Tesla has retained voice control on the Media Player, allowing owners to search by song tile or name of an artist through speech recognition. Beyond making substantial improvements in the ability to search for media across TuneIn, Streaming Personal Radio and saved favorites, Media Player 8.0 also surfaces popular content to the top navigation where it’s more accessible and designed to provide a better overall user experience.

Though Spotify has not yet been introduced in the US-version of Media Player 8.0, the new look and feel is reminiscent of what you would find on iTunes and other popular digital music services. The album cover to a particular artist is presented in a tiled fashion and allows users to easily navigate to a listing of songs, either for that artist, or mixed in with like-kind artists through its “DJ Series”.

Speed has also been improved making for a noticeably smoother response.

Check out this great initial review of Tesla’s new Media Player by YouTuber Black Tesla.

Tesla Version 8.0 Media Player Notes

Now Playing View

The new Now Playing view is more useful and flexible, allowing you to browse favorite or recently listened to content – without having to switch screens.

Browse View: Simpler Navigation

The new Browse view places saved favorites at the top for easy access. It also highlights popular content such as top music, comedy, or news on Streaming Personal Radio, and podcasts and popular radio stations from around the world on TuneIn.

Improved Search

Search is now simpler to access and more powerful, you can search TuneIn and Streaming Personal Radio. Filters on results help you quickly find what you’re looking for. You can also use voice commands to initiate any search.

(See Tesla Version 8.0 full release notes)

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Tesla Model S factory audio vs Light Harmonic

If it’s true that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” then look at those two speakers. Can you see the difference? Alrighty then, that’s pretty much my review.

Let’s get this out of the way early: I am not an audio expert or engineer. But before you click away, let me assure you I’ve assembled a very qualified team and we’re going look into this subjective minefield of Tesla audio and see if I can’t persuade you to hear with my written words.  If that doesn’t work, there’s also a video:

SURVEYING THE SOUNDSCAPE

Deciding which audio system to configure your Model S with is among the most ponderously debated discussions online and I’d bet a lucrative line item on Tesla’s post-order confirmation change fee reports. The consensus is generally that if you care about audio quality — or even THINK you might — then go ahead and drop another $2500 into Elon’s coffers for the Ultra-High-Fidelity Sound (UHFS). After all, the reasoning typically goes, you’re already spending so much… what’s another $2500?

When you send the extra $100 bills to Fremont they’ll add an additional four speakers and a subwoofer over the standard audio. You also get upgraded speakers in the front doors, an additional 360 watt amplifier, Dolby noise reduction and XM radio (with the panoramic roof only) — but you still have the same standard speakers in the rear doors. Total amplifier power increases from 200 watts to 560 watts.

Sight unseen — or rather, sound unheard — I bucked the conventional thinking in 2014. There was no opportunity for me to try a car with the standard audio, but I talked myself out of the upgrade by assuming if it proved to be insufficient then I could surely fix it for less than $2500. Besides, in my experience the UHFS isn’t $2500 better. I think there’s a large placebo effect among those who have paid for it. Early owners only paid $950 and that was a more realistic value.

There have been several aftermarket tuners who have “stepped up to the microphone” to improve the audio systems in Teslas. Reus and NVX are probably the best known. Reus will do a near-complete rebuilding of the sound system with a price tag to match — it’s substantially more expensive than the UHFS upgrade and clearly not targeting my ears and budget. NVX offers a subwoofer kit for about $1000 that includes an additional amp but requires a lot of confident digging behind trim panels. I’d considered that a possibility but since it didn’t address the rest of the system, my concern was that it would only increase the amount of bass and make the muddiness of lower frequencies from the standard factory speakers even worse. Sure, I could pair it with an upgrade to the door speakers from someplace — but then I’m approaching the UHFS option price and buyer’s remorse would start to set in probably about the time I spilled blood or sweat installing my own upgrade.

A company called Light Harmonic (LH) had been prototyping and testing an upgrade to the UHFS when I noted that they’d expressed an interest in expanding to a plug-n-play upgrade for the standard audio. Getting the upgrades to market took some time, but as the early feedback started appearing for the UHFS upgrade (which costs $1800 and includes hand-wound speakers and a gorgeous custom amplifier that replaces the 360 watt factory one) it was clear those who waited were not disappointed– and these were customers who were ripping out their $2500 UHFS in addition to the LH system price!

For the standard audio system upgrade, LH offers a two-part upgrade. The first part hits the cash register to the tune of about $1000. It includes four custom speakers that are designed to be plug and play with the factory speakers, so you can upgrade both the front and the rear door speakers, a notable difference from the UHFS. Part 2 is still under development, but will likely end up being a direct competitor to the NVX subwoofer kit, complete with a custom amplifier and crossover. If LH could deliver on their claims of vastly improved audio for $1500 less than the factory upgrade, not only would my decision to be stingy be vindicated but the ordering math would change for many other people as well.

FedEx dropped the box on my front porch one day while I was at work. I hope the driver didn’t get a hernia. Moving into my workshop, I unpacked the contents and found the LH speakers carefully wrapped and packed into two cartons. No paperwork or installation instructions were included, but LH has a series of helpful videos on their YouTube channel that I’d already watched. Digging through the packing layers, I was nothing short of stunned when I saw the first speaker! I’d already prepped my car by removing the door panels and speakers from all the doors except for the Driver’s door, so I was quite familiar with the factory speakers by then. I couldn’t take a comparison picture fast enough — look again at these two speakers, the pictures really tell the story!

