Next time I'm in Dallas... listening party? Your home system sounds pretty amazing. You are accurate in that no car system will ever sound as good as your home system and certainly not for $8k. It is still a dramatic difference vs the Meridian system. For me, the Meridian was like nails on a chalkboard bad and I'd only consider myself a moderate audiophile. Not a truly awesome degenerate like yourself.

I think you should definitely consider spending unnecessary funds on audio gear for your car. The F-Type is a beautiful machine and deserves at least a decent sounding system to match. A bit of dynamat (or roadkill, which is both better and cheaper) goes a long way. Here's my current setup. Note that this was limited a fair bit by the budget.

Focal 165KRX3 front components. I love these speakers so much.
Audison BitOne processor.
JL Audio 900/5 and 500/1 amps. I bet your McIntosh would sound even cleaner. It would have been easier to not lose any space with 1, but having both let's me do active crossover for the Focals.
Alpine SWR T-12 sub. This thing sounds great, but it's definitely a space based compromise. As you mention, I the boot space is limited so I went with a flat sub. A few years ago I'd never have considered a flat sub, but I'm glad I went with this. The beauty of the way the F-Type Coupe boot is built there's a space below the mats towards the back of the trunk which is dead space in which an enclosure can be built. I'll post some pics later.

So yeah... do it!

 

Windows cannot format FAT32 volumes bigger than 32GB, though it supports larger volumes created by third party implementations; 16 TB is the maximum volume size if formatted with 64KB cluster

What windows program can do it, I know I can do it in gparted in linux.... but windows turns anything over 32gig into exfat...


exFAT vs. FAT32 Comparison

 

This explains why I didn't have that problem: I formatted it with a Mac.

 

That'll work

 

That be true. For me, if I can clearly hear the traffic and weather reports, I'm satisfied with the sound system. I'd gladly spend a couple thousand dollars on getting the clutch feel right long before I'd spend a dime on the sound system.

 

Me too, but perhaps my reasons are different. Between the general level of road noise at freeway speed and my damaged hearing, the Meridian 770W sounds as good as I'm capable of hearing it. Add to that the distortion that is a fundamental part of much of my listening, it becomes moot rather quickly.

I don't usually use the Meridian setting though. I rotate through the settings trying to decide which is the most OK.

 

Was just experimenting with the audio. No, FLAC files are not recognized. Here's what was driving me nuts. The manual says it plays MP.3, AAC, and WMA. The manual also RECOMMENDS lossless compression. Ok, so if I try to play Lossless WMA's they don't play. Only 320 bits WMA seem to play. I don't get this. Is there a better option than 320 bit that the Meridian will play?

 

As I mentioned earlier, my solution was to convert all the music I needed from Flac to Mp3 directly to a thumb drive.... at above 250 kHz most people can't tell the difference (mine copied 280-312 kHz) and, even though it's lossy, it does not deteriorate while playing, only when you re-copy the music again and again.... like taking a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy and so on. I played 96kHz/24bit Flac HD tracks through the system, sounds great, but not as great as my home system with tube amps headphones etc.... you can do it by getting a HD player (mine is Fiio X3 gen2) and using AUX/Line-Out on the device.
As far as how high WMA format can be, I can't say, because I don't use it.
One more thing, CD quality is not hi-res, so unless you download from HDtracks or equivalent it really doesn't matter.

Here's a good read on quality to those interested. CD Quality Is Not High-Res Audio | Sound & Vision

 

I do have an Askell and Kerns player with all FLAC. I like the convenience of controlling the music through the car but I"ll try using the player in the aux input and see how it goes

 

Copying a digital media file over and over again does not cause any loss of data or quality. Converting a lossless FLAC file to a 320kbps MP3 causes a significant loss in quality that can be discerned by the ear. And, while you are correct that technically CD is not high resolution, it is of significantly higher and non-compressed quality than any MP3 file. And I can definitely hear the difference.

The reason why your solution of converting your entire FLAC library to MP3 isn't a great solution for everyone: I've got about 9TB of FLAC music - converting everything would take a significant amount of time and additional storage space. So, finding a solution to keep everything in FLAC format would have been helpful. That being said, I don't want to have to deal with controlling music from a secondary device, so, I'll be converting to 320 MP3 as needed.

 

If one were to only swap out the stock speakers for a better grade speaker would this help or resolve the sound quality issue .
Thanks ...

 

Why would you just want to swap out the speakers?

 

Going beyond that, I don't have the ability to add amps and anything else needed.

 

Ah. Well, if you can find speakers that would be powered properly by the default amps it's possible it would help I suppose. Still, the processing done by the head unit is..not great.

If you find the sound dissatisfying, and that's a big if, many people like it, you'll probably want to start from scratch.

 

Guys, it's the year 2016 !!!!!!
What can't Jaguar incorporate a good quality sound system into the car . Same goes for other high end auto manufacturers such as BMW and Mercedes do a good system for the driver. They clearly know its there weak point so why not do something about it and change for the better.
What gives ...

 

The majority of owners think they did. I've been on car forums for 6-7 different manufacturers now (including Audi, BMW, and MB), and on every single one of them, there's always a minority ranting about how bad the audio system is.

The weird thing is that you don't even have an F-Type yet, and I think spending way too much time listening to people on the internet. Relax, and decide for yourself when you have a car.

 

I place my order in march and delivery for July so I can take advantage of the 2500 claims rebate offer. Nice!

 

I would think that Jaguar has spent so much money on this issue, along with the brand equity not being able to handle such negative press for those interested in audio also, that they have done something about this already. After all, there is a Technical bulletin out on this....so the minority musn't be "too small" or the TSA would not exist. My experience is that a Technical Bulletin is a stopgap method of righting a wrong, and in 39 years dealing with Mfg. as well as the Quality Control function of such, parallel fixes are flushed up stream to assure that future products are cured of the specific issue warranting the recall or Technical Bulletin. Not doing so would find people losing jobs as a result.

I agree that you should relax, wait and see. I also would hope for the good of things that this is rectified on the line already, and no longer a problem. My car was one of the original JLNA fixes, and this was many months back, almost a full year now. They were intent on righting this, and I would think that the real fix for certain mfg. models follow.

Relax, wait and see. The good news is that there is always a solution if one presses for it. I pressed, I smile and I am happy with my "total Jag experience....true bumper to bumper"!

 

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/o...ta-see-159210/

You guys must see the video. Simply amazing performance.

 

yes. It is better.