. i'm not an expert, so my ears won't be able to pick apart these nuances on its own. but when the song is delivered to me as a whole package, i can feel the difference. not sure if that makes sense.

as for your bass comment: bob and i did talk about it. it's not as heavy hitting and you wont be feeling the oomph as much. now, depending on the individual and the type of music you listen to, that may or may not be a good thing, and may or may not matter. unfortunately, i wasn't able to test out any EDM tracks today.

personally, i believe that because the bass is the "easiest" musical aspect for normal people to catch and feel, many systems over emphasize and over tune the bass as an easy way to "upsell" a product. maybe most songs were not mixed and meant to be played with that much bass, but that's just my guess.

once again, 100% my own subjective opinion on the matter. please refer to copper's analysis HERE for a more technical analysis. im a pleb with some basic af ears. at its worse, it sounded great to me. at it's best, it allowed me to discover boundaries i never knew existed, albeit nuanced and only slightly.

i'm personally going for a touring, so this will be an add-on. currently, im leaning 65-35 on upgrading, but we'll see.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I test drove a GT earlier today at the Millbrae Studio. Car was amazing — ride was excellent even on the 21s, interior was beautiful and well put together, and the performance was next level.

The one really disappointing aspect was the Surreal Sound Pro system. I listened via Tidal, and there was next to no bass in the tracks I played — sounded like there was no sub (and would’ve been a letdown even in a $40k car with a base sound system). I’m coming from a 2019 Audi A6 with the B&O system, which is hardly the best in the world. The rep mentioned that the unit I drove was preproduction, so I’m hoping that this disappointment is a function of that, but wanted to see what others’ experiences have been. Has anyone else noted a lack of low-end audio in Surreal Sound Pro, or is this likely just a pre-prod issue?

I’m a former sound designer/audio engineer. To my trained ears the Lucid system is outstanding. For Tidal HiFi (this MUST be enabled and the vehicle must be on 1.2.6 software or higher to stream at high quality) some tracks I’ve listened to sounded the same as they did in the mixing studio. I say it’s outstanding because the sound reproduction is accurate. Many other car audio systems will hype certain frequencies like bass and higher high frequencies so it sounds like it has “huge bass” and “bright” to make up for inadequacy in the system, but this will lead to ear fatigue quickly and also isn’t representative of what the track was mixed to sound like. Whatever you heard in your test drive is very unlikely to be an accurate representation of what the car’s system actually sounds like. There’s also the occasional software glitch where the sound system doesn’t power on the subwoofer and you need a reboot. It’s happened to me once, and some other users. You’ll be happy with the audio system.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Funny enough the “no bass” software glitch just happened to me again, so I guess count that as two times now. Cured by a reboot.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Funny enough the “no bass” software glitch just happened to me again, so I guess count that as two times now. Cured by a reboot.

Is it me being superstitious or oversensitive? But I feel like if I read enough negative issues here in the forum, some day it may just happen it to me, thus the word “jinxed”.

 

[EVCar]

I’m a former sound designer/audio engineer. To my trained ears the Lucid system is outstanding. For Tidal HiFi (this MUST be enabled and the vehicle must be on 1.2.6 software or higher to stream at high quality) some tracks I’ve listened to sounded the same as they did in the mixing studio. I say it’s outstanding because the sound reproduction is accurate. Many other car audio systems will hype certain frequencies like bass and higher high frequencies so it sounds like it has “huge bass” and “bright” to make up for inadequacy in the system, but this will lead to ear fatigue quickly and also isn’t representative of what the track was mixed to sound like.

I’m no audio expert, but completely agree.
Accuracy and transparency are sine qua non for any high fidelity system. Then there’s the equalizer to suit your hearing’s preference.

 

[MorganB]

I hope they rebalance the system for the Touring / Pure solid roof.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

I have to agree the quality of the sound on tidal Hi-Fi Plus with Dolby Atmos recordings is outstanding! That said I would like to be able to adjust the balance which you can’t do on Dolby Atmos. It seems to me it is a little too biased to the front especially on the vocals.

 

[joec]

I have to agree the quality of the sound on tidal Hi-Fi Plus with Dolby Atmos recordings is outstanding! That said I would like to be able to adjust the balance which you can’t do on Dolby Atmos. It seems to me it is a little too biased to the front especially on the vocals.

Yeah, one of the things about Atmos is that the engineer decides where everything belongs in the spatial field. So adjusting balance in the traditional sense doesn't fly. Which is odd in a car, for sure. It's basically mixed as if you were sitting in the center of the field, where no one sits.

I'm used to pushing the balance to the rear myself in most cars, since the rear speakers are further away from me.

It would be amazing if the system could detect where people were sitting in the car, and adjust automatically when there's just a driver, vs people sitting in the back, etc. Give it a few more years, and someone will figure that out. Heck, Apple already detects your head position and moves the sound around as you turn your head with headphones on, which is really cool. But again, some people hate that effect. I think it makes wearing headphones more like listening to live music myself. But so it goes.

A lot of people had similar complaints about HomePod when it was released. They wanted to adjust EQ and such, but the entire point of that speaker was that it "reads the room" and adjusts everything according to a very specific algorithm to be sure it balances properly. A lot of people hate giving up that control of their final sound to the people who made the music, or the people who designed the system. But they way I look at it, those folks know a hell of a lot more about this stuff than I do. So I'm happy to hand over that control. All of these modern systems sound amazing to me, compared to what I grew up listening to.

 

[Demosthenes]

Is it me being superstitious or oversensitive? But I feel like if I read enough negative issues here in the forum, some day it may just happen it to me, thus the word “jinxed”.