To get a better idea what LH was up to, I did a quick physical comparison of their speakers to the factory units. On the back of the speakers I noticed they reduced the ohmage in half, which effectively makes the speaker wattage double. LH has also dramatically increased the size of the magnet — it’s like comparing a stack of quarters to a hockey puck. The overall assembly of the LH speaker is superbly done with top shelf materials that make the stock speakers’ paper cones shameful. Even the plastic housing is twice as thick! I decided to weigh one of each to see what all that translated to in the end. The stock speakers are about 2/3rd of a pound. The LH speakers are… <drumroll>… over THREE AND A HALF POUNDS. That’s right, all four of the factory speakers together still weigh a pound less than ONE of the LH speakers. Those magnets are no joke.

INSTALLATION

I’m going to take a deep breath before I explain to you how easily these speakers went in. LH claimed they would be plug and play but the set I received — which I was later told was not reflective of changes made to the production run — was decidedly not cooperative. Removing the door panels was going to be the most nerve-wracking part of the install, in my mind, as I began gathering up my tools and planning my attack.

Little did I know that three out of the four LH speaker brackets would have holes so poorly aligned to the car that I’d need washers to strengthen them from the re-drilling. The worst part of it was that the first speaker was the perfect one. Plopped right in, no problems. Talk about raising hopes right before they are crushed! It was an irritating complication that I quickly worked around, but if they couldn’t place the holes accurately I don’t understand why they didn’t just make them slots. I really hope the revised brackets are more carefully matched than what I received as not every customer will be so cavalier about re-drilling their expensive new speakers.

As I mentioned before, LH has some video tutorials about how to dismantle the doors. They make things seem easy, but that’s because they’ve already loosened the clips before firing up their camera. Prying off the panels takes a pretty serious amount of pressure, carefully applied. Mostly you want to pull the clips straight off as the panels are not “hung” from the top edge like many cars. The front door panels I was able to rotate out of the way without removing them entirely, though you might want to disconnect the door lock wires as they’re the first ones stressed by that maneuver. The rear door panels really have to come off completely. BE CAREFUL when the panel is loosened and near the point of actually popping off.

There is a large panel alignment post that is sadistically located right next to the speaker and some devious engineer must have smiled when I inadvertently killed one of the factory speakers as the panel jumped off and I goofily caught it. Pulling apart the electrical connections are easy enough and labeling isn’t necessary as there are no duplicated connectors. While you have it off, you might want to go ahead and slice off an ⅛” or so of the rounded speaker surround — when I tried to reinstall my panels, the LH speakers were just enough deeper that the panel fasteners wouldn’t engage properly. Then again, maybe this has changed on the production brackets.

The factory speaker brackets are backed with a foam O-ring that keeps them from directly contacting the metal of the door. The LH brackets I received didn’t have anything to dampen their hard surface from banging or vibrating against the door frame. Concerned about them working loose and rattling, I decided to fabricate my own gaskets using a sturdy felt I pirated off my wife’s craft supplies. LH has since stated that the production versions will have a foam gasket when shipped.

The “plug” part of the installation was accurate. The Tesla audio connectors were duplicated on the LH speakers and they can only fasten one way so it’s not possible to reverse the speaker polarity, even accidentally.

Reattaching the door panels is pretty easy but there’s a lesson to be learned from the pros. Tesla’s door clips are typical automotive grade and should be good for more than one use but… I wound up with two creaky rear doors. Considering that the clips are available online for pocket-change, I recommend just replacing the whole set as you go.

STUDIO TESTING

Before I installed the entire system in the car, I wanted to gather some benchmark data. With the help of my friend Joseph St. Onge (who does have some legit audio expertise), we tested a pair of each speakers in a soundproofed production studio. We rigged up the speakers so we could switch between them and/or play them simultaneously (despite their different resistances) through a varied playlist of music, including the industry standard “Alan Parsons & Stephen Court Sound Check” both on CD and lossless to USB. The other two pairs of each speakers were installed in the Tesla itself so we could compare side to side within the car using the same USB.

Once in the studio, we fired up the speakers and ran them through some test tones to “set the mood.” Then we started through some high quality recordings of solo instruments. The differences were immediately striking. Even without the resonance of the car doors, the speakers had very distinct voices. The factory speakers tend to do well with low volume and higher frequencies. Push them into more volume or lower frequencies and you get a lot of muddiness. The muddiness will also overtake the clarity of the upper frequencies as a proportional response to increasing volume. The LH speakers match the over bright tone of the factory speakers, but they add a depth and clarity that doesn’t disappear as lower frequencies or volume are added. In short, you can crank the music without cranking in distortion and losing the distinctness of each instrument. Closing our eyes during the instrument solos left us with the net impression with the LH speakers that the musician could possibly be in the studio with us and playing live, whereas the factory speakers never allowed us that fantasy — they sounded like a tipped over boombox was left in room.

Certain songs brought out more distinctions that we would compare later car-to-car. I’m intentionally keeping references to specific music out of this review to avoid any kind of latent bias but I will tell you that the track that first dropped our jaws was “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. The song has a shaker featured in the intro as a bass line walks around the keyboard. On the factory speakers the shaker dominated the wall of sound and it seemed like a good 85% of the decibels were shaker-related. Switching over to the LH speakers dropped the shaker deep into the midfield. It was still prevalent, but was mixing in with the rest of the scene at closer to 60% of the sound. Other music tracks brought out similar distinctions in the deep bass frequencies. Even when we tried to mimic the resonance of the doors using two identical boxes for each set, the effects were unchanged; the LH speakers provided more volume, more separation and reproduced the mix we got in our studio headphones more faithfully.

