Lucid Air HiFi & Sound System

[copper]

Starting a new thread to talk about the sound system, pulled from the 1.1.6 thread

The lack of engine noise and speeds of a typical daily commute I think the lower noise level can reveal differences. Soundstage, separation, and range.

Since this is my first EV I'm curious like you about how the lower ambient sound will help bring out details in recordings. My previous daily driver had the Mercedes Burmester system and it was pretty good, but road noise would drown out a lot of details and nuance in a recording. I've also found a lot of car stereos to rely too much the DSP to try and product imaging and end up leaving gaps in the frequency response.

A good example is the Hyundai Palisade we have. On some really demanding tracks (My Friends Never Die by Odesza and Raindrops by Basement Jaxx) it can end up completely eliminating certain transients or elements. They're not drowned out by road noise - they just aren't there.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

I think we are overlooking one significant use that you don't in an ICE. We'll be sitting at a charger for 20-40 minutes.

 

[idiot900]

That's a good point. You'll still have the ambient noises of the parking lot, but perhaps that's no worse than living in a city.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

That's a good point. You'll still have the ambient noises of the parking lot, but perhaps that's no worse than living in a city.

I don't own an EV yet, but given the tendency to be installed back in some remote corner. If anything that needs improvement it's the EVstation.

 

[copper]

I think we are overlooking one significant use that you don't in an ICE. We'll be sitting at a charger for 20-40 minutes.

Just another opportunity to crank it and get caught up in the music

 

[SaratogaLefty]

That's a good point. You'll still have the ambient noises of the parking lot, but perhaps that's no worse than living in a city.

So on my test drive we pulled up and stopped near the reservoir and there was a cement truck next to us being used for some repairs. When I put the driver's window down, the noise from the truck was pretty loud. When I put the window back up couldn't hardly even hear it. So I don't think parking lot noise is going to be much of an issue. We were listening to Apple CarPlay via bluetooth and to me it sounded fantastic.

 

[idiot900]

So on my test drive we pulled up and stopped near the reservoir and there was a cement truck next to us being used for some repairs. When I put the driver's window down, the noise from the truck was pretty loud. When I put the window back up couldn't hardly even hear it. So I don't think parking lot noise is going to be much of an issue. We were listening to Apple CarPlay via bluetooth and to me it sounded fantastic.

That's really encouraging! Hopefully the Touring (i.e. what I'll buy) will have similar soundproofing.

 

[hmp10]

I gave the audio system a run through on a lot of different material from Tidal (classical, country, rock) for about an hour one evening in my garage. The sound was spectacular in terms of dynamics, tonal balance, detail, and sound stage.

It loses some of its fine edges on the road due to ambient noise from various sources. And then there's the problem that the bass has completely dropped out a few times.

However, at least when the bass is functioning, passengers in the car have commented (without my having brought up the topic) on how clean the audio is.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

When you retract the pilot panel, does it power down? Since I don't own an EV currently, would connecting a DAP, phone(s) affect range or is that small potatoes?

If everything goes as planned will be driving long distances for 10 days. If mileage holds for AGT on 19" I might be able to get away with destination charging on all but one segment. I will use as many sources as possible to get a charge when eating lunch each day.

 

[Paladin732]

When you retract the pilot panel, does it power down? Since I don't own an EV currently, would connecting a DAP, phone(s) affect range or is that small potatoes?

If everything goes as planned will be driving long distances for 10 days. If mileage holds for AGT on 19" I might be able to get away with destination charging on all but one segment. I will use as many sources as possible to get a charge when eating lunch each day.

A phone is small potatoes.

 

[borski]

So on my test drive we pulled up and stopped near the reservoir and there was a cement truck next to us being used for some repairs. When I put the driver's window down, the noise from the truck was pretty loud. When I put the window back up couldn't hardly even hear it. So I don't think parking lot noise is going to be much of an issue. We were listening to Apple CarPlay via bluetooth and to me it sounded fantastic.

