[donharris757]

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the stock system in my 2022 GC is horrible.. any ideas for an upgrade..

[limeypride]

Originally Posted by donharris757

the stock system in my 2022 GC is horrible.. any ideas for an upgrade..

What is the stock system?

[snareman]

Originally Posted by limeypride

What is the stock system?

Right. Are you saying the HK sucks or the B&W sucks?

[Footman614]

My 2019 M850 has the standard HK stereo and I must say it is horrible. It is amazing that BMW would put such an inferior system in a high priced car.

[snareman]

Originally Posted by Footman614

My 2019 M850 has the standard HK stereo and I must say it is horrible. It is amazing that BMW would put such an inferior system in a high priced car.

Everyone over in the M3/4 forum seems to feel the same way about the HK system. I don't know why they didn't give us the option to pay extra for the B&W, or just make it standard on an $80k car.

[Beemer5to3]

I think the HK is pretty good - once given time to run in and set up properly.

[limeypride]

Originally Posted by Beemer5to3

I think the HK is pretty good - once given time to run in and set up properly.

Agreed. My wife has it in her car and I think it sounds great. I guess it could be acoustics—a convertible is certainly gonna change the way the sound travels around the cabin (or lack thereof).

[ArcticWhite]

It is very interesting how personal sound is. I have seen every opinion on this forum. The HK system is crap. The HK system is incredible. The B&W system is crap. The B&W system is incredible. The old B&O was better than the B&W, the B&W is better than the B&O. There is is a very small difference between the HK to B&W. There is a huge difference between HK and B&W.

To me, the HK system is decent. It has a good soundstage and you can get the response to be quite flat. Where it falls down to the B&W is in headroom and low frequency response. But these are somewhat less noticeable in a car, especially one that is being driven with background noise, and is dependent on the source material and your listening volumes. IMO, the B&W system is worth it if you value high quality sound, but wouldn't be a deal breaker on the car for me.

[Tenac]

Originally Posted by ArcticWhite

It is very interesting how personal sound is. I have seen every opinion on this forum. The HK system is crap. The HK system is incredible. The B&W system is crap. The B&W system is incredible. The old B&O was better than the B&W, the B&W is better than the B&O. There is is a very small difference between the HK to B&W. There is a huge difference between HK and B&W.

To me, the HK system is decent. It has a good soundstage and you can get the response to be quite flat. Where it falls down to the B&W is in headroom and low frequency response. But these are somewhat less noticeable in a car, especially one that is being driven with background noise, and is dependent on the source material and your listening volumes. IMO, the B&W system is worth it if you value high quality sound, but wouldn't be a deal breaker on the car for me.

Agree it is very subjective that is all. I always try to tune the system to my liking and that's about it. A real trash system that I have had experience with was my Ford F150, didn't matter what I did or people told me to set the entry system was just trash. lol Here the BMW HK in my wife's X3 sounds great, but for my convertible M8 I wanted the looks too.

I suggest OP just keep adjusting but take it slow spend time with minor changes, don't just adjust and adjust. Stick to one input and one song for a bit allow yourself to tune it.

[snareman]

The HK system gets significantly better when you code it for B&W soundstage output.

[MystroX5]

The B&W is outstanding. I am a professional and use custom B&W monitors in all my studio reference rooms. B&W did a hell of a job engineering a excellent car audio system for BMW and far worth the up charge.

[M8Bimmer]

I'm a audiophile from way back. I've never had a car with a stock system I liked. Replaced just about every car system in all my cars since being a teen. In some vehicles I went pretty nuts and spent big bucks on the system. I mean really big. Luckily this has always worked out for me. I've enjoyed some pretty wicked sound in my days of driving.
This is the first in car system I've been impressed with. Not that this was cheap though. I think it was a $4k option nearly without looking it up. At this stage of ownership it looks like it will stay intact. I've spent way more than that on other cars and trucks.
I feel it's very very good. At all volume levels it sounds good. It does have a high end limit but I feel it pretty reasonable for Max DB's. Well laid out in the car too. And of course it looks fabulous. The integration is great imo. I've never heard the stock system but for me I'm glad I spent the extra on this system. I'm quite pleased with it really.
I've got some crazy audio equipment at home so good sound is not new to me. I feel they did a good job on this stock setup.

[bloozemanAZ]

Check with Bavsound as they have retro kits for H&K that will improve the sound. They still do not list the 8-series but its been confirmed they can sell a "kit" to work with them as ultimately it is the same H&K components that are being replaced.

[rw99]

Since we have a couple of admitted audiophiles in the thread, can someone recommend the simplest way to make a high-quality source for audio played on the Bowers and Wilkins system?

