Lucid Air Stereo "Surreal Sound" Test Impressions

[borski]

This reminds me of Brad Carlson.
1) was the test drive car a prototype or production car?
2) did it have Tidal HiFi Plus subscription
3) if so did it have HiFi streaming turned on?
4) Did you play any Atmos tracks, like was the Atmos logo lit up or greyed out?
5) what was the equalizer set to?

In summary, unless the car was set up for optimum listening conditions to evaluate to audio system, you can’t evaluate the audio system. This is not your fault, IMO Lucid is doing a bad job with their test drive vehicles of not properly showcasing one of the car’s selling points, the audio system.

What’s funny is that when @copper did his testing he was playing music from Apple Music over Bluetooth, haha

 

[richardshirley1@]

I assume that this thread is discussing the Pro version of Surreal Sound. Has anyone tested the basic version in comparison to the Pro version or audio systems in other high-end cars?

My wife and I are both in our 70s, so hearing range is not what it used to be. We take several multi-day road trips each year and love listening to good sound, but is it worth $3K to upgrade to the Pro version?

 

[joec]

I assume that this thread is discussing the Pro version of Surreal Sound. Has anyone tested the basic version in comparison to the Pro version or audio systems in other high-end cars?

My wife and I are both in our 70s, so hearing range is not what it used to be. We take several multi-day road trips each year and love listening to good sound, but is it worth $3K to upgrade to the Pro version?

No one here has heard the non-pro sound yet, I’m assuming. All Dreams and GTs get it for free. We’ll have to wait for some Touring deliveries before we can get any opinions on it, unfortunately.

 

[borski]

I assume that this thread is discussing the Pro version of Surreal Sound. Has anyone tested the basic version in comparison to the Pro version or audio systems in other high-end cars?

My wife and I are both in our 70s, so hearing range is not what it used to be. We take several multi-day road trips each year and love listening to good sound, but is it worth $3K to upgrade to the Pro version?

They haven’t produced a car with the standard speakers yet, so unclear. But the pro version is spectacular.

 

[hmp10]

This reminds me of Brad Carlson.
1) was the test drive car a prototype or production car?
2) did it have Tidal HiFi Plus subscription
3) if so did it have HiFi streaming turned on?
4) Did you play any Atmos tracks, like was the Atmos logo lit up or greyed out?
5) what was the equalizer set to?

In summary, unless the car was set up for optimum listening conditions to evaluate to audio system, you can’t evaluate the audio system. This is not your fault, IMO Lucid is doing a bad job with their test drive vehicles of not properly showcasing one of the car’s selling points, the audio system.

I don't remember if it was you, bunnylebowski, or someone else who posted about how premium sound systems can sound worse than lesser systems on poor source material and that one should listen to Tidal HiFi whenever possible in the Lucid. Today I got to try out your advice and, WOW, what a difference.

We took a 5-hour road trip today that kept us consistently within reach of strong cell signals (a rarity around here), so we listened to a hodgepodge of songs of different genres back-to-back, first on whatever service Alexa defaulted to (usually Amazon Music and occasionally Spotify), and then on Tidal HiFi. The difference when listening on Tidal was simply amazing. The bass was stronger and deeper, the soundstage opened up and filled the car, and the precision of voice and instrument placement was clearly better. I really did not realize that source material could make that much difference in this kind of setting.

Someone here said that you can set the audio to default to Tidal. I tried when I got home but could not figure out how.

Any help from anyone?

 

[borski]

I don't remember if it was you, bunnylebowski, or someone else who posted about how premium sound systems can sound worse than lesser systems on poor source material and that one should listen to Tidal HiFi whenever possible in the Lucid. Today I got to try out your advice and, WOW, what a difference.

We took a 5-hour road trip today that kept us consistently within reach of strong cell signals (a rarity around here), so we listened to a hodgepodge of songs of different genres back-to-back, first on whatever service Alexa defaulted to (usually Amazon Music and occasionally Spotify), and then on Tidal HiFi. The difference when listening on Tidal was simply amazing. The bass was stronger and deeper, the soundstage opened up and filled the car, and the precision of voice and instrument placement was clearly better. I really did not realize that source material could make that much difference in this kind of setting.

Someone here said that you can set the audio to default to Tidal. I tried when I got home but could not figure out how.

Any help from anyone?

Alexa app on your phone > More > Settings > Music and podcasts > Default services.

If you haven’t added tidal to your Alexa as a service you’ll have to do that first

 

[hmp10]

Alexa app on your phone > More > Settings > Music and podcasts > Default services.

If you haven’t added tidal to your Alexa as a service you’ll have to do that first

Thanks. It worked.

 

[Thinjake]

Alexa app on your phone > More > Settings > Music and podcasts > Default services.

