I have the Bose Sounds System (with the gadzillion speakers) and like most here I am not impressed. However when I play digitally remastered Dolby 5.1 music (example "Night at the Opera") then it sounds awesome
Why can't I get some decent sound with normal recordings?

 

What recording/format do you have? Btw, I use MOG on my Iphone: remastered and later music come out beautifully; older music/songs are still dull!

 

The good sounding stuff us either Dolby DTS 5.1 or MLP
The not so good sounding stuff is MP3
What is MOG?

 

IMO, mp3 is the worst format as you lose a lot from the original source to MP3. Put the matching "original/factory" CD in the player and you'll know what I'm talking about.

MOG is a service ($9.99) that allows me to download music in HQ. I never used my ITunes ever since I subscribed to MOG.

 

I've definitely found that the Bose system has a lot of strange peaks and valleys in its frequency response. Some music really doesn't sound bad. Some sounds dreadful.

 

GIGO.

Drop the MP3 format.

 

I think the hip hop fans would appreciate Bose more than the Beethoven fans. Just too much base even when it's turned down.

 

Night at the Opera in 5.1 - you found the Holy Grail. 2009 C2S

I have been buying up any 5.1 disc I can find just to hear how they sound on our car systems and Night at the Opera sounds the best by far. I was never a Queen fan, but how can you not like this disc in 5.2? '39 is the winner on this disc for sound.

Now to your question.... Not an easy one to answer as there are so many twists and turns. So, in no particular order...

1. SecretAsianMan nailed a big part of the answer... see above.
2. Some formats are just awful due to their design objectives of small files sizes and or to be easy on bandwidth. XM and MP3 fall into this category and sound poor by design. Not much you can do about it as thier design is "lossy" meaning original data was thrown away and or transformed to fit. By the way, I am shocked that so many like the sound of these formats but I believe that is because they have not heard the true potential of this simple 50-60 year old technologies. Pretty sad actually.
3. The digital-to-analog (5.1) converters may be optimized for 5.1 and not other formats. This is speculation on my part, but if you dig deep and understand how D/A conversion is done in a chip (there are two commonly used ways) it only works with one format for the bit stream. Therefore, a pre-processing chip has to convert other stream or format types into the native format of that D/A chip. This is physically impossible to do accurately.... the conversion either throws some data away and or has to extrapolate and create missing data depending on the system architecture. I always smile when I read or hear that folks say "this software converts anything to anything..... perfectly". Ha!!! It is physically impossible to do this. So..... sound quality will be degraded for all but the one native format (I suspect it is 5.1) but it is also dependent on the algorithms the engineers devised to do the conversions and the more sophisticated the algorithm, the more processing power and program storage is needed (aka dollar cost).
4. The original recordings and or upstream conversions were just not good. It is a fact that record companies did not produce 1970s or '80s pop well.. they didn't care. Same for today I guess but I don't listen much to modern pop. Then, when they converted their analog catalogs to digital, they rushed it out and again, didn't do a good job hence the waves of "remastered" discs now. So.. in general, certain genres of music were not given high priority for quality at the record companies.
4. Radio.... I don't think the radio in this system sounds good and I know it can sound better. Again, quality is dependent on many factors here including the broadcaster's priorities, but there are stations out there still known for their care in signal processing such as not using compressors and the like. When I tune to them, the quality is poor therefore, again, I suspect the chips in the radio are crap. The cost models do not allow for discreet componentry that sounds better, but drives toward the "radio on a chip" that costs just pennies but sounds poor.
5. 5.1 discs vary wildly in quality. Why? First, they may not have been recorded in a way that allows for 5.1 mastering. If instruments were not recorded on individual tracks and then the record company did not put the care and money into a 5.1 master, you end up with simulated 5.1 crap.

In summary, I do agree fully with your observations and was pleasantly shocked when I heard the full potential of 5.1 in our cars.

Bruce in Philly

 

First, a Porsche is not the best car to listen to music in. Secondly, turn down the bass.

 

This.

The Bose subwoofer is a one-note fartbox of the highest order. Unfortunately, the average person has never listened to a good system, and doesn't understand what they are hearing; they hear a strong 50 Hz "thump" with the kick drum and immediately assume that the system has "great bass" - which couldn't be further from the truth.

Put in some Stanley Clarke or Level 42; now listen to the bass line. What you should hear is each note at nearly the same exact volume and timbre (tonal quality); what you will hear is a few notes really loud, and the rest buried in the mix. This is occurring all throughout the audio spectrum, and it's a symptom of a really crappy (Bose) speaker set.

What's really unfortunate is that they don't provide tone controls that match up to the resonance peaks of the speakers. Thus, when you turn down the bass, you don't just hit the offending 20 dB peak, you hit the entire low and mid-bass region. You may be able to tame the worst of the sub-bass excess, but in the process you're wiping out the entire rest of the low drums, bass, and bottom guitar octave (or tuba, bari sax, etc.).

I've spent a good bit of time trying, and there is just no way to make the OEM Bose package sound good.

 

This is one of the benefits of being old. It all sounds the same.

 

Why not just listen to the sweet sound of the flat 6?

 

Who buys a 911 for the stereo ????
If you listen to MP3 (tape quality) don't complain.
any recording that are old and not remasters, same as above.
The sub? 4" woofers in a chambered cabinet? What do you expect? It's going to be tubby.
Put in a proper8" of 10" woofer and it's a big difference.
A 911 has minimal sound damping.
Just look under the 2 front seats. It's just steel.
I worry about sound in my DD with a proper cabin and sound damping.
Adding extra weight with excessive stereo gear or dynamat seems to defeat the purpose of buying a sports car in the 1st place.

 

How is that any different from adding leather, memory seats, nav system, and/or any of the other non-performance related stuff that Porsche sells as options?

 

It's not necessary to go overboard with a big sub and dynamat to get a large improvement.

Unfortunately the 997s MOST system complicates things - in most cars a simple headunit swap does wonders for the sound, but in our cars you need an expensive MOST interface to do that. Might as well replace the Bose amp for that cost, and at that point you'll feel tempted to upgrade speakers too. The oem setup makes this car a slippery slope.