YOU GUYS! After some thought, I spent a few minutes making adjustments to sound settings and came to a place where I'm satisfied, (although I reserve the right to keep experimenting).
Most of the sound system complaints have resolved around the bass. When I picked up my Surreal Sound Pro car, the first track I listened to was severely distorted and produced farty (a technical term) bass. I had two Lucid employees take a look, one with a music degree no less, and was told the system was functioning normally. I know that there can be tracks that give certain systems fits, and this just happened to be one of them. Few systems can just take on all comers and shine, but I kept running into distorted bass.
As much as everyone loves bass, I think we all hate distorted bass more. Highs can sparkle and bass can rumble, but once we hear a fart, the magic is gone (as I'm sure your wife will attest).
The Tesla Model S audio engineer is European, and he mentioned how in Europe they very much like the dashboard to be the sound stage, and Americans like their sound more "soupy" (think surround sound). I noticed the Model S sounded clear, powerful, and very much emanating from the dash. I think car audio in general has been moving more towards a dashboard sound stage, and helping this along has been the ability to produce more bass and mid-bass from the front of the car. The days of all the bass coming from the back shelf 6x9's are mostly over.
So back to Lucid. I mentioned to the Lucid music major that the largest driver in the vehicle was in the back deck, but he was insistent that the bass came from up front. And he's right, it does. But why is there a sorta-subwoofer in the back deck? If you move the balance to the rear of the car, you can hear bass that is giving the front mid-bass drivers fits get cleanly resolved by the back shelf woofer. If you could just route the lowest frequencies to the back woofer, turn up its level, and limit those frequencies up front, you'd be golden. But that isn't available to us.
As a famous economist once said: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." I have a trade-off I'm willing to make: losing the front sound stage for much less distorted bass. If you like a front sound stage, I get it. But I don't, at least not in a car. At home your HiFi is in front of you. At a concert, the band or orchestra is in front of you. But I can't think of a time I went to a concert and enjoyed the music more than I would have listening to it from a great set of speakers. I'm not trying to recreate a concert. When all the sound in a vehicle comes from the dash, I feel "music naked" in the rear. So, with this in mind, I moved the balance rearward (I had already reduced the relative bass through the EQ). It takes the stress off the so very mid-bass drivers and moves it more towards the biggest driver at our disposal. The front sound stage is lessened, moving to more of a surround sound. Left to right effects aren't lost. Bass is cleaner and 95% chance you won't hear any distortion to take you out of your flow.
My mood changed about the vehicle and the sound system. I think the biggest tell was that I felt like I wasn't losing much listening to music in the Air vs. my office or basement or headphones. If even one child is saved, I feel it was worth the time in creating this post. I have attached pics of my settings.
Most of the sound system complaints have resolved around the bass. When I picked up my Surreal Sound Pro car, the first track I listened to was severely distorted and produced farty (a technical term) bass. I had two Lucid employees take a look, one with a music degree no less, and was told the system was functioning normally. I know that there can be tracks that give certain systems fits, and this just happened to be one of them. Few systems can just take on all comers and shine, but I kept running into distorted bass.
As much as everyone loves bass, I think we all hate distorted bass more. Highs can sparkle and bass can rumble, but once we hear a fart, the magic is gone (as I'm sure your wife will attest).
The Tesla Model S audio engineer is European, and he mentioned how in Europe they very much like the dashboard to be the sound stage, and Americans like their sound more "soupy" (think surround sound). I noticed the Model S sounded clear, powerful, and very much emanating from the dash. I think car audio in general has been moving more towards a dashboard sound stage, and helping this along has been the ability to produce more bass and mid-bass from the front of the car. The days of all the bass coming from the back shelf 6x9's are mostly over.
So back to Lucid. I mentioned to the Lucid music major that the largest driver in the vehicle was in the back deck, but he was insistent that the bass came from up front. And he's right, it does. But why is there a sorta-subwoofer in the back deck? If you move the balance to the rear of the car, you can hear bass that is giving the front mid-bass drivers fits get cleanly resolved by the back shelf woofer. If you could just route the lowest frequencies to the back woofer, turn up its level, and limit those frequencies up front, you'd be golden. But that isn't available to us.
As a famous economist once said: "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." I have a trade-off I'm willing to make: losing the front sound stage for much less distorted bass. If you like a front sound stage, I get it. But I don't, at least not in a car. At home your HiFi is in front of you. At a concert, the band or orchestra is in front of you. But I can't think of a time I went to a concert and enjoyed the music more than I would have listening to it from a great set of speakers. I'm not trying to recreate a concert. When all the sound in a vehicle comes from the dash, I feel "music naked" in the rear. So, with this in mind, I moved the balance rearward (I had already reduced the relative bass through the EQ). It takes the stress off the so very mid-bass drivers and moves it more towards the biggest driver at our disposal. The front sound stage is lessened, moving to more of a surround sound. Left to right effects aren't lost. Bass is cleaner and 95% chance you won't hear any distortion to take you out of your flow.
My mood changed about the vehicle and the sound system. I think the biggest tell was that I felt like I wasn't losing much listening to music in the Air vs. my office or basement or headphones. If even one child is saved, I feel it was worth the time in creating this post. I have attached pics of my settings.
