Because I feel like mine doesn't. Up until Saturday, I hadn't noticed a bit of difference with it on. But two days ago, my friend was in the car with me and I mentioned to him that I had no idea if it even worked. He pointed out the little ASL bars that increase/decrease, and I was astounded. I still couldn't hear a difference, though. Anyway, for the past two days, I've tried to listen for a change, and haven't noticed a thing. Not only that, but I havent' seen those bars appear since he was in the car. What's the deal?

Here's what I've tried:

-City driving at 30mph
-Highway driving at 70mph

No bars, no change. And yes, it's set to ON.

Any advice? Should I take it to the dealer?

 

ASL is only supposed to kick in when there's excess noise in the cabin -- for instance, when you're driving with the window down. Vehicle speed doesn’t matter.

And you're not supposed to notice the change. It automatically adjusts the audio to counter-act the excess noise, but in a subtle way.

 

I find that it works, but not very well. I usually end up turning up and down the volume myself to adjust.

 

It's pretty useless, IMO. Yes, it does get louder but not much. When I get on these loud highways, I still have to turn it up myself. I always thought ASL was speed sensitive, not noise. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Sorry, but whats ASL?

 

Automatic Sound Levelizer, a feature in the sound settings.

 

I wish they had adjustable ASL which means that you can adjust the level of loudness when ASL kicks in.

 

21/m/CA...

doh... wrong ASL...

 

I've tried it and it is a bit insufficient. I still have to adjust the volume accordingly.

 

I find that the one that are in Mercedes' work a bit better.

 

Yeah, it does not work out that well for me either. I become too loud when ASL kicks in. And I thought it is speed sensitive too.

 

Speaking of ASL, it would be nice if Lexus included active noise cancellation, as Acura does in the new RL. ANC uses microphones to pick up ambiant noise, and then cancels it by playing it back out-of-phase through the audio system. Supposedly reduces cabin noise by about 10db. (I'm not sure if ANC is active while the audio system is actually being used to play music.)

 

I'm only going by what my salesman told me on the test drive. He said ASL wasn't dependant on speed. Then again, many salesmen don't have a clue what they're talking about.

 

How is the excess noise detected, though? I mean, if I start screaming in the car, is the ASL going to kick in? And also, I tried driving with the windows down on the freeway today, and though I got the little bars to fluctuate finally, sorta, I didn't notice a single change in volume or tone.

 

What a salesman told me is that ASL adjusts the volume according to the noise in the cabin, not speed. It is meant to adjust the volume in certain speakers when it detects off balance noise. If one window is cracked, the volume is raised on those speakers to try to balance the sound throughout the whole car. This may be a technological pipe dream, but this is how the salesman explained it to me.