I just went and sat in my quiet garage with the engine off and played with audio features a bit. Here are my personal impressions.

Audio is a subjective area, and car audio (especially on a sports car) is particularly contentious. For those of you who say "It doesn't matter, I just listen to the sound of the engine" - More power to you. Please move on. This thread will only cause you to roll your eyes.

For those of you who say "You can't expect high fidelity perfection in an automotive environment" - You are correct as well. But you can evaluate what the sound quality IS as opposed to comparing it to a dedicated home listening room or concert hall.

So with caveats out of the way, let's jump in.

Tone controls were initially tough for me to find. Once you know how to navigate the menus properly, they are easy enough to get to. You get a simple three-slider equalizer for BASS, MID, TREBLE. Just the kind of rough boosts and cuts you have seen on cars for many decades. I did not see any factory-built equalization curves that you sometimes see in car systems with categories like "Jazz", "Pop", "Classical." That's fine with me, as I find them mostly useless.

You get four mode settings for "Driver", "Centerpoint", "Rear", and "Normal". All of them are very obviously digitally processed to within an inch of the music's life. You can hear artifacts and signal games in each mode.

"Driver" does a good job of placing the perceived focal point just about resting on the dash in front of you.

"Rear" I suppose would be for tailgating parties when you have the trunk lid up and want to blast songs for the crowd. It is much more muffled and lacking in highs for the cockpit occupants. Maybe you could use it for quiet background noise if you were trying to have a conversation and didn't want to actually listen to the music. But I think on the road it would get covered by normal driving noises.

"Normal" seems to be the classic front-center oriented soundstage balanced for both occupants.

"Centerpoint" is a fake surround sound processor that synthesizes a center channel and adds some delay to the rears. I found it annoying. It adds a slight echoey quality to the music and sounded the most fake of the modes.

In all modes there is also a simple graphical fader/balance that lets you move the perceived focal point front/rear and left/right. It worked better than most I have played with. Changes were obvious but did not overly affect whatever tone quality the settings had previously produced.

As many have said, the default bass is overemphasized. Audiophiles will recognize the design criteria from other low-end systems... It favors big booming cone excursions that move a lot of air and produce a tactile response... "You can feel the bass." But it does this at the expense of crispness and speed of response. So the bass "blooms and booms" and ends up muddying the sound. I immediately turned it down. That reduces both the negative and positive effects. The music gets crisper, but loses the bottom end.

The high end rolls off quickly. But at least it doesn't blare or squeak. It just gently goes away. Don't play "Glockenspiel Favorites" on this system.

The midrange is the best part, which is nice for vocals and may be why some reviewers have said they liked the sound.

I loaded up 2GB of music on a USB stick and put it in the media slot. I used 320KB bit rates, as a good example of what most people would consider a good quality compression. The unit does not support FLAC, but does support AAC and AIFF. The manual says WMA and Apple lossless formats are not supported. Hmph.

The Gracenote indexer seemed to work VERY quickly. I had no perceptible delay on being able to access the songs I had loaded. Based on this, I'm going to buy a 64GB stick and really stress-test the system later with a huge library of material. Once you figure out the menu system, you can browse by Song, Artist, Genre, Album, and maybe a few more things I don't remember. Playback can be paused and fast forwarded (it jumps in increments of several seconds rather than playing back faster).

While playing a USB song, I turned off the car, got out, and let it shut everything down. Then I got back in and turned on the accessory power. My song started playing from where it shut down... automatic pause and resume. That's nice! It also proves the system doesn't try to reindex the files every time you start up the power. Thank goodness. One of the settings for media files is Shuffle Mode on/off. That's good. I like shuffling my music.

I played with the voice commands a little bit. When you press the voice button on the steering wheel it pauses the music and prompts you. You have to wait for the full prompt and the "ding" to tell you it is your turn... You can't speed things up by responding while it's talking to you. It was pretty good at finding what I said, even an unusual word like "Funkytown". If it has some ambiguity, it displays possibilities on the dash display (the one through the steering wheel) and you can scroll/select with your right hand or say the choice number.

My quick runthrough did not result in any big surprises. Highs, lows, and equalization are geared for the same mass consumer audience that automakers have targeted for many years. They will not satisfy audiophiles. The digital processing modes add a layer of artificiality to the music, and "Normal" is probably your best bet in most cases. The media playback is nice and quick. I'll do more tests later with obscure material, harder voice recognition (Sly and the Family Stone or Prince titles should tie it in knots), and higher quality formats.

This should give you enough to get started on the flaming and the arguments!

 

Excellent audiophile review. Thank you!

 

Thanks great review. Looking forward to picking up my car Saturday and listening to my tunes all 600 miles home.

