'Premium sound'... not so fast.

[epirali]

I have an i3 with the H/K and have had plenty of trips in models without it. I don't find EITHER of them to be that great, honestly. The H/K in my E46 was better. In my opinion the soundstage in the i3 is way to far forward in the dash because the A-pillars are so much farther in front than in a typical car.

Thanks for that info, can you describe or characterize how the H/K is different than the stock? I find the stock audio a bit lacking for a "premium" car.

 

[spinball]

Thanks for that info, can you describe or characterize how the H/K is different than the stock? I find the stock audio a bit lacking for a "premium" car.

I haven't had a ton of music time with it yet (I mostly listen to podcasts) but I would say it is clearer and the soundstage moves further forward since there are 3 additional tweeters way out there by the windshield. I did fade mine towards the back a bit to lessen that effect.

I think the low end bass is more noticeable in the H/K.

My car is at the dealer having the touchpad fixed (has not accepted swipe input since new) so this is the perfect opportunity to do a back-to-back test. When I go get it, I'll pick a song and play it on the base loaner i3 and then again on my car.

 

[spinball]

Ok got my car back. The H/K is noticeably better. I still prefer the H/K from my 2002 E46, but I also had that car for 10 years so the different soundstage in this car is definitely an adjustment for me.

 

[planetf1]

I'm not going to pretend to be audiophile, though I do appreciate "decent" quality (not "ultimate")

I also appreciate ease of use & access.. for that reason I've gone with Spotify premium (think it's around 384 kbps Vorbis V9 on extreme quality). I've not looked in detail at which codec is being used over bluetooth (which I normally use: ease of use), but when I compared regular with premium over an hour at the dealership I absolutely felt it was worth upgrading for the improved sound stage & accuracy of the sound.

I suppose I made a similar choice at home - dumping old "hifi" kit, ignoring high-end speakers/amp and going for a wireless Sonos setup with speakers in most rooms. Audiophile? No, but happy? Very.

 

[WoodlandHills]

I drive my high-end speakers with a Sonos amp, the best of both worlds....... I have decent sound and all of that content plus it is controllable with my pad or phone.

 

[jasleinstein]

I agree with your point about being let down. I didn't expect the sound quality in my car to even compare to my home high end system, and i was surprised at the poor sound quality. But I bought the car knowing that limitation. Our cars are the second most used place to listen to our music. As smartphones are number one, it is a given quality will be less on those devices. I paid the extra money for premium sound to get the "best I could", what I found maddening is BMW's lack of media experience. Having such a limited set of music formats supported in the car became a huge headache just to listen to any portion of my library. But the also goes hand in hand with BMW's lack of engagement with software over all. Many of us trying to use the energy usage, apps or connected services experience poor usage every day.
I notice in Gear Patrol’s latest list of most connected cars of seven, BMW didn’t even make the list.

 

[spinball]

I tried out the built-in hard drive of my car today and found it works rather well IMO.
- Import was one-click, it even looked through the folders.
- You can save songs to playlists and mark favorites.
- You can create a "Genius" playlist based on the current song playing (did not try this yet).
- Search was possible by any of the ID3 tag categories and you could search via multiple at one time.
- You can search via artist/album and play the album in order.
- It remembers the song playing and even the current point in the song when you switch sources.
- FFW/RWD and next/previous track are possible via the < > rocker switch next to preset #8.
- ID3 tag album art is displayed if found.
- Video files are recognized as such

All of the above assumes you feed it properly tagged files. I'm even less likely to renew SiriusXM after hearing the quality difference of even compressed AAC vs satellite.

Some of those things may seems like basic, table stakes features in 2015 (and I'd agree) but my experience with various media systems in other cars is the bar is very low in this area! I would still choose CarPlay if available.

 

[imolazhp]

SXM sounds like crap, non-HD radio sounds like crap, only HD radio and audio files I have loaded into the cars hard drive sound good to me. HD radio stations are hard to come by where I am at and I get bored of my music collection so sometimes I end up listening to SXM anyway. They are going to have to give it to me for $3-$4 month if they expect me to keep it after my one year trial.

All of that said I think my HK sounds better than my e46's HK when using one of those two "decent" sources. My e46 HK was 12 years old and I had a DICE iPod/iPhone connector that was kind of shotty so my reference point might be skewed. Neither system is as good as our 2007 CRV 2wd EX-L Nav, there is a sub under the passenger seat, big speakers in each of the 4 doors, it rocks, SXM sounds fine in it BTW, very tinny in the i3.