Hello, i have a 2016 IS 350 with the stock audio system and nav. Throughout my ownership (almost 2 years) of my 3IS, ive thought the sound quality was pretty decent. However this week i let my gf drive my car for the first time, which meant i sat in the front passenger seat for pretty much the first time. The audio quality from my passenger seat is completely different from the driver seat.. in a bad way. In all honesty it sounds terrible. To me it felt like all the sound was coming out from the front right speaker in the dash, pretty much Mono-sound. My gf said its always kind of sounded warped to her, she just never said anything. This all was a huge surprise to me since from the driver side, it sounds great. I checked all my settings in the car, equalizer is default, sound positioning is default - centered. The automatic volume level (i think thats what its called) is on, and surround is on in the settings. Also am using bluetooth to play music via spotify. Spotify is set to play at the highest quality audio, and normalize volume is off.

Has anyone else noticed or experienced this? Any suggestions to improve the sound quality? Maybe its possible one or more of my speakers on the passenger side arent working? I havent had the opportunity to check that yet.

Any input is appreciated, Thank you

 

How does the radio, flash drive or a CD sound?

 

I will have to check that tomorrow morning - currently at work.. Do you think its the bluetooth quality?

 

I think it's definitely worth seeing if the sound is better without bluetooth or phone use.

 

I found when you go to the audio settings via the nav system, there is a 2D grid where you can choose where the audio will be concentrated on. It's possible that its concentrated on the driver seat possibly instead of the middle of the car?

 

Ill have to try that today if i can. Thanks

Yeah thats what i was referring to when i talked about the sound positioning. I have it centered in the car at the default setting. Thanks

 

it should sound the same, are you sure all the speakers are working properly?

 

I also have the base non-ML system, and found that the USB audio is ~10-15% better than the bluetooth. The system as a whole always felt muddy in the mids and highs, so listening over USB always helps squeeze as much quality out as possible. I also push my bias two clicks towards the front to get slightly more tweeter action.

 

I checked my speakers today and they are all working.

I played some music through bluetooth this morning sitting in the passenger seat. The quality definitely is song dependent. Must be a low quality song upload on spotify that made me notice it. I then played a HD radio station and the quality difference is big. The HD radio sounds incredible compared to bluetooth. Is there something i can use to play spotify in my car, but have the quality of HD radio?

Thanks

 

could be audio bit rate on Mp3 files if you use your Phone for Mp3 files...it rarely happens but if you grab a Song from YouTube...search for Audio Only rather than Music Video and usually its a more consistent Bit Rate minus Music Video intros/interludes that make zero sense once its converted to an Audio file

 

Thanks but i only play music off of spotify on my phone