s4str

Even though I willingly bent over for Audi and coughed up the $$$ for the B&O upgrade, I still felt a bit cheated by the mark-up on this system.

Case in point, the optional audio system on the Bentley Mulsanne ($290,000 before options) comes with a state of the art Naim system for less than $1.5K more. CNET Review says..."The real highlight of the cabin tech is the Naim audio system, a $7,415 option. This upgrade replaces the standard 14 speakers with 20, custom-made by Naim for Bentley. The amp rates at 2,200 watts, and each speaker gets its own channel. On paper, this system blows any other production automotive system out of the water. In real life, it is even better."

Even though I love the B&O; if I had to do it all over again, I'd pass.

subterFUSE

For the price of the B&O upgrade, you could do an aftermarket system that would dramatically outperform it.

You just have to be willing to find a good installation expert who you trust, and possibly do some modifications to the interior.

RobC

In general I would agree and it applies to the A6, but I have to wonder what would happen with the active noise cancellation in the S6. Active implies that the processor should be setting the levels of the out-of-phase signals based on the microphones, but there also has to be a limit to how much noise cancellation is applied to not overburden or overdrive the audio system.

In another post someone verified from Audi training documentation that the noise cancellation is mixed in with the music and played over the same speakers. I do recall a fuse for the noise cancellation. Perhaps simply removing it would solve the issue if you can live without the feature.

subterFUSE

That is a very good point. I must admit that I am new to the Audi forums, and I am not an Audi owner yet. I'm only starting to become aware of the full spectrum of features with regards to these cars.

Active noise cancellation sounds like an interesting potential issue for aftermarket audio.

Please help me to confirm if I understand this correctly:

There is a microphone and/or microphones inside the car which detects ambient noise and then feeds the information to a processor, and then the stereo attempts to compensate for that noise by playing the opposite sounds out-of-phase in an attempt to cancel the perceived noise?

If that is correct, then this would possibly cause problems with an aftermarket system like the one in my current car.

Currently I am using an Audison BitOne processor which takes the speaker-level output from my factory amplifer. It converts the high level to low level signal, which then gets sent to my aftermarket amplifiers and speakers. However, since my DSP unit comes after the factory amplifier, this would mean that whatever noise compensation exists gets sent to my processor.

Being able to disable this noise reduction feature might be helpful. Then again, maybe the noise reduction would still work fine with the aftermarket setup? If the reduction is based off of a microphone, then it is possible the aftermarket speakers would be capable of playing the noise cancellation audio signal. Assuming the noise cancellation is not specifically designed for the factory speakers?

It's a good question. Does anyone have any input on this??

noah123

i am tired of B&O comparisons!!!

mwar99

You also need to keep in mind that the upgrade cost may not be comparable. The base stereo in the Bentley probably costs more than the Bose in the Audi. The B&O is probably not as costly a system compared to the Naim, but the differential from the base system is probably greater.

PJRed2008

Comparing anything between a $300K car and $70K car is stupid. Especially when it involves price points.

alvam

+1