Hang on, what? Is that a typo? Do you mean Apple Music via bluetooth? Because if you have CarPlay I want the secrets NOW

 

[borski]

I gave the audio system a run through on a lot of different material from Tidal (classical, country, rock) for about an hour one evening in my garage. The sound was spectacular in terms of dynamics, tonal balance, detail, and sound stage.

It loses some of its fine edges on the road due to ambient noise from various sources. And then there's the problem that the bass has completely dropped out a few times.

However, at least when the bass is functioning, passengers in the car have commented (without my having brought up the topic) on how clean the audio is.

Same, on all points. Just curious, were you using the car's built-in Tidal integration or were you streaming the Tidal app over your phone and bluetooth?

 

[SaratogaLefty]

Hang on, what? Is that a typo? Do you mean Apple Music via bluetooth? Because if you have CarPlay I want the secrets NOW

No the Dream Edition car we drove did not have Apple CarPlay. Chad simply pulled up a Beatles song from Apple Music that had been re-recorded in Dolby Atmos on his iPhone and it played over the car's system. The sound was outstanding even though it was using Bluetooth.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

I'm going to try and reach out to Lucid on this. Can the car decode MULTI-CHANNEL audio? So far the answer is yes. A stereo signal can be easily upsampled, and sound awesome. I'm looking forward to recordings where, voices and sounds move for example.

 

[hmp10]

Same, on all points. Just curious, were you using the car's built-in Tidal integration or were you streaming the Tidal app over your phone and bluetooth?

I was using the Tidal app that came loaded into the car. There's too much fidelity loss with Bluetooth compression for me to want to use that for testing an audio system.

 

[borski]

I was using the Tidal app that came loaded into the car. There's too much fidelity loss with Bluetooth compression for me to want to use that for testing an audio system.

Same. Was just curious.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

I'm going to try and reach out to Lucid on this. Can the car decode MULTI-CHANNEL audio? So far the answer is yes. A stereo signal can be easily upsampled, and sound awesome. I'm looking forward to recordings where, voices and sounds move for example.

There are Beatles albums that have been reissued wth Dolby Atmos available on Apple Music. Even many of the original Beatles recordings had outstanding stereo quality with "movement". Apple Music has many many Dolby Atmos choices. I've already downloaded hundreds of them onto my iPhone.

 

[copper]

Coming back to this thread with an update:

• I'm doing a sit-in with an AGT next week in Newark. I'm bringing along a measurement mic and my laptop to run some test loops for shits and giggles (DA said it was fine, but we'll see when I get there). I'm very curious what the low-end will look like and if there are gaps in the response like a lot of cars, especially around 1khz.
• I plan to spend about 30min listening to tunes and will be jamming to some Massive Attack, The Police, Odesza, etc. Anyone have a track they want me to try?
• Main goal is to test sound staging, vocals and low-end. Some of the tracks (My Blood by Twenty One Pilots for example) have some very deep notes, around ~35hz or less that can be challenging for a car DSP to handle.

I'll post my findings after.

 

[idiot900]

Coming back to this thread with an update:

• I'm doing a sit-in with an AGT next week in Newark. I'm bringing along a measurement mic and my laptop to run some test loops for shits and giggles (DA said it was fine, but we'll see when I get there). I'm very curious what the low-end will look like and if there are gaps in the response like a lot of cars, especially around 1khz.
• I plan to spend about 30min listening to tunes and will be jamming to some Massive Attack, The Police, Odesza, etc. Anyone have a track they want me to try?
• Main goal is to test sound staging, vocals and low-end. Some of the tracks (My Blood by Twenty One Pilots for example) have some very deep notes, around ~35hz or less that can be challenging for a car DSP to handle.

I'll post my findings after.

Here is a track which I've found can bring out the worst in a stereo:

Setting aside whether this music is to your taste or not, it seems like a lot of car stereos degenerate into "one note bass" with tracks like this. And the glass canopy can't help.

 

[Lucken]

Let me ask a naive question. If you don't know what a given track is supposed to sound like, how would you know how faithful the system is to that track?