 

As a guy perfectly satisfied with a base C6 unit, sounds like I would be thrilled silly with this. Thank you for the time, effort and consideration it took to do such a detailed review

 

No CD and doesn't support Apple lossless...not much use to me. Thanks or the review in any case.

 

Nicely done, I'll look forward to your next installment!

 

I'm not messing with it, listened to some AFI on Sirius and they never sounded so good. Maybe somebody tuned it to my liking.

 

 

very nice review - I love your caveats to start - such is forum life...LOL

 

Thanks for the thougthful and indepth review. Looking forward to the second installment.
Quick question - what did you mean by "You can hear artifacts and signal games in each mode"?

 

I thought I seen that there is a limit of a 32gb card/stick... Might want to check on that before you buy a 64gb.

 

It's hard to put an exact description of the sound characteristics. I was trying to convey the idea that the soundstage, directionality, and "sound envelope" no longer seemed like the song characteristics I am used to when listening on my home devices or in my C5 with its aftermarket higher end audio system.

Audiophiles often bitch about digital signal processing even on the highest end equipment. They want a direct signal path that replays what the recording engineer mastered. I'm not going that fanatical in my statement. Listening to the different sound modes in the C7 is like using a low quality consumer A/V receiver at home and shifting between "Cinema", "Auditorium", "Jazz Club", and other attempts to alter the playback from the engineer's intentions. The audio system engineers can only do that by delaying signals, changing the tonal quality, and doing other things that significantly affect the music and how you experience it. It struck me in the C7 as noticeable and artificial rather than true to the music I know.

It is most prevalent in Centerpoint mode. Driver mode isn't terribly bad, but you can still hear some "fakeness" as they shift the soundstage front and left. As I said, Rear mode is basically useless while sitting in the car. Normal is your best bet. It uses the least amount of digital shifting and lets you get better balance from the speakers so they don't overemphasize timings and frequencies.

 

What you are talking about have been working with in my BMW. I won't mention
the C6 cause that radio has always been out right GM junk. Friends and I have
tried to blow that bose but can't LOL. Wont break when want something too.

Had the BMW harman Kardon and really like the surround mode. Yes its is fake but I
like echo chamber effect. Many prefer the radio in what you call driver mode for
being more crisp. Got a new X5 and did not opt for the Harman. Many like it
better but I miss the echo surround. The X5 uses the normal and little
to the rear.

At least the vette is giving people more options in one radio vs others where you
have to order a radio to your liking

 

Great write up. I'm not an audiophile, but it's good to know what an audiophile's preferences are in this car.

I'm assuming that this is a 2LT/3LT system. Is this correct?

 

Nice review. I also played with the stereo in mine on the shade 45 Sirius channel and on low volume is sounded great. But turning it up the bass got quieter or out of balance. Not sure why but maybe due to the car cover in the hatch area. Can't wait to play with it more.

 

Correct. Mine is the 2LT. You can tell the difference in the two stereo systems by the existence of the Centerpoint mode. The "lower" version doesn't have that center speaker and Centerpoint surround mode. Based on my review, you can tell I wouldn't miss it!

 

While I very much appreciate your observations and critique of the system, all of which are helpful and lead me to believe that this is a decent system......I really would like to know your impression of the noise compensation algorithm and quality. I will spend about 4 total minutes listening to music in a car not running or moving over the cars lifespan.

My understanding of the compensation is there are mics that quantitate frequency blocks across the spectrum measuring audible levels of residual noise, then compensate EQ in an attempt to overcome such a harsh audio environment selectively. Not sure if that is how they are doing it, but it would be very much like Bose to use such an approach as cancellation in that environment would be close to impossible.

Can you give us your thoughts on this when you get a chance? Thanks

 

Nice review. I haven't had the opportunity to play around with the C7's sound system yet, but here's some feedback (feedback.. audio... ARGH!!) on your write-up.

I never could understand "surround" for music! Yes, use 200.1 surround (I exaggerate, but only a little) for movies and other media, but music? No. It's nice to be surrounded by the music, but not with the traditional Dolby Surround Sound. It and music just are not compatible in the least. Stereo, front and back. Have a day.

Well, no, you're hearing the bass and that's the mistake. Bass shouldn't be heard at all. It should be felt. But not felt so much that your insides evacuate.

When you pull up along side some kid with in a $2000 Honda Civic, equipped with a $5000 stereo system, and all you can hear is the bass, that's: overdone.

Remember that there's an 8000 song limit on storage (maybe closer to 8192...)

 

Outstanding and actually helpful review of the sound system. This is another example of a forum member really setting the bar in providing a quality and informative review that is actually useful.

Thank you for taking time to write that!

 

I'll definitely try this and let you know my thoughts. Probably on the weekend when I can get out and drive more. I'm still a working man, unfortunately!