Hey all,
I've got a 2017 es 300h with the mark levinson package and am experiencing poor audio quality. The low end is non existent in bass heavy songs, and the over all audio just sounds flat and attenuated. I've also got a 2013 300h without the levinson package, and it sounds remarkably better. The dealership ran a diag on the vehicle yesterday - but they reported no issue. I'm thinking the dsp/amp is having an issue, what has been the problem you all have experienced with this package?

 

Have you adjusted the bass, mid and treble? By default everything is set in the middle. These settings are different for each source of music. And you probably won't get a lot of low end bass. That's not what is was really designed for. What is your source of music? XM and Bluetooth are highly compressed and won't sound as good as a CD for instance.

 

The biggest thing to make sure of, is turn surround mode "OFF".

Do not bother with XM, as the ML really highlights its compression. High quality audio over Bluetooth is fine, as is Pandora and Slacker when set to high bit-rate. The absolute best sound comes from DVD-Audios. Not all play easily on the ES350 ML, though. If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. CD's are next best, followed by 256kbps+ MP3's. As far as audio settings, I have mine set to all mid, except treble one click up. If you listen to Rap, or HipHop, you'll probably be disappointed.

 

Care to elaborate....?

 

On what? How to turn it off?

 

I have my surround on and I played with it off and on and on was way better but then again I have the premium Lexus 10 speaker system with a RF P300-10 powered sub connect to a lc2i. But even before that surround on sounded better.

 

I know nothing about the non ML system, which this thread is about. I would assume SiriusXM also sounds better on the standard system, due to each speaker not being tuned for specific frequency ranges.

 

Agreed, the XM is horrid due to the compression it employs. But when i move to cds or my media player (flac) there is still an issue with the music sounding flat. I've set the treb/mid/bass to the neutral setting, with surround off. And have tested various types of music genres and it's present across the board. My 2013 es300h has the standard audio system and has a better sound at the same settings with the same source and genres. I really feel there is something up with the dsp/amp since the lower quality audio system is performing better.

As an aside, i had 2 es350's with the ML and the audio in those was phenomenal.

The vehicle is still under warranty and was tested just the other day and found to be ok. I'm looking for guidance on how to sell the audio deficiencies to someone who isn't aware/clueless to audio issues.

 

I would ask them to let you compare it with one on their lot. If it's that bad, it should be an easy argument for you.