Back in the Tesla, we played the same track selection on each side of the car. Generally, reduced ohms results in poorer but louder sound, but even though it results in a higher quantity of sound at the same indicated volume number, the LH speakers still sound better than stock because of their improved construction. The doors’ resonance also improved the warmth of both sets of speakers but it wasn’t a net change between them. The LH set maintained their clear lead over the factory system in all but the lightest volume with the highest frequencies. Skeptical that any genre of music offered the kind of frequency range that would make the factory speakers a better choice, we agreed that would be decided by a real world test against other Teslas.

Measurements taken inside the Tesla under the same conditions backed up our impressions of higher volume.  Reference tones were played through the factory speakers before the project and then again after the LH system was installed.  I’ll admit I had some difficulty hearing some of the frequencies and measuring some of the others, but the results in the table were easily repeated.

HEAD TO HEAD TESTING

I finished the installation of the LH speakers and then gathered up a small fleet of comparison cars. Rather than get bogged down in stats, we did more of a focus group approach. Claus, Jake and Darren brought their cars to be guinea pigs and my friend Joseph returned to lend his professional ears. We had Claus’ standard audio car, my car with the LH speakers and Darren and Jake brought UHFS cars. My car and Jake’s were pre-Autopilot and since we weren’t sure if Tesla added more sound insulation when they changed production lines, we tried both and noted no significant difference between them and those of Claus and Darren.

For the comparison, I had each owner bring their own USBs of music that they felt would be good for the test and including some of their favorite genres and songs. That way, they’d be able to note differences between how their music normally sounded versus how it sounds in the other cars. We also had the same collection of test tones and tracks from our studio testing and as a group we covered a broad range of styles and tastes. We’d play through some selections in each car, jumping up and down the line as a group then change up tracks and repeat the process, first with the equalizers and faders at zero and later with adjustments as we deemed necessary. I’m not sure how many laps we made, but it was many and we worked through so much material that the test took about three hours — which was also a lot of fun — thanks again to my test team!

In the end, everyone ended up with some degree of satisfaction and — I hope — a set of conclusions that will be useful to everyone. It gets a little complicated, so let’s go back and point out that there are many genres of music and other audio sources/types. Some will be more limited in their tonal qualities and frequency ranges than others and depending on what your typical inputs and styles are you might have a different recommended course of action than someone else with the same car configuration but different predilections.

For listeners with an interest in higher volumes or music with more bass frequencies, the LH speakers offer a big step up. Compared to the standard speakers, we felt the LH speakers moved a lot more air and provided a lot more bass and midrange. They were also dramatically better tonally with each instrument standing out and well mixed. Claus’ car has the standard audio and he noted that “the high was a lot crisper with the LH and the bass was a little clearer.” Boosting the bass in the display’s equalizer could even approximate the thumping of a subwoofer and might be all that many need — at a price that massively undercuts the UHFS.

Joseph summarized his thoughts after our session: “My assessment is that the standard sound is good but it’s a little tinny and the mids come through a little bit but that they kinda get muddied over by the highs, so the highs and mids kind of compete with each other. And the bass comes through but it’s low, so the bass is kind of underneath everything. When we were in the LH car, the mids really come out. They’re the highest sounds that I hear. So the highs are kind of back a little bit more, mids come out — which is good in a lot of pop music, a lot of pop music pumps up the mids — and the bass comes through a lot more too. It vibrates more of the car, more of the frame. So for not extra volume, you get more bass.”

When compared against the factory speakers, the LH speakers are clearly superior. The unusual change in the sound of the “Billie Jean” shaker also repeated itself again, with the standard audio giving the hissing high frequencies too much dominance. However, if you are a talk-radio or podcast fan, the frequency response of the factory speakers will be fine. If you prefer music that is biased to higher frequencies (some classical, jazz or female vocalists in particular) and you tend to listen to them at lower volumes, the factory speakers should cover you as well. Distortion on the standard speakers is firstly and mostly noticed at higher volumes and mid to lower frequencies.

The owners of cars with UHFS were gracious about the standard speakers, but clearly felt their money was well spent — ah, but this was the showdown we were most anticipating. When compared to the LH speakers, it was generally agreed that at low to moderate volumes they were a direct competitor to the factory upgrade. In fact, the factory speakers seemed to have a thinner mix compared to the depth the LH speakers brought to the party. “Premium sound– I have to say– sounds almost just like a studio,” commented Joseph. “It sounds like the studio reference monitors that I hear all the time. So the bass comes through real punchy, real crisp.” What it lacked, we agreed, was the mid-range depth the LH speakers had.

The additional speakers in the UHFS also created a different environment in the cabin space. I’ve noted this in my loaner cars too, where my typical podcaster sounds likes he/she is sitting right in my face on the steering wheel. The sound is much more concentrated on the front of the cabin with only the rumbly low frequencies to remind you that there are actually more speakers behind you. There’s also some wackiness that goes on depending on whether or not you have the Dolby turned on. Darren noted that to compensate for this he typically fades sound way back: “…for me, with Dolby off, the rear fade is -12 for a good balance from my seat. With Dolby on, it is -6. Big HUGE difference.” We eventually attributed much of the UHFS thinness in the mids to a too-invasive Dolby setting. Once it was turned off and the equalizer adjusted, Joseph commented that the “mids come through great… the highs are crisp and those added speakers at the front really bring together the sound. The one thing that I did notice was that — like Darren had suggested — is you really want the sound more towards the back to kind of get the full spectrum of all the sound. So the premium sound you move the sound back, you get more of the full sound. On the LH and standard, you can have the sound [fader] pretty much at zero and it fills up [the cabin].” That “full-cabin/centered sound” was regarded by all to put the LH on even ground with the UHFS even though the acoustic feel was starkly different.

