tps said:
Probably a step down from my Magneplaners at home, but I'm hoping it's a step up from the excessively boomy system in the Malibu I'm driving now.
I wouldn't claim it's a top-notch system by any means, and anyone who's spent serious money on speakers and amps will not be impressed. But it's better (IMHO) than many other manufacturer-supplied car systems I've tried. The high end is definitely clearer than most, and didn't become sibilant or tinny. Mid-range is so-so. I was mainly concerned about potential lack of bass, since the Skoda I'll be moving from has speakers that sound like they were made to be 80s walkman headphones, just massively overdriven. The LEAF setup had moderate bass power. It did seem to have a slight tendency towards boominess, presumably because that's where road noise is in competition with it. I don't want you to be disappointed. But at modest levels it wasn't excessive, and it was quite pleasant to listen to - and the more I cranked up the volume with pointless-but-it-rocks dance-y stuff, the less I cared about finesse and more about thumping beats, which it delivered pretty well. If you listen to local commercial junk pop music, UK radio channels usually suffer from massive dynamic range compression, and the result through LEAF - or any - speakers is boomy and tiring on the ears. I don't know if this is the same in the US, but it's a fault of the source material, not the reproduction. With decent source material, though, it was probably best described as a competent and pleasing effort - not sufficient for those with expertise and finesse, but quite passable considering the listening conditions in a car, and all the better for not having to overcome engine noise as well as background road noise.
For what it's worth, my short listening test was done with the tone controls (which are basic bass and treble) at the neutral positions, so there's still scope for at least some imprecise tweaking. I intended to do some spoken word tests, since I sometimes listen to audiobooks or BBC Radio 4 (a fairly highbrow news/drama/documentary/talk radio channel) in the car, but I ran out of time and had other things on my mind. If I get another chance - or when I get my own LEAF - I'll follow up.
As to XM, that will be interesting; it suffers from rather draconian low bit-rate on many channels, but I'll be interested to see how it sounds in the LEAF.
Think yourself lucky - in the UK (though not on the LEAF) we have DAB - Digital Audio Broadcast. The idea is basically similar to MP3 transmission over radio frequencies, but unfortunately they're using a rather old codec at a low bitrate, and the quality is nowhere near what it should have been. It's better than FM at some content types, but significantly worse at others. On the bright side, it's almost completely free of reception noise, being digital. But it suffers very badly from digital distortion and breakup when the signal's weak.