If you haven’t added tidal to your Alexa as a service you’ll have to do that first

How do I change the WAKE WORD for Alexa in the car? My daughter's name is Alexa so the car is constantly waking up when we don't want it to

 

[CLTGT]

How do I change the WAKE WORD for Alexa in the car? My daughter's name is Alexa so the car is constantly waking up when we don't want it to

Might be easier just to change your daughters name...

 

[hydbob]

How do I change the WAKE WORD for Alexa in the car? My daughter's name is Alexa so the car is constantly waking up when we don't want it to

Disable the wake word option

Settings>applications>Alexa>settings> disable hands free

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I don't remember if it was you, bunnylebowski, or someone else who posted about how premium sound systems can sound worse than lesser systems on poor source material and that one should listen to Tidal HiFi whenever possible in the Lucid. Today I got to try out your advice and, WOW, what a difference.

We took a 5-hour road trip today that kept us consistently within reach of strong cell signals (a rarity around here), so we listened to a hodgepodge of songs of different genres back-to-back, first on whatever service Alexa defaulted to (usually Amazon Music and occasionally Spotify), and then on Tidal HiFi. The difference when listening on Tidal was simply amazing. The bass was stronger and deeper, the soundstage opened up and filled the car, and the precision of voice and instrument placement was clearly better. I really did not realize that source material could make that much difference in this kind of setting.

Someone here said that you can set the audio to default to Tidal. I tried when I got home but could not figure out how.

Any help from anyone?

Yeah, this is common with any high quality audio system because part of what makes them high quality is the big dynamic range, where you don’t have to listen to it as loud because the quieter parts/detail parts are more audible. Most cars systems are designed to crank out a louder level because the NVH from the car is going to drown out the first 40-50db of audio if not more, and some of them even utilize limiters/compressors which force quieter detail sounds into higher bits, and when you use limiters/compressors it tricks your ears into thinking it’s good because you can hear EVERYTHING but the dynamic range is crap, and people say it’s good because it’s loud and punchy. So then you have Lucid come along which is capable of big dynamic range and is also a quiet car so you don’t have to blast the audio super loud, and then combine that with lesser quality streaming audio which is already compressed and lossy, and it will sound weak and thin and lifeless because it’s exposing the limitations of the compression format. But when you pump through uncompressed or very little compressed audio that’s using the full capabilities of the system, it’s going to sound like it was intended to sound, and it’s pretty eye opening, it’s like hearing the track again for the first time. An example is Iron Maiden’s remastered version of The Trooper in Tidal master format. When Bruce Dickinson sings each line and there’s a brief pause in between, you can literally hear the tom tom drums ring out, along with the short studio room reverb. And you can hear more of the guitar riff harmonics. That stuff is completely non existent in Spotify at a much louder playback volume.

 

[Rogue]

I bought Sony's new headphones WH-1000MX5. Hands down they are the best headphones I have ever bought, but I am using Spotify's Very High quality option for everything.

How much of a difference is there between that and Tidal? I am dreading the idea of swapping music providers after so many years with Spotify. I am not even sure I could tell the difference between the two with the headphones.

 

[borski]

I bought Sony's new headphones WH-1000MX5. Hands down they are the best headphones I have ever bought, but I am using Spotify's Very High quality option for everything.

How much of a difference is there between that and Tidal? I am dreading the idea of swapping music providers after so many years with Spotify. I am not even sure I could tell the difference between the two with the headphones.

It’s easy to try both for a month!

 

[oldnick25]

I bought Sony's new headphones WH-1000MX5. Hands down they are the best headphones I have ever bought, but I am using Spotify's Very High quality option for everything.

How much of a difference is there between that and Tidal? I am dreading the idea of swapping music providers after so many years with Spotify. I am not even sure I could tell the difference between the two with the headphones.

If you're worried about transferring playlists, Tidal offers an awesome and free ability to import your playlists from Spotify and Apple Music.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I should add to this that when the dial is at 79dB, that is LOUD. I would not recommend listening at that level for long.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Whoa! I never have mine that loud. I have always been a fan of numerical readout of volume level. Its arbitrary but at least it keeps you consistent.



Thanks @bunnylebowski

 

[Rogue]

If you're worried about transferring playlists, Tidal offers an awesome and free ability to import your playlists from Spotify and Apple Music.

The cap is at 500 songs, but the subscription is only $4-5 that can be cancelled post transfer for 500+.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Whoa! I never have mine that loud. I have always been a fan of numerical readout of volume level. Its arbitrary but at least it keeps you consistent.



Thanks @bunnylebowski

Yeah it would be great if Lucid could include a numerical counter, I haven’t counted the number of increments on the volume wheel but maybe we can come up with a feature request where 79dB = 10 and everything above is Spinal Tap 11.

 

[tmilone103]

I would like a full equalizer so that I can tune music to my sound preferences.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Something I did notice today. The woofers and or subwoofers are linked to the front speakers. So if you use the default center/center front-rear you get way better low end.

I had been fading to the rear to get more surround headphone sound but I see now will have to get used to old fashioned two channel stereo.

Weird...