Just as the UHFS owners were beginning to doubt their option choices, we spun the systems up to some thumping music and ear ringing volumes and circulated through all the cars again. As the UHFS was called upon to bellow out hard rock and some of Joseph’s more rigorous tracks, the subwoofer began to deliver — and boy does it! The amount of low hertz the sub can bring to the battle just creams the LH speakers and the standard sound. The quality of the mids doesn’t improve nor is the clarity any better, but the sub just does what mere door speakers can’t. It’s the gun in a knife fight, a daisy-cutter landing right in the weak spot of the LH and standard audio’s pastures. LH will need to bring their genius minds to bear with Part 2 of the upgrade and undercut the competing subwoofer kits to win. Darren was the first to admit feeling relieved that his anticipated “buyer’s remorse” wasn’t justified… yet.

CONCLUSIONS

Of all the things to review, this has to be among the most complex. Not only are there reams of technical procedures to consider, there’s also established testing protocols that require some level of expertise to be properly executed. Even after that, it eventually could come down to any one person’s set of ears — a highly subjective and difficult to quantify measurement of “what sounds good.” I focused more on the second set of criteria because I think the data from a lab gets lost once you add in road noise and the variable quality of source material the Model S supports. I wanted to give you a real-world assessment tempered by other owners with varied interests and experience.

That brings us to a mixed conclusion. Unlike buying other add-ons, this one requires removing functional equipment — and trying to get “better” is a very different decision point than trying to get “some at all.” The LH speakers are the best door units by far, even better than the UHFS speakers in isolation. Second row passengers, in particular, benefit from the upgrade, as the UHFS doesn’t even change out the rear door speakers. If you have standard audio and are looking for “better” — THIS is it. The LH speakers are an absolute no-brainer. They are stunningly better in many — if not most — circumstances. UHFS owner Jake, who was — literally — in the driver’s seat for most of our comparison said, “I think the upgrade holds its own against the Tesla premium audio factory option!” But we all felt that the UHFS is still the best complete system overall until LH brings out their Part 2, if cost is no object.

When/if a subwoofer is added to the Light Harmonic Model S.4D upgraded standard sound, it’s hard to imagine that even the UHFS can compete — because it isn’t really that the Tesla subwoofer is so great, but rather that it exists at all compared to the absence of one — at all — in the standard audio configuration. The UHFS subwoofer just dominates the cabin. “You get the vibration but not necessarily the rattle. You get the air vibrating — it just feels good,” said Joseph after a good auditory thumping from Darren’s subwoofer. This despite the somewhat disparate acoustics from front to rear on the UHFS. There’s no question the mid-cabin sound is better with the LH, but somehow the sub just shakes the judgement right out of backseaters’ behinds, even though the $2500 upgrade is hard to justify given how steeply LH has undercut it so far.

Since you can install the LH in your own garage, their value is actually even better. While the UHFS is turnkey and pretty good, my mind stays smug knowing that the LH speakers are really the better units. My decision to forego the UHFS two years ago has been vindicated by a group of my fellow owners, squashing any concerns I had that the improvement was just a placebo effect. If you are still pondering what option to get, then seriously consider what you intend to listen to. I don’t see the UHFS being worth it in any situation when such a viable upgrade path exists aftermarket. Even if LH can’t bring their Part 2 to market in a timely manner or at a good price, the NVX option at $1000 remains open — and you’re still $500 under the factory UHFS with better sounding results and better quality gear.

That doesn’t mean everyone should ignore the UHFS as an option. If you want a turnkey system, it’s hard to argue with the factory upgrade. Especially if money is not an object or owners who are unsatisfied with their UHFS should look into the upgrade specific to their system that Light Harmonic developed before doing their standard sound upgrade. They’re using many of the same pieces and adding a strong armory of custom gear to take that system up to the next tier. Since the UHFS already includes a subwoofer, a more apples-to-apples price of the upgraded LH standard speakers in that scenario would be $2500 for UHFS with the $1800 for the LH upgrade to the UHFS — plus the costs of their recommended professional installation. You’re into your audio for a lot of coin at that point, but this would also be the very best of all possible configurations. At that price and coming full circle, the standard audio with just the Part 1 LH upgraded speakers becomes an audaciously good deal at just $1000.

The post Tesla Model S Standard Audio Speaker Upgrade by Light Harmonic appeared first on TESLARATI.

Tesla owners across Europe, Australia, and Hong Kong will soon have access to Spotify Premium according to an e-mail the company sent to owners within those regions. We received a copy of the email from our contact in Norway which reads (translated from Norwegian via Google Translate):

Now you can listen to Spotify in your Model S

With today’s wireless software update, you can now enjoy a seamless music experience via streaming with Spotify in your Model S.

 

The fully integrated Spotify system delivers the perfect music experience for every traveler, with access on demand to Spotify catalog of over 30 million tracks . You can also enter your own Spotify music library, store songs and albums, and follow artists , playlists, and radio stations.

 

To start listening to Spotify simply select Spotify from the menu in your media player. You can also use an existing Spotify Premium account and listen to playlists and radio stations . Simply log in Spotify account via Settings> Applications > Media > Spotify.

The update comes as Rdio, a music service previously available on Model S cars in Europe, Australia and Hong Kong, has been bought out by Pandora and is no longer available to Tesla owners. It’s undetermined whether Spotify Premium will make its way into US cars.

