B&O Unleashed… the Worst of OEM Offerings

[m_bt54]

I agree Kanuck. Everyone talking about this and that for quality, reality is, most of us are using MP3, AIFF, "Apple Lossless" or other formats for music. I would recommend using a FLAC or better file.(Yes FLAC works in our decks.)
Here is one example of a FLAC file. Throw this on a thumb drive and listen to it. (If you dont like the group or song, thats fine, just listen to every string and cymbal in the song. Also notice the size of the file)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/050yk2uqfu0uoyi/03 - Elevation.flac

My Fade\Balance is as such....

Absolutely agree with you about using FLAC whenever possible but unfortunately (for me anyway) the majority of what I listen to (obscure Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore, etc) isn’t available in FLAC or other similar alternatives so I need to go to the best option available. I don’t know about anyone else, but I want to listen to music I like. I’m not going to drive around listening to Metallica just because it is available in FLAC.

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[JJSnell]

Absolutely agree with you about using FLAC whenever possible but unfortunately (for me anyway) the majority of what I listen to (Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore, etc)

Gimme a few examples and let me see what I have. You can PM me if ya want.

 

[m_bt54]

Gimme a few examples and let me see what I have. You can PM me if ya want.

Unionsuit- Accidents Happened
Six Going on Seven- Self Made Mess
Shift- Spacesuit
Errortype:11- Self titled
The Exit- Home for an Island
Handsome- Self titled
Only Living Witness- Prone Mortal Form

I do get whatever I can in FLAC, and with bands reissuing their work on sites like Bandcamp, it is getting easier than it was a few years ago, but it is still not 100% guaranteed.

 

[JJSnell]

Unionsuit- Accidents Happened
Six Going on Seven- Self Made Mess
Shift- Spacesuit
Errortype:11- Self titled
The Exit- Home for an Island
Handsome- Self titled
Only Living Witness- Prone Mortal Form

I do get whatever I can in FLAC, and with bands reissuing their work on sites like Bandcamp, it is getting easier than it was a few years ago, but it is still not 100% guaranteed.

Yah not finding any of those... I did find Six Going on Seven - Heartbreaks got a backbeat but its inactive now and that was it... Sorry man.

 

[m_bt54]

No problem at all. I’ve looked in the past and figured that would be the case although I would have been somewhat excited if you had some secret source I didn’t know about

 

[amschind]

I have a massive (to me at least....it's like 50k songs and I have been too lazy to do the massive classical collections yet) collection of CD ripped FLACs. MY EAR cannot tell the difference between 320kbps ogg/mp3 and the source FLAC, and I am hard pressed to tell the difference between 256 and 320. 128 and 64 do sound objectively worse. There are a few really good sites that have 64-lossless songs for you to compare, and I think it's worth using that as a tool on any listening setup where your storage space is constrained.

My reason for keeping a FLAC library is changes in common standards. Say some day .ogg and .mp3 are replaced by THE NEW HOTNESS. If your music is all in high quality but lossy format, when you convert it to THE NEW HOTNESS, the conversion will throw away different sound information than the original lossy format, which compounds the loss even though both files were large and high quality. For me, lossless is a way to preserve something that I intend to keep as an archive where storage space isn't at a premium (i.e. my NAS and backup HDDs).*

I'm pretty sure that some audiophiles hear way more than I do, so I strongly encourage anyone to test their own ears rather than taking minimum KBPS from me or anyone else.

*a lot of my Taylor Swift stuff is 320 kbps .mp3s off Amazon, so I guess I'm a hypocrite. Also, I don't care if y'all judge me, she has a pretty voice.

 

[JJSnell]

Also, I don't care if y'all judge me, she has a pretty voice.

/Unfriend


JK
I can't judge, I got Hootie, Dire Straits, Creed, Fleetwood, Ice Cube, James Taylor, Billy Idol, Public Enemy and everything in between...

 

[Snakebitten]

Oh shake it off

 

[PatchManager]

This thread reenforces my assessment that my wife and I just don't have very discerning ears for sound quality. This seems to be an area where I'm pleased to be below average because I think the B&O Unleashed system in my F150 sounds excellent regardless of what type of music I'm listening to.

 

[PatchManager]

Of all the OEMs to install B&O speakers (Aston Martin, Bentley, Lamborghini, etc.), Unleashed is literally the worst. “Surround” is nothing like a true surround system and when set to stereo, it’s anything but. The center speaker, the one most in one’s face, simply drowns out every speaker in a cabin where absolutely no dynamics can be found.

Ford, if you’re listening, how about instead of designing an interior to accommodate 18 mediocre (at best) speakers, just install good quality three-ways upfront, two-ways in the back, and a solid, tight, mud-free subwoofer? It would really prevent us tearing apart our new interiors to throwaway what we just paid for.
End of rant.


Do me a favor. I LOVE my Unleased but most people don't know how to get the most out of them.
First turn the Surround ON..
Then put your fader and tone controls to emulate these two pictures. I usually listen to 21-23 Throttle on the volume. I'm pleased as heck. I do use Qobuz ran thru Car Play so my albums are in HI-Res. I'm sure that accounts for some of it .. Material is important. I only use XM for News and Sports

Thank you for posting that. With a little adjustment to your settings, I really appreciate the improvement.