Is there a simple way to build a USB drive from Prime music, for instance? Alternatively, what’s the least expensive online service with a broad popular catalog that can be used to make high quality media for the car?

TIA for your suggestions. “Simple” is key

[M8Bimmer]

Originally Posted by rw99

Since we have a couple of admitted audiophiles in the thread, can someone recommend the simplest way to make a high-quality source for audio played on the Bowers and Wilkins system?

Is there a simple way to build a USB drive from Prime music, for instance? Alternatively, what’s the least expensive online service with a broad popular catalog that can be used to make high quality media for the car?

TIA for your suggestions. “Simple” is key

In my home systems I have several Bluetooth receivers.
I CAN'T believe how good the signal from my phone is to them. I've Bluetooth-ed a streaming service over the system from my phone and it sounds amazing. I sit there and think.....not even a wire and it sounds amazing. I have no idea how Bluetooth works and don't care really.
The fidelity is so good you can't hear a flaw on a very high system.
I blows me away. It's as if the CD player is going. Now in a mobile setting such as a car I have less experience.
Now onto the car part. Of course you can load a Stick with tons of music and simply plug it into the car. Now you have a selection of music at your fingertips.
Or use the apple car play or Android auto from you phone if you have music on it.
If your in a city type area you may be able to live steam to your phone and listen to that. So many of those type services now to choose from on the internet. But for this you need good local internet to make it decent. Plus a huge plan for data.
Or the in car option built in like Sirius.
Or download some from the internet.....ahem such as pirate bay. All the music there you could ever listen too. Even high end Flac files

[__AD__]

Originally Posted by rw99

Since we have a couple of admitted audiophiles in the thread, can someone recommend the simplest way to make a high-quality source for audio played on the Bowers and Wilkins system?

Is there a simple way to build a USB drive from Prime music, for instance? Alternatively, what’s the least expensive online service with a broad popular catalog that can be used to make high quality media for the car?

TIA for your suggestions. “Simple” is key

I use Apple Music and set the quality to their highest lossless format in the phone settings (ALAC). Make sure you have unlimited data though. It sounds great.

[Paolo73]

Originally Posted by donharris757

the stock system in my 2022 GC is horrible.. any ideas for an upgrade..

Try to code B&W instead HK.
It's easy coding.

[snareman]

Originally Posted by Paolo73

Try to code B&W instead HK.
It's easy coding.

It definitely made a difference in my M4 and was super easy with Bimmercode.

[Ehloo]

simplest is to use a hifi streaming service. i use Tidal and always use a direct connection never via bluetooth.

my Bowers sounds amazing.

Originally Posted by rw99

Since we have a couple of admitted audiophiles in the thread, can someone recommend the simplest way to make a high-quality source for audio played on the Bowers and Wilkins system?

Is there a simple way to build a USB drive from Prime music, for instance? Alternatively, what’s the least expensive online service with a broad popular catalog that can be used to make high quality media for the car?

TIA for your suggestions. “Simple” is key

[snareman]

Originally Posted by Ehloo

simplest is to use a hifi streaming service. i use Tidal and always use a direct connection never via bluetooth.

my Bowers sounds amazing.

Can you hear a significant difference between Tidal and Spotify for instance?

[bloozemanAZ]

Originally Posted by Ehloo

simplest is to use a hifi streaming service. i use Tidal and always use a direct connection never via bluetooth.

my Bowers sounds amazing.

What's the secret sauce on that? When I connect my phone via USBC it only wants to play local tracks vs streaming. I have both Tidal and Amazon Music Ultra HD.

Side note to the posting on Bluetooth audio that results in major compression as it can't handle the bandwidth. So for true audio in the car it is either USBC streaming (need the secret sauce) or an SSD loaded with FLAC (my current setup) or another supported high rez format.

[rw99]

Great input here, thanks. I discovered that I could stream Amazon Music HD in the car via CarPlay, no surprise… but the functionality is different if the app is started from my iPhone vs starting the CarPlay version of the app.

On my phone, I can pull up a Library artist and choose to stream their station. This doesn’t appear as an option if I try to do the same thing from the CarPlay app. And because the iPhone app is up, I can verify (on the phone) that tracks are playing in HD or Ultra HD. The iDrive display confirms that CarPlay is still being used to play the media, interestingly.

Now I know that CarPlay uses both Bluetooth and WiFi connections to the car… does anyone know whether the WiFi is being used for CarPlay audio apps? Because that should be able to support the higher definition audio streams. Shouldn’t it?

Rich