Why spending the extra $1300 on the Dynaudio upgrade is a waste of money...

[triode12]

Or rather why spending more than $1000 on an In Car Entertainment system is a waste of money.

McIntosh Loudspeaker Division Part 2

The owner of this blog was one of the chief sound engineers at McIntosh (a very well known American Audio company now owned by Clarion in Japan).

He was tasked by Clarion to design a sound system for the Nissan Q45 back in 1991. This is a the problems he faced.

"The initial Q45 design was based on our measurement of the drivers and crossovers in the reverberant room. This indicated the total energy of the system regardless of the directional properties of the drivers. When this was mentioned in a progress report to Clarion, response was very negative and we were directed to work only in the car. There was no one who I could explain the need for correlation. They were in Japan and a one-to-one dialog was not possible.

As we worked on the car system, I again concluded that this was a step backwards from creating accurate sound. Pleasing sound, of course, is very subjective and I found the sound that the Japanese Clarion people liked was not what I liked and visa-versa. Although they indicated they were pleased with the results of our first car system, the story changed later. Response measurements were not very useful in this very close and reflecting environment. Moving the microphone from left to right by the distance between the ears changed the response drastically at the mid and higher frequencies. Use of a dummy head could show similar results. It would seem that neither measurement nor listening would be the answer to pleasing a foreign market.

The next best approximation was to use electronic equalization for one arbitrary microphone location at a point in space between where the ears would be. Of course this was also arbitrary as the ear height would vary from person to person. In addition, equalization had to be used not only for low frequencies but also above 1 kHz, which is very position sensitive. At least we had maintained a controlled bass response that was not like the boomy one-note bass found in some car systems,

Although Carl and I had what we thought was pleasing sound, when the car was actually driven on the road, almost everything was lost in the road noise, despite the fact that the Infiniti had relatively low road noise. The best sound was when the car was not being driven. In the final analysis, the best solution was to have adequate tone control adjustments for the customers so they can adjust the sound to suit their individual preferences. Apparently, exaggerated, boomy bass is one of them."

[Corey_R]

Moving to General... I don't feel this is MK6 specific, nor since it's talking about the Dynaudio, is it Volkswagen specific, but rather just about how crap the car environment is for audio...


Ironically, I think that the bolded sentence is amusing. If you didn't already know that, then you obviously don't like music enough, so why would you buy an audio upgrade anyway

[triode12]

Moving to General... I don't feel this is MK6 specific, nor since it's talking about the Dynaudio, is it Volkswagen specific, but rather just about how crap the car environment is for audio...


Ironically, I think that the bolded sentence is amusing. If you didn't already know that, then you obviously don't like music enough, so why would you buy an audio upgrade anyway

I think the most amusing line is the last one in that excerpt actually but I didn't want to sound too condenscending...opps...too late.

In that case...just trying to enlighten the unenlightened.

[Corey_R]

Yeah well, obviously anyone who starts putting "sub woofers" in their car for the doof doof don't give a ***** about audio accuracy anyway - so still don't understand why you'd bother with this article... you're not going to change anyone's opinion.

I mean lets face it, most people these days don't care about audio quality and accuracy. Hence why many of the good audio stores around Australia are disappearing.

Having said all that, the Dynaudio definitely can't be accused of having exaggerated boomy bass (well, not when the bass is set to "normal" (0) ). I also ticked the Dynaudio option as in the R it was only $1000 in combination with the RNS510 and it took me from having a system which I just COULD NOT LISTEN TO AT ALL to a system which I find is at least listenable. I still prefer my IEM's, but even they are affected by the Golf R's exhaust...

But by extension to this subject, listening to music on the bus, train, whilst walking, in the office, in public places, or really in any environment which isn't a dedicated acoustically treated room purpose built for music (and you could also exclude many purpose built home theaters too if you're "anal" enough), so it basically comes down to this... making the best of a bad situation.

Are you going to sit there and sulk about how the car, or anywhere but a dedicated acoustically treated music room, is a terrible environment for music and never listen to music? Or do you just make the best with what you have an enjoy the music?

[triode12]

I mean lets face it, most people these days don't care about audio quality and accuracy. Hence why many of the good audio stores around Australia are disappearing.

My point wasn't that we shouldn't make the best with what we have but to not waste too much money doing so. I use a cheap $129 Sony MP3 player and a pair of $60 Sennheiser PX-10s on my daily commute on the train.

I suppose in retrospect the Dynaudio upgrade isn't that much far from my $1K recommendation so it is not that much of a waste but I've seen others spend up to $100K on just ICE on their 80s Ford Falcon.

[Corey_R]

Yeah, anyone who spends $100k on an ICE is... insane
But yeah, $1k (or $1.3k on lower Golf models) for the Dynaudio isn't bad considering...

As for your portable setup, the Sony MP3 players are alright, but I prefer the Sansa Clip+. It has better gapless support, great sound quality, has 8GB plus the ability to put a 32GB MicroSDHC card in it, and if you want, the ability to flash it with Rockbox. And costs less than the Sony

As for the earphohnes... ewww. Can't believe you can post a thread like this and then use them!
Bite the bullet, and look into Pro Music | JHAudio.com
Made specifically for your ears, they're comfortable enough to wear all day, or even sleep in. They can sound as good as you want to spend. Best of all, they're serviceable, and the cables are user replaceable. So they'd easily last a decade or more. Not recommended for kids or teenagers though, only for adults who have finished growing.

[SMOK3Y]

I also ticked the Dynaudio option as in the R it was only $1000 in combination with the RNS510 and it took me from having a system which I just COULD NOT LISTEN TO AT ALL to a system which I find is at least listenable.

so ya reckon the 'standard' VW system is no good corey? i find it alot better than alotta sytems out there

[triode12]

As for your portable setup, the Sony MP3 players are alright, but I prefer the Sansa Clip+. It has better gapless support, great sound quality, has 8GB plus the ability to put a 32GB MicroSDHC card in it, and if you want, the ability to flash it with Rockbox. And costs less than the Sony
As for the earphohnes... ewww. Can't believe you can post a thread like this and then use them!
Bite the bullet, and look into Pro Music | JHAudio.com
Made specifically for your ears, they're comfortable enough to wear all day, or even sleep in. They can sound as good as you want to spend. Best of all, they're serviceable, and the cables are user replaceable. So they'd easily last a decade or more. Not recommended for kids or teenagers though, only for adults who have finished growing.

Why bother with anything better when MP3 rips suck sonically anyway?
I bought them for practicality not sound quality. I don't like IEMs or earbuds. I think I've mentioned this to you before.
The PX10s are small and fold up into a small neat package which I can fit into a coat pocket or dump into my haversack the Sony 8Gb player was the cheapest at the time (2 years ago).

I'm an all or nothing person. So I use my sony/px10 kit just for radio reception (which gets cut off for 15mins of my trip when the train is underground) or for listening to recorded talks. Otherwise it is just recorded muzak (listened to at a low volume to preserve my hearing) to pass the time. I spend quality time and money in front of and on my home rig instead.

[triode12]

so ya reckon the 'standard' VW system is no good corey? i find it alot better than alotta sytems out there

I believe the standard system is sufficient for most including me. The Dynaudio might be a step up but only a minor one. Nice to have to not really necessary in the whole scheme of things. My 2 cents.

That is why I created this thread. Better to spend the money on a sway bar and ALK upgrade if you don't spend too much time in traffic IMO. More fun for your $$.

[GTREA]

Standard system in my GTi and vRS is pretty damn good for a factory system.....I love it.

It would be nice but i definately can't see myself ever spending the extra for Dynaudio