 

[fordtruckman2003]

Good to know I'm not the only one thinking way too much sound comes out of the dash center.
I'll try doing the fade to back idea and hear how that sounds.

I'm also annoyed that a system that is supposed to have a sub I can't tell it's there. My 2011 scab I crammed an all in one unit behind seat and give me everything I was missing in that truck. I'm no audiophile but I'm not thrilled with this system being so weak.

 

[LargeScaleAscent]

Agree with others regarding FLAC. You can't judge this system without true lossless and, in fact, Unleashed 18 spraker is good enough to reveal which of your albums are better produced/mixed/mastered than others. It means riding your volume knob some from song to song on shuffle, but worth it.

Key tweaks... DROP the bass to reduce.mud, tweak the fade point as shown on page 5 of this thread, and run in Surround (surprisingly!).

The system shines on less dense mixes. I can point to some songs that sound astounding at 22 - 25.

 

[gtotco]

Notice JJSnell said Dodge. ??

An American pass time revived!

Yeah can’t believe they forgot how to spell Fiat

 

[gtotco]

This thread reenforces my assessment that my wife and I just don't have very discerning ears for sound quality. This seems to be an area where I'm pleased to be below average because I think the B&O Unleashed system in my F150 sounds excellent regardless of what type of music I'm listening to.

Yeah I’ve been curious about people on here’s home setups. I am definitely not audiophile but consider myself somewhat discerning and think the system sounds good overall. I agree with complaints about being overly heavy on the center channel with music (it’s clearly there and tuned for calls/podcasts etc) and when the windows are down it really flattens out but overall I think it sounds quite good. As others have said - otherwise my issues are with sound source. SiriusXM in particular is so centered in one range that it tends to just come out the center channel.

For my level of discernment in context I would refer to my home audio which is all Sonos (playbase for TV a Five hooked up to a Denon DP-450 turntable with the cartridge swapped to Ortovox Red) and then really where I get most opinionated is headphones. After that it’s a bunch of Sonos Ones, and a Move and a Roam for portability.

I have Beats Fit pro which sound extremely meh but better than the AirPods Pro they replaced and I use regularly due to overall convenience. My favorite headphones are still just the classic Sony MDR-7506 and Audio Technica M50x but lack of headphone jack on iPhone means I don’t use them as much as I would like - usually it’s hooked up to PC but occasionally turntable. I have a pair of MDR-1000X for noise cancelling Bluetooth headphones otherwise that are probably my most used for music for quality/convenience combo and I think they sound very good though not as much so as the other wired headphones mentioned before. I don’t know if it’s Bluetooth at fault there or just my preferences. I still like them though as the headphones in that price band I’ve tried - much more so than Bose.

Final context - musical tastes are all over the map. Most listened to genre is probably Americana/Alt Country, but also a ton of hip hop, early alternative, soul, classic rock and country and some blues and jazz. I could go through a list of favorite musicians but it’s basically a few people from every genre and list gies in forever. Point here being I think the system sounds good across the board with music I listen to with biggest issue being music loud (over around 15 or 16 it tends to roll off especially with windows down).

Where it sounds best is in music that has good separation in tones. In particular I find something like the Staple Singers to be where it sounds most amazing when the backing vocals sometimes show up in the range of the headliner or headset speakers. Guitar solos also sometimes hit that range and also sound great because of it - but in more country/bluesy rock in particular.

I do wish the system had Atmos support given they market it as “surround”, and did more to amplify some of the auxiliary speakers - especially the headrest and headliners as they don’t often show up in a lot of recordings but sound great when they do. I do think because the separation is likely dictated by audio bands badly compressed music in particular tends to come out the center speaker because it just ends up being more narrow. I usually listen to Apple Music set to high res lossless through wired CarPlay and I find that generally speaking the system does a decent job.

Anyway - it sounds like there are a bunch of people who are even bigger AV nerds than me so now I want to hear what people use outside the car! Tell me your home setups and favorite headphones - again while definitely NOT an audiophile I do enjoy the sound of different systems. I’m also going to say I think like music itself audio systems are very subjective and so while I have gravitated toward preferences especially on headphones my favorites are less about discernment and more just to what I’ve found that I like. Genuinely curious what other people do.

Let’s turn this into an AV nerd thread people!

 

[Zink]

it is weak.. I replaced the '22 502A for I think $225 including adapters and JBL 6x9 and 6.5s. 90 minutes a door to replace. Replacement included removal of the highly offensive cheap dash center speaker.. The two ohm speakers at most give you 15 watts a channel.. so when you are done you upgrade a weak 87 db/watt philco elcheapo 4 ohm set with 93 db/watt 2 ohm - which increases the power a notch. So you go up 6 db on the speaker efficiency improvement alone. that is more than double.... well double double. Overall.. roll your sleeves up and spend some time on a rainy afternoon on it. The radio clips a little at 3/4 volume but it is still such an improvement with tweeter/ real speaker versus wizzer cone of the philcos.. Side by side with an unleashed - its worlds better - same song (bloody well right) clearer and real stereo separation.. quite pleasing.. and really very little effort. good luck

and I am estimating 87 dB for the stock B&O they could be 83 even. they so weak.. they say they are good for 40 watts.. on the stock. no db per watt rating though.. night and day if you do it.

Bloody Well Right you have good taste in music.

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