Hello all.. New to this forum, new to Jaguar and owner of 2012 XK. Love the XK but despise the harsh sound delivered by the B and W. I've tried making adjustments as per forum postings, but still very cold and harsh. Sirius sounds like AM radio. I appreciate Sirius is incredibly compressed files, but it really is awful. Am I missing something or is this what I should expect?
Thank you!!

 

Can't comment on Sirius, we don't have it over here. But I'm happy with the sound of mine, which is now on the "best, true" settings. Perhaps there's actually something wrong with yours, e.g. dead sub or other speakers.

 

I think Sirius is 100 percent of the problem. I play non compressed CDs as well as stored music from my IPhone and the sound is superb. Tested same music sounds muddy when played on Bose system in my Infiniti Q50. For the most part I stick with 2 channel stereo setting and try a 60-40 front to back mix of the speakers.

 

My experience has been that some Sirius channels have much better/more bass than others. Of course, it's the channels that I want to listen to that have the worst sound.


There are times when I want to listen to the music really loud, but it's not really capable of such volume.

 

When I got my 2011 XK I was a little disappointed with the B+W system after reading all of the reviews raving about the system. I'm in no way an audio expert, and my hearing is way past its prime. I use the USB port to play my high quality rips. After owning the car for a while, I've found that certain music excels (Fiona Apple as an example) while the harder/faster/louder stuff seems to fall short. I have the Dolby Surround turned on, all dsp's off, and the high end bumped up a little. I really wish they included a wideband eq deeper in the menus. The bass/mid/treble control seems out of place in a high end system. In the end I wind up turning the music down to hear the engine when I'm not on the highway.

 

With my top up I find the sound system to be very good but maybe not excellent. I usually only use the AM/FM or CD part of the system so I can't speak to the quality of the other features. Sound is good and volume is good . With the top down it's a different story unless I have the side windows up. The sound tends to be washed out by any outside noise and I even have the wind buffer screen which limits wind noise. So I give the system a B+ and yes I agree for a car of this stature it should be an A.

 

Own a 2009 XKR, reception from FM radio sucks, but sound from the radio when I have good reception and from a USB drive with 3000 songs sounds incredible to my ears.