Spotify’s Senior Manager of Business Development, Jonathan Tarlton, told The Telegraph in the UK, “The car radio has not changed much at all, so what we’re doing with Tesla represents the future. Tesla owners will be able to access a full premium experience, free from adverts.” He also indicated his company is not done making deals. “This is a very important focus for us and a key strategy and you can expect many more exciting announcements from us in this sphere.”

The post Tesla to Add Spotify Premium in Upcoming Firmware Update appeared first on TESLARATI.

My 60-year-old parents in law, both of whom were formerly allergic to computers, listen to Pandora on the iPad I forced upon them as a Christmas gift. My 50-year-old mother loves YouTube for its ability to display full music videos from hair bands like Guns N’ Roses. Nearly every party I attend has a soundtrack courtesy of internet radio. By now, it’s safe to say most Americans have used or heard of streaming music.

What they may not think about is how wonderful of an application it is for inside a vehicle. Every Tesla Model S comes with Slacker personal radio standard and at no additional cost. With it, you can select a song, artist or album and the radio will play the specified song as well as related songs. It also provides pre-selected channels such as 80’s hits or 90’s hip hop.

Selection can be done by way of the intuitive touch screen or by pressing a steering wheel button and commanding the car to “Play: Fool In The Rain.” Assuming you did so because that’s the kind of mood you were in, you’d be delighted to next hear songs like Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” (So *this* is where that one lyric my mother used to repeat often was from!)

Me, I’m more a “Play: Sussudio” or “Play: Missy Elliot” kind of gal. But just like this Apple Radio commercial, “It knows your mood, it knows your taste. It’s like you have a boyfriend that makes you a mix tape in your laptop.” Except, it’s your car. And where better to have a mood matching musical experience than a car?

One of my favorite uses of Slacker is when a random song comes to mind and you can listen in an instant. You may not have that song in your own digital collection. And you certainly can’t just command an obscure song to happen to be playing on FM radio. What’s even better is when that obscure song turns out to be a really good base for the radio to select other songs you didn’t even realize you wanted to listen to. I’m talking to you, Beenie Man!

And of course, as you may find to be the case when taking a spirited solo drive, sometimes you just want to hear whatever exact song it is that you consider to be your driving theme song.

Relationships with cars are complicated. We tend to love or hate them; enjoy or dread getting behind the wheel, depending on the situation. We love road trips, family vacations and nights out with friends. But the same car that might bring joy in those situations is the one whose steering wheel you grip or bang on when yet again, your commute is ruined by one minor accident. Insert internet radio into any of those situations and as you can imagine, your mood can be instantly elevated. Go ahead, take a moment and picture a family vacation. What song do you want to hear? Now picture date night with your significant other. You’re on your way to a great dinner and want to say something. “Play: Wonderful Tonight.” How about that annual golf scramble that Bob from Accounting always wins? “Play: Eye of the Tiger.” Need to get out of your own head after a bad day at work? “Play: Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

The Tesla is already a joy to drive for reasons stated a million times over. But music? Music speaks to the soul. And sometimes, my soul wants to escape a traffic jam by thinking of my late father.

“Play: Surrender.”

The post What Tesla Slacker Internet Radio Means to Me appeared first on TESLARATI.

NVX is a relatively young company that produces an assortment of quality car audio equipment down in Southern California. I have been reading great reviews about the NVX products and until recently the only company I was aware of to offer aftermarket Tesla audio upgrades was Reus Audio. The NVX BOOST kit was specifically designed with the Model S in mind. It packs a 10″ woofer in a custom molded fiberglass speaker enclosure paired with a matching compact class D amplifier. A line audio converter and almost all of the necessary wiring to install the booming kit is included.

First Impressions

The package arrived just as I began to change Joules’ into to her set of road trip shoes which increases range by almost 10% over the fancy pair she plays on…but that needed to wait a minute, now I had something better to do….another project, yay!

Practically giddy like a kid on Christmas morning, who am I kidding, I might have well ran a few laps around my car! I quickly sliced the packing tape securing the box top revealing a set of NVX instructions for installing the speaker enclosure. These were the only instructions included (besides those of the LC2i). I believe the rest of the kit is meant to be installed by a professional, even the enclosure installation guide recommends using professional help for safety reasons.

[Edit: Installation videos of the NVX system on a RWD and dual-motor D Model S can be found on YouTube.]

Well, lucky day! I just happen to be a Professional Engineer, pretty sure that counts right? Time to get to work!

Digging in revealed four separate parcels packed firmly in between ‘instapak quick’ foam blocks. The boxes near the top contained an amplifier, LC2i audio converter and a well prepared wiring kit.

The sub woofer enclosure was wrapped in poly sheeting and wedged tightly in more of the packing foam. Its position low within the package gave the whole box a very stable stance.

With everything out the wraps it looked and felt like some pretty good quality stuff. This speaker box is topped with a sturdy steel grill in place to protect the speaker from any sort of external damage, and it seems like it could withstand some serious abuse. I considered building my own speaker box to fit in the foot well area but this NVX enclosure is a superb solution. Larger items can still be stored under the rear floor space since the speaker box fits snug into the little storage space in left side of the trunk.

The 4 gauge wiring kit looks more than adequate to power the amplifier in any location you could justify placing it. It sports a 100 Amp fuse and distribution block to mount between the 12 Volt battery and amplifier. Included in the kit is a pair of shielded RCA cables, wiring for the speaker and a remote power switch plus an assortment of electrical connectors.

NVX B.O.O.S.T Amplifier for the Tesla Model S glows blue when powered on

The amplifier’s appearance is rather typical but the power output is impressive for such a compact unit. It displays an NVX logo that glows blue when powered and is supplied with a remote switch so you can adjust the bass while sitting in the drivers seat.

