asinow

I have not been overly impressed with my Mark Levinson system until tonight. I didn't want to get out of the car. WOW.

Here's what I did.

I added streaming to my XM account yesterday. Tonight I drove the car and wanted to see how it would interact via bluetooth connection. I set the streaming settings to maximum audio quality within the Sirius/XM app and tuned to XM 25, classic rock. It connected.

A Chicago song came on and I was blown away how awesome it sounded. For the first time since I purchased the ML system, I was blown away. I didn't want to get out of the car. Paul McCarthy next, same thing. Every speaker came alive. The surround kicked in also. Clearly the only way I'll listen now.

Try it and post your results. I'm curious of your results.

Kenny

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

try MP3 in 320kbps or even original CDs, sources like satellite radio and BT are terrible

asinow

I'll try that too. Thanks...

JCtx

ML is the worst I've ever heard with SAT; don't know why. Even my Hyundais sound way better than the RC-F with SAT. MP3s at the best bit rate are much better, but about the same as the Hyundais. All other systems in friends' cars, like Meridian, B&O, Burmester, etc., blow the doors off my ML.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

because a good audio system will really amplify how bad a source is. With a junky system it always sounds junky no matter what even with a good source. Music bought from google play are 320kbps, if you have original CDs to rip you can rip them at 320 then load it on a USB. Those systems will blow the doors off your wallet too.

you can get these low profile USB drives to store your music and not have it in the way



if you want to go even more nutso on audio quality you can buy a FLAC audio player, rip original CDs to FLAC and play it through aux for max quality. FLAC files take up less space than WAV files (original CDs) but preserve the full audio quality

Ryanmcd

SAT sucks in this car, not sure why, HD radio is good and 320 audio is good as well. Again the better the radio is the better the recording has to be.

rjmalm

4TehNguyen,
Thanks for the tip, I had some albums that were only 128kbps
so I reripped most of them and copied to my USB flash card.
I also increased all the tone settings and moved the center to
the middle back and like it better now. I dont bother with any Radio at all.

TruPlaya26

iTrader: (4)

I hear a lot of people saying BT sounds terrible in this car, but I have ML and stream all my music through BT and it sounds fantastic! Way better than SAT, and actually better quality than when I connect through USB or AUX. I listen to mp3 from my phone (128-320) and Pandora on high quality and stream through BT and it sounds great, I actually get complimented quite a lot when people are in the car about how clear and crisp the system is, and the bass isn't bad either.

Am I just crazy or what? lol

chilipalm

I also stream through BT using Poweramp on Android phone. With the right app, in my case Poweramp, I have an adjustable equalizer to get the sound the way I like it. I also play my FLAC files using Poweramp through BT. BT is definitely better than AUX. I haven't tried USB.

TruPlaya26

iTrader: (4)

Btw, just in case people on here didn't know or realize. The EQ settings in our car have to be set for every source how they like it.

For example if you setup your EQ setting for BT to:
Treble +4
Mid +2
Bass +4

And then you switch to SAT, if you haven't changed the EQ in SAT as well it will be the default:
Treble +0
Mid +0
Bass +0

So even on radio, or if you use the Pandora app in the car (not streaming through BT) they all have individual EQs that you need to set how you like.

Maybe this is why so many people have been complaining about how the radio sounds? Again, I think the ML sounds absolutely amazing.

ROK

Definitely one of the better factory systems leaving me w/ zero desire to modify. I really do like that little red dot. Reminds me of the old school amps like a Carver with that shiny gray finish. Class.

JCtx

Unfortunately not in my case. But glad you mentioned it, since a few folks might have missed that feature.

Shmoozin

I feel like my ML sound system linked via Bluetooth to an iPhone 6+ streaming Spotify at "extreme" quality is not up to par. Some songs sound good, and others are painfully trebbly... Turning down the trebble just sounds bad. Is there a way to increase the sound quality?