Rank your car HiFi ;-)

[unpc]

BMW business thing in the Alpina 2/10 - Rubbish
Shaker Pro in the Mustang 6/10 - Not bad
Meridian in the wife's Evoque 8/10 - More like it...

[Hudson]

E89 Z4 - terrible, however i do have the "lowest" spec radio package in it. Rockford Fosgate do a drop in set of speakers for £359 which i am considering.


The 8 speaker Sony system in my Focus ST MK2 was awesome.

[MOBB]

Main ones I can think of;

Current F10 M5 Harmon Kardon - half decent 7/10
2006 Cayman S Bose - quite poor, woolly bass 5/10
2004 Volvo S60R Dolby system - easily the best I've heard to date, would love it in my next car 9.5/10
2007 E92 BMW basic system - pathetic 1/10
2005 Jaguar S Type R - Alpine system - fairly good, nothing special 6/10
2015 Porsche Macan base system - surprisingly good for a base system 6/10

Never tried Burmester, B&O, B&W, Meridian systems, but I can't see them being as good as a Volvo Dolby system from 10 years ago

[lickatysplit]

Mazda 6 sport - Not a bad system, don't feel its loud enough sometimes, Bose system all round with a subwoofer (as standard) in the boot. 7/10

Hyundai coupe - don't get me wrong, this shouldn't be that great considering the marque, but I think the small cockpit lead to a great sound, I forget if it was meant to be a branded system or not 9/10

all my other cars I really can't remember

[marcusgrant]

2009 A3 with Bose - 6.5/10. Thought it was pretty good.

2014 golf gti with Dynaudio - 5/10. The average build quality of the golf doesn't help, the passenger door is vibrating, need to take it back (again!).

[M3ax]

The Rockford Fosgate in my wife's outlander is pretty damn good. Big sub woofer in the back as standard. Whatever is in my 5 series is kind of just ok.

[anonymous-user]

HK Logic 7 system in my Discovery 4 is an average 6/10 while the standard tape player in my Saab 9-5 is a pretty decent 7/10.

After listening to decent home systems, I've never heard a car hifi that was anything other than OK. Boom and Tiz does not a good system make.

[hora]

AshBurrows said:

Harmon Kardon in my M3 is absolutely rubbish. 3/10.

I've got one in my Saab. The inbuilt boot subwoofer works- it just doesn't shatter the earth on demand.

Saying that I probably paid peanuts compared to you so I'll give it a 7/10.

[TommyBuoy]

Hudson said:

E89 Z4 - terrible, however i do have the "lowest" spec radio package in it. Rockford Fosgate do a drop in set of speakers for £359 which i am considering.


The 8 speaker Sony system in my Focus ST MK2 was awesome.

E89 Z4 - yeah, very poor. Hence my aftermarket upgrade. If you want a decent sound with the roof down you need a sub (sits behind the seats) and some three way components (bass in kick panel, mids and tweeters in the door) all off an amp. 4/10 standard, 9/10 aftermarket.

S2000 - really really bad! 2/10 standard (9/10 aftermarket)

[abarber]

Z4M with DSP Hifi / Carver system. Dismal set all flat, unless you just listen to drum and bass. Setup using feedback from AudioAnalyzer, acceptable. 5/10. Only so much you can do with cheap harsh tweeters and mids.
E90 with DSP / top spec hifi. Again dismal on factory settings, but not bad when set up, not exactly full of clarity, but OK. 7/10
C63 with HK setup. Nice, enjoyable sound. Hardly ever used though given the V8 music. 8/10.

[mr_fibuli]

E90 Standard system - 0/10 - truly awful with a massively skewed EQ to try and compensate for being too cheap to add any tweeters.

2 Series HK - 5/10 - pretty quiet, especially with older music recorded at a sensible level. Bass not that impressive. Too many interior rattles. A rip off for £600.

Clio 200 - 4/10 - Not too bad for a standard head unit powered system.

[Mikeyjae]

After owning a Saab 9-3 with the standard stereo fitted, anything will sound better then that. Even a 10 quid portable radio sounds better then that. I would honestly have to score it a 0.5 out of 10. It would have got a 1 out of 10 if it was not stupidly hard to upgrade.

My V50 however has a brilliant stereo, easily a 7 or 8 out of 10.

[CTO]

I have a Volvo C70 convertible with the Dynaudio package, its very very good.

Specs are (from internet blurb)

Premium Sound – with a 5x130 W digital amplifier, Dolby® Pro Logic II Surround and fourteen speakers, including dual active subwoofers with a separate digital 2x130 W amplifier. Each subwoofer has an integrated 130 W amplifier. In total, the Premium Sound system with double subwoofers has an output of almost 1 kW.

[Joe5y]

The Logic7 system in my e60 is rather good. 8.5/10

[kambites]

For me it rather depends on whether you're rating them against other car hifis or on some sort of absolute scale of music reproduction. I've never heard a car hifi which I'd rate above about 3/10 on an absolute scale; I wouldn't rate any car that I've ever owned above 1/10.

Even the best upgraded systems in uber-barges are worse than my ~£100 Sennheisser headphones on a decent MP3 player.


So in terms of actual numbers;

Octavia VRS: 1/10
Elise: um, 0.01/10?

Edited by kambites on Wednesday 31st August 19:03

[petrolsniffer]

All my past cars have had pretty rubbish hifis.

Apart from the pumas pretty good power and sound for a cheap late 90's coupe.

In my current one I upgrated to a pioneer head unit and put this sub under the drivers seat.



Works great adding abit more dynamic to my music discreet and doesn't take any space up in the boot

[David A]

The thread got me googling to see if anyone had done a factory fit "sound off" this was the closest I could find. Won't argue with the result!

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/g159/top-10-c...

[matt_knowles]

Had loads of motors over the years, but here is a snap shot.

2006 E90 325i - Standard (or close to) Small woofers under the front seats - 5/10

2012 Mini Cooper S - Nothing special - 5/10

1994 Honda Prelude - Not bad, but lacking base - 6/10

2006 Porsche Cayman S - Bose/Nav. Far too much base and way overrated - 4/10

2011 Hyundai Genesis Coupe - Infinity system, pretty good all round - 7/10

2013 VW Golf GTI - Not top of the range but close to. Again a good allrounder - 7/10

2014 Dodge Charger SRT - Current motor, has an factory Alpine system. Sounds excellent even though its lacking the speaker count on the US version. Sometimes lacks decent treble to give a wider sound stage - 7/10

2008 Audi S8 - Tested with a view to buying as a 2nd motor. Had the B&O system with pop up tweeters. Sounded epic - 9.25/10

2012 Airbus A380 - Emirates ICE system with Bose QC25's. Unreal way of drowning out the noise of 4 big ass engines and 300+ passengers!

Edited by matt_knowles on Wednesday 31st August 19:16

Edited by matt_knowles on Wednesday 31st August 19:17

[Hrimfaxi]

Classic Mini Cooper - What's a car HiFi?

Impreza WRX - Standard head unit and speakers, not exactly the most sophisticated of stereos, but sounds OK, providing you don't crank it - 5/10

Also, as it's a 2002 Bugeye, it comes with a tape deck alongside the CD...So my Aux input consists of one of these bad boys...

Edited by Hrimfaxi on Wednesday 31st August 19:33

[Trabi601]

Rawwr said:

2015 Focus ST-3 - Utterly dreadful

I'm in a Mondeo Titanium at the moment, with standard audio. It's similarly awful. 4/10

BMW 'Business' Hi-Fi in the F20 120d. Shocking. 4/10

Harman Kardon in my F10 520d, very good. Probably 8/10