Yay - I bought my first Ford (well, my first fairly new car, ever)

Boo - Really disappointed with the sound quality of the B&O system.

I have a couple of pairs of headphones in the £1.5k range and in-ears costing slightly less, with dacs, h/p amps and sources to match (not trying to boast, just give some context). I was expecting something special from B&0 and it just sounds.....rough.

Even my wife - who's fairly tone deaf and generally goes for volume - remarked that it was pretty poor compared to the system in her 8 year old Kuga.

I've tried all the menu settings, and the only source I rely on is lossless flacs from usb

 

I came across a post here fordownersclub.com......st-mk4-sync-3-upgrade-broken-bo-sound-quality/ where the op seems to sum it up "......the B&O sound system now sounds awful - muffled with muddy bass, and all the punch of the tuned system has gone"

I don't think his fix would apply to me, but I may be wrong. I tried re-setting the Sync4 to see if that would help, but nothing noticeable.

 

The car was less than 8 months old when I bought it - it came from an older gent who struggled to get in and out of it and wanted an SUV, so I'm guessing it hasn't done too many raves or late night meets 😄

 

Am I maybe expecting too much?

Any ideas for quick fixes or things to check before I think about upgrading?

Cheers,

 

Steve.

 

I found these settings worked best for me:

Treble: -3 (Rest of EQ on default)

Sound Mode: Surround

Adaptive Volume: Off or Low (this really screws with the EQ)

Balance/Fade default.

Does yours have a sub? I believe it might have been costed out on later models.

No sub, just the amp in the boot.

Ok that will be some of it.

I prefer the sound of the Sony system from my Mk3 Focus, but this does have some nice detail to the tweeters, it will show up heavily compressed audio quite badly, so I too use Flac to help.

Thanks for the replies.

The surround option definitely opens up the sound and makes it more 'airy', but then it's even thinner  - having no sub would explain that I suppose.

I generally prefer 'stereo' with the fade more to the back, but the volume (and quality) seem to plummet when you move away from centre.

I'm going to drop by my autoelec guy during the week and see about upgrading. This'll be a journey - I've never had a car before that I actually cared about enough to do it to 🙂

 

 

EDIT

For the sake of completeness - Yeah, I'm an idiot.

Apart from a quick glance when I bought the car, I haven't looked under the boot liner. I just did, and yes, there's a sub (fomoco jx7t 19a067 ab)

Doesn't seem to be doing much though. 😞