There’s not much to the LC2i but one thing stands out to me.  I have heard many complaints about the weakness of the rear sound or ‘forward sound stage’ in the Model S stereo. Looking at the LC2i it seems that you could really change the sound dynamics of the Tesla by using the other output to power a 2 channel amp and add some wide range speakers to the rear. Maybe add some rear deck speakers to a non-upgraded Tesla stereo?

Subwoofer and Enclosure – BE-TSLAS-VCW104 B.O.O.S.T

The B.O.O.S.T. enclosure for the Tesla Model S is composed of hand laid fiberglass and nicely contoured to slip into the left storage area in the trunk of the Model S. This placement allows both child seats and the Tesla Ultra High Fidelity Sound (previously titled the ‘Sound Studio’) to be used in conjunction with the NVX enclosure. A spring loaded chrome plated connector is located on the backside of the enclosure to attach speaker wires. I don’t know if the speaker grill mounted in this kit comes as part of the Powered Enclosure Package or if it is also included with the Loaded Enclosure. This was the first time time I had seen any protection on an NVX subwoofer, very nice, as I drive a little ‘extreme’ from time to time.

It didn’t take long before the engineer in me took over and unmounted the speaker from the box to take a look at the ‘guts’. In doing so I completely forgot to shoot any pictures of the inside of the box! What?? Bad cameraman! Well, the enclosure is rather thick, maybe almost 1/2″ and everything looked really well done on the inside, reminiscent of a fiberglass boat. A block of wood creates a step that locks the bottom of the box into its place. All of the fiberglass work is smoothly hand laid and the corners appeared to have some additional strips for strength. Since this is a sealed enclosure without a port the sound replication should be pretty accurate and I expect the bass to be tight.

The NVX dual voice coil VCW104 Subwoofer fills the enclosure well. Housing a 2-1/2″ aluminum voice coil rated for 750 watts, the 10 inch speaker is capped with a woven fiber pressed paper cone to push the air. The magnet is chunky weighing almost 8 pounds! With this combination it’s possible they added the new grill to actually
protect things in the trunk from the pounding woofer – CAUTION: It might not be safe for kids to sit in the back with one of these kits!

Examining the rear of the speaker we see two sets of 4 ohm wire posts connected in parallel to match the output of the amplifier’s 2 ohms. The speaker is constructed very well and compares favorably to other drivers within a similar price range and power output. Can’t wait to hear what this thing can do!

Amplifier – BDA7501: Monoblock Class D

NVX produces this efficient amplifier with a footprint that almost fits within the margins of a sheet of binder paper. The built in circuitry protects the amp from overload or shorting and there are two 40A spade fuses located in one side of it.

This amplifier is rated for 750 watts at 2 ohms and can manage frequencies between 20 and 500 Hz.

Controls on the amp allow a subsonic filter to be tuned somewhere from 10 to 50 Hz to protect your speaker from potentially damaging low frequencies and a low-pass filter for 50-250 Hz to keep the the high notes out of the sub. There is also a bass boost dial capable of increasing output at 50 Hz by up to 18 dB, this boost frequency again is adjustable from 40-100 Hz. If you are planning on adding another powered device beyond this amp they added a set of RCA outputs that will pass the input source on to the next unit.

The amplifier fits deep in the the frunk of a non-AWD Model S and even deeper in the 2012 models. If one doesn’t want to locate the amp in the the frunk there is still a reserved space just beneath the sub-woofer enclosure that it fits nicely. No mater what location you choose for this piece of the setup it will still be necessary to run some wires from the front of the firewall to the rear area where the sub enclosure is.

Line Output Converter – LC2i

When adding speakers and an amplifier to any existing car audio system it is almost always easiest to tap into the existing speaker lines to provide an input sound source to the new equipment. The LC2i audio converter is included with the kit for just this purpose. It takes the higher powered sound from existing speaker wires and converts it to a lower level RCA output to send to the amplifier.

This little unit has a few adjustments to enable enhanced low end bass if the factory stereo cuts it out. Input power can be up to 400 Watts so no need to worry here with the factory Tesla speaker outputs. There are only two input channels but four RCA outputs. One pair of RCA outputs is dedicated to bass while the other set is a full range output channel. Each of these outputs can be controlled independently with dials on the front so you could add another amplifier for a 2nd (or 3rd) sub-woofer or some full range speakers in the rear.

Wiring Kit – XKIT42

42! Does that answer the question? The XKIT42 wiring kit is out-of-this-worldly burly. 100% oxygen-free made of silver-tinned virgin copper, the power and ground wires are four gauge with seamless crimp ring terminals at one end of each and the power wire is partially sheathed in a protective mesh. These are supposedly larger overall than other brands and have 1862 strands of copper! An NVX fuse holder containing a 100 amp fuse is added to protect things. There is a whopping 40 feet of speaker wire so if you happened to have a ‘Stretchla‘ this kit might still work. The kit is finished with a set of high quality RCA cables and a handful of connectors and terminals. A few zip ties are included too.

Installation

I’ll just start with this: ‘Do it at you own risk’ or have a professional do it. There really should be nothing to worry about as long as you’re careful and know what you are doing. Installing a sub woofer and amplifier is a rather easy task to do. I have installed them in most cars I have owned, at least 8 now. These days there is even the internet to help! I think this kit could easily be installed in under 4 hours if you had all of the tools on hand and ready, probably faster if a couple of people worked together and knew what they were doing. Oh, before I forget, I have a 2012 Model S, a few items and wires were located differently in early cars than in subsequent models and of course the D’s are a bit different in regards to the frunk spacing. My car was delivered with the sound studio package but the way I installed my amp would also work for a car without it.