Assuming that all complaints are true and in good faith, odds are we will all experience almost all of them eventually since we all pretty much have the same car…

 

[Tesla2.0]

Assuming that all complaints are true and in good faith, odds are we will all experience almost all of them eventually since we all pretty much have the same car…

Yeah, I believe in variance, if there is no variance and I have to experience all the complaints here, that would get me very nervous. But like someone said in the forum, Lucid to Tesla is like Ritz Carlton to Holiday Inn. At least I feel they value your business, not as your car is here, take your key, bye!

 

[smyles09]

I had similar concerns to many who probably listened to the stereo of a preproduction vehicle in a Lucid showroom. Admittedly, I was severely underwhelmed but understanding it was a preproduction model and that the system was glitchy (the reps rebooted to car before I listened and still it had connectivity issues with tidal) makes me feel a little less concerned. Bass was paltry, mids were just ok, highs stood out along with sound placement within the cabin (acoustic mapping with Dolby Atmos).

But one thing I’m hopeful for is that Lucid continues to borrow from best practices. After watching a YouTube video of Mercedes’ Burmeister system in the EQS the level of adjustments to the listener’s preferences made me feel that Lucid has a long way to go beyond the entry level base, mid, and high adjustments that I witnessed in the studio. I understand Mercedes had much more time to arrive to this point but I would love Lucid to step up in the ability to customize the sound, without being able to change the acoustic mapping with Atmos.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I have to agree the quality of the sound on tidal Hi-Fi Plus with Dolby Atmos recordings is outstanding! That said I would like to be able to adjust the balance which you can’t do on Dolby Atmos. It seems to me it is a little too biased to the front especially on the vocals.

This is partly due to Dolby Atmos (and all formats > 5.1 channel) placing vocals in the center speaker as opposed to it coming from equal split between left and right stereo speakers, and so it can create the impression the audio is directly in front of you rather than in the “middle” which your ears are calculating because right and left ears are hearing left and right speaker simultaneously. 5.1 and Atmos are more realistic because in the real world when someone is speaking or singing (unamplified) they’re directly in front of you, not to the right and left of your ears simultaneously. The funny thing is thanks to stereo/live music we’ve gotten used to listening to vocals incorrectly for decades if you think about it, with the singer or speaker being a “mono” source that is then sent to left/right speakers which you hear as a fake mono signal. That’s why in film 5.1 mixes dialog is usually placed in the center channel if the character is in the center of the screen, with room reverb on the voice being sent to left/right/left surround/right surround and height (in the case of Atmos) so you’re given a much more naturalistic sense of spatialization. So this will make any musical track you’ve been used to hearing in stereo that has been remixed for 5.1/Atmos sound like the vocals are “front biased”, because in fact they ARE front center biased.

 

[Tesla2.0]

This is partly due to Dolby Atmos (and all formats > 5.1 channel) placing vocals in the center speaker as opposed to it coming from equal split between left and right stereo speakers, and so it can create the impression the audio is directly in front of you rather than in the “middle” which your ears are calculating because right and left ears are hearing left and right speaker simultaneously. 5.1 and Atmos are more realistic because in the real world when someone is speaking or singing (unamplified) they’re directly in front of you, not to the right and left of your ears simultaneously. The funny thing is thanks to stereo/live music we’ve gotten used to listening to vocals incorrectly for decades if you think about it, with the singer or speaker being a “mono” source that is then sent to left/right speakers which you hear as a fake mono signal. That’s why in film 5.1 mixes dialog is usually placed in the center channel if the character is in the center of the screen, with room reverb on the voice being sent to left/right/left surround/right surround and height (in the case of Atmos) so you’re given a much more naturalistic sense of spatialization. So this will make any musical track you’ve been used to hearing in stereo that has been remixed for 5.1/Atmos sound like the vocals are “front biased”, because in fact they ARE front center biased.

Yes, Dolby ATMOS is AWESOME!

We should have sound tracks to have bullets going thru the air, helicopter flying above you, and raining effect.

Lucid Air is first far with Dolby ATMOS I believe on top of many new engineering design like 900v architecture, Insect eyes LED, bi-directional management, expensive LiDAR, curved 34” 5k LED display, 500+ miles EPA, retractable Infotainment screen, mechanical arrangement to have biggest frunk and 0.2 Coefficient Drag, etc. etc.

The next vehicle that will have most breakthrough like Lucid Air would be Cybertruck. And I hope it can actually happen and wait for Elon’s specs creep to 2026.

 

[EVCar]

After watching a YouTube video of Mercedes’ Burmeister system in the EQS the level of adjustments to the listener’s preferences made me feel that Lucid has a long way to go beyond the entry level base, mid, and high adjustments that I witnessed in the studio. I understand Mercedes had much more time to arrive to this point but I would love Lucid to step up in the ability to customize the sound, without being able to change the acoustic mapping with Atmos.

The sound adjustment schema in the EQS is basically a graphical representation of the equalizer.
Personally, I'm kind of underwhelmed, and I'm aware there are folks on the MB forum who really like it.
And I'm kind of unusual in that at least for my ICE, especially on long trip, I want to be able to detect any unusual sounds from the car so I usually drive in silence.
Have a friend who's a Porsche enthusiast and all he wants to hear in the car is his engine .
Plus, no matter how sophisticated a system, music in the car is a different breed than the pleasure of listening to one's home system.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Plus, no matter how sophisticated a system, music in the car is a different breed than the pleasure of listening to one's home system.

Not if you have an inconsolable 17 month old in the back seat. I just discovered I am VERY disappointed in my Tidal HiFi Plus subscription, as I'd got it partly because they give more $ to artists, and here's the sad news they just gave me, all due to one rescue playlist I made for road trips when the kiddo can't take it anymore.... "The Wheels on the Lucid go round and round, round and round, round and round, all the live long day..."