RE: Bowers

[silent ninja]

David87 said:

The Meridian systems in the JLR cars are very good. I'm no audio expert, but they sound great to me.

Indeed. Meridian are a proper high end audio engineering company. When you consider their history and they advise companies like Dolby how to do sound, they know a thing or two about audio quality. I heard one of their systems which cost over £50k. Pretty darn amazing sound stage. The top end systems offered in Range Rovers are the best in the industry IMO

[StuH]

The inside of a car is actually an excellent acoustic environment as it's a known quantity - so a good sound engineer can work miracles with EQ and DSP. Anyone who's heard a DIRAC system will be aware what can now be achieved.

The Burmester system in a panamera is superb.

[TooMany2cvs]

chiark said:

Deserves to be called "advertorial" and makes me wonder about your car reviews.

I wonder what the going rate is for this sort of placement? Do you think it's on the Haymarket ratecard, or does it have to be negotiated individually, probably with some well-placed sweeteners - sorry, review equipment?

[divetheworld]

Neil G60 said:

I've been installing my own stereos in cars for years and my favoured set up is the best pair of components you can afford and an amplifier which can run with bags of headroom. Plus a dedicated sub and sub amp. The next most important thing is to make sure the comp speakers are mounted to something as solid and insert as possible, then add some sound deadening. You don't need hundreds of speakers. One pair of really well driven components is enough for everything above 80hz.

All of the above but speaker placement and dispersion is critical to a good sound stage.
In all my years, I've never heard a factory fit system that sounded good. I've heard a lot that are awful. My new A6 with Bose is garbage. B&O is pants. I really don't know how they get it that wrong without doing it on purpose.

In respect to the quoted post above, in the 90's I had a car with a 2 way component setup up front and a pair of 10" subs in the back and one parametric EQ. And if you sat in it, it looked standard.
It was judged to be "the most accurate car hifi in the U.K." In IASCA POR competition. Trophied a lot with "Best overall car" at sound offs and Max-Power events including U.K. Finals etc. I ended up a circuit judge before I quit the scene.
I agree with another poster on this thread that I suspect it's more to do with selling kit than the quality of the music reproduction.