I’m only going to give a quick overview of the steps to install the kit and locating the amp in the frunk as I did mine. There are a couple of videos floating around the webs and images of installs that might help if you’re into it. So I think the installation can be broken down into a few parts:

• Remove interior trim panels – both driver and passenger side door sills, dash undersides and end caps; drivers side knee pad; trunk left side plastic trim; rear left passenger door sill & partially remove left B pillar lower and rear seat plastic trim
• Remove frunk and AC filter unit
• Drill through firewall (ouch, she screams)
• Tap right and left speakers and run wires to LC2i
• Hook up power and ground and run a 12v to LC2i
• Run sub woofer, RCA and remote wires to frunk
• Connect LC2i
• Connect Amplifier
• Connect and Install sub woofer

BOOM. Easy…oh ya put it all back together, the hard part. Oops, what are all these left over screws and things for? Well I actually didn’t use any of the provided connectors from the wiring kit except for one to ground the LC2i.

Instead I picked up some tap splice connectors for the source wire connections and an add-a-fuse to place in an empty fuse slot for a 12v switch that turns everything on with the main contactors. These cars are assembled so things come apart and go back together pretty well. Common automotive clips are used everywhere and the injection molded plastics can take some pretty good flexing.

Tips

The only install guide included is for mounting the enclosure in the trunk. Sure enough I followed the instructions but the jack-nut that was supplied got ‘jacked’ when I tried to tighten the speaker bolt into it. Fortunately that was the only issue I ran into with the whole install and I managed to put a new nut in the car to attach the bolt to.

The LC2i fits amazingly well in a spot just to the left of the steering column. After the car is all buttoned up you can even still access it by popping the left end dash trim and just part of the drivers knee trim easily. You won’t need to touch this once it is set and the amp has plenty of power. For the sound inputs I spliced the front left and the rear right speaker sources. This has made the sound phenomenal with Dolby D turned on compared to it to ff, completely different.

When installing something wired in the frunk it is very important to make sure that Tesla Service can work on your car easily. I placed the 100 amp fuse near the other car fuses so it is easy to just remove the power cable from the side leading to the amplifier. After this is done all of the wires can be pulled from the amp quickly and the frunk parts can be removed.

Finding a shop that is willing to install an amplifier kit in a Tesla could be a challenge depending on your locale. I inquired at a place just down the street over a year ago and they wouldn’t put an amp in my car. Recently I went back and they expressed interest in learning about the Tesla and they sound like they might be open to doing such cars but need to learn more about them before they would be comfortable doing so. I am glad they didn’t just say ‘sure’ and hack at the car, instead they are trying to be cautious. I got an unofficial quote for $180 + materials for a normal car and possibly $250 for the Tesla because they didn’t know the car so it would take longer.

Sound

Really, if Tesla had just included this 10″ woofer in instead of the 8″ with the upgraded audio everyone would be happy! The front door speakers are already 8″ so why just an 8″ sub too? Until recently I thought the upgraded sound had decent bass. I almost forgot what it’s like to have a car that hits. With just the smallest amount of power given to this sub the stock sub woofer is completely neutralized.

Recently I have been using test tones, bass-track test music, rock, rap, ambient trance music and other stuff to test this setup – it all sounds really impressive. Whenever I turn the sub off I am shocked at what the stock sound is like on its own! This speaker has a great range for the size and I haven’t found any bad resonant frequencies that stand out as being too peaky. It can hit a little extra hard near the 30 Hz area if you really crank it up but the sound is audibly even across all frequencies from ~27 Hz up. The speaker manages pretty well below this level and the car shakes ferociously with the steering wheel rumbling like you’re running over delineators on the highway. This is enough for an internal massage but it wont make your drank jump out of its cup – a couple of 12″s would do better. The only other 10″ I tried in the past was a Kicker L7 Solobaric square 10″ sub woofer. I think this is comparable to that speaker in bass but it’s hard to compare memories and different cars.

Comparison:

So for a direct comparison I took the NVX speaker enclosure into Eureka Car Stereo, the local shop, where Steve let me hook it up to a switchboard with a 750 watt amplifier also connected to a JL Audio TW3 Powerwedge box. Both speakers have similar specification numbers but the JL is a shallow mount. If the JL was mounted in a fiberglass enclosure it might have been priced about the same as NVX. This was very useful to be able to switch back and forth between the speakers and hear the same music through each.

They both sound good although probably slightly a little different in a room than they would in a vehicle. The JL might have been a bit louder and could take a little more power but it had more punch which I didn’t really like. The punch seemed like a resonance which could be from the rectangular box or maybe just the speaker. In my opinion the NVX wins in overall sound quality and range. It sounded better hitting the lows and had a more consistent sound across the board through varied genres of music. Between just these two I would probably get the NVX after hearing it.

Final Impression

Sweet. It is so nice have a ‘real’ system now! I’m wondering if it would make sense to remove the factory 8″ sub from the other side of the trunk? The fit of everything in this kit is just perfect. I prefer the storage space under the enclosure compared to the space on top of the Tesla sub on the other side.

The sound output for the size of this kit is wonderful. If you want a really clean install and don’t want to spend a lot of time getting messy by laying your own fiber glass then really consider this kit. If you are looking for a moving violation or some show-car bass, maybe a 12″ or some top of the line 10″ speaker would be better. At $999.99 , the NVX Tesla Model S Subwoofer System  is probably hard to beat without compromising on form or sound quality. My speaker isn’t fully broken in yet and it seems to be hitting a little harder and louder as it gets used more. It sounds great and receives compliments from everyone who has heard it.

The post Review: NVX Custom Tesla Model S Subwoofer System appeared first on TESLARATI.

As mentioned in my prior post, I’m not a huge radio or TV fan, but if you’re going to listen to Radio in the Model S, I’d recommend forgoing the AM/FM options and heading right to TuneIn Radio.

TuneIn Controls

The TuneIn interface in the Model S is really well done and prominently displays a huge listing of stations. You want to listen to country music from Norway? No problem! You could literally spend all your time in the Model S exploring station after station around the world in so many formats and languages. I find that amazing.

Select Internet from the music selection screen and then pick TuneIn. You have a set of choices of your favorites, local radio stations, stations by type (music, talk, etc.) and by location. Each area is rich with a ton of stations. For example, I couldn’t find a local AM or FM station I knew about that wasn’t also on TuneIn.

I could find stations that friends and family listen to all the time from different areas of the country that I’ve also come to love through my travels. I can listen to the same station that my in-laws are listening to in Pittsburgh when they ping me about a new song that just came on — you just can’t do that with normal radio. I can also pick up a Pittsburgh Steelers game which you won’t find broadcast in New England much. The Steelers don’t do much for me since I’m not a sports fan, but they sure make the wife less grumpy about not getting to drive!

After you’ve found that favorite country station in Tanzania (no kidding, there is one), you can favorite the station and come back to it later in My Favorites. For convenience the local stations are also gathered in a section. Once you pick a station the interface looks very much like the interface for standard radio. The forward/back controls skip you forward/back stations in the same category area (i.e. your next favorited station, or next local station). There’s album art and song information shown for the music playing most of the time or for the station when it can’t find anything. What’s also really nice is you can actually pause TuneIn radio for a call or a pit stop and then pick back up with the radio which you can’t do with AM/FM radio even in the Model S.

Internet Radio Benefits

Like standard AM/FM radio, these are radio stations and they have the DJs talking, radio ads, and all sorts of other stuff. If you’re looking for entertainment, traveling company or news and information then this kind of radio format over Slacker or your USB music library is going to be great for you and there’s a lot of choices available.

Other than the broad choices, another great option is that Internet radio sounds better. You need a working 3G connection (standard in every Model S) and be somewhat near civilization. For me 3G is generally more reliable than AM or FM in my area, but what contributes to this sense of reliability is its ability to buffer (or save up) a section of the music for those intermittent periods where it loses connectivity — music doesnt skip or fade in and out with Internet radio. This means all those stations you could barely receive on standard FM that frustrated you with HD/SD quality changes or that you got a ton of static with you can get through Internet radio and the quality and reliability is better.

Perhaps it’s me, but listening to static in the Model S just doesn’t seem right. Static on my sound system should be a thing of the past and it is with TuneIn Radio.

Better radio, but still radio

TuneIn radio is still radio and I’m not a huge fan of the format with ads, etc. But if I’m going to listen to radio on the Model S it’s going to be via TuneIn. The standard AM/FM radio area is a waste of time but for long trips when I’m looking for something to break up the monotony of book tapes or my (overly country!) music library. I could kill some serious time with TuneIn and the massive collection of stations and formats.

It would be interesting to see what the interface looks like for XM radio for those that have the premium sound system. I strongly suspect that TuneIn provides the best radio experience on the Tesla Model S.

Tags: new owner, sound system

The post What is TuneIn Radio on the Tesla Model S? appeared first on TESLARATI.

AM/FM Radio Controls

Tesla has done a really nice job on building an interface to AM and FM radio in the Model S. With the radio interface, you get a standard tuning dial that allows you to change bands through a simple swipe of your finger. The seek right and left buttons search for stations with good signals and like many cars you can press to save a favorite station.

The Model S supports both “standard” and HD radio which embeds a digital signal in the AM or FM bands that provides some extra information for each song. HD radio allows stations to offer multiple formats and programs on the same frequency. As seen in this photo I’m tuned into FM 102.5, but I have two stations that can be picked from, each playing something different although broadcasted on the same channel. From what I’ve read you can have up to three full HD channels on the same frequency. The other advantage that HD radio provides over standard radio is the ability to send digital song data such as album art.

The user interface appeared to be the same for AM and FM. Overall the interface was clean, friendly and super-intuitive.

AM/FM Reception

Other than the HD version which was new for me, these are the same radio stations you listen to anywhere, and they have the same age-old location and reception issues.

While I live in New England in a pretty populated area of the country, broadcast signals are spotty at times. AM is particularly bad in most places and even popular FM stations can be hit or miss. In my experience the Model S is worse at radio reception than other cars I’ve previously owned, most notably for AM radio. I had a slight buzz in the best AM stations on acceleration and a loud buzz in regen-assisted deceleration on the AM stations. This was pronounced enough that I added it to my list to have Tesla Service look into next time I have the car in, but I strongly suspect this is a design, not implementation issue.

ALSO SEE: Playing Music from a USB Drive in the Tesla Model S

For FM, I had no interference from acceleration or deceleration but there were very noticeable constant switch overs between HD and “standard” radio. That was annoying enough that I had to completely turn off the HD stream. For those not familiar with HD radio, these cut-overs and cut-backs only work on the primary stream. For instance if i’m listening to 102.5 #2 and the reception cuts out I get nothing. It can only fall back to standard radio when i’m listening to the #1 HD station.

Still Radio

This may be obvious, but this is still radio. You’re inundated with ads, radio station ID notices, commentary from the DJs, etc. For some, that’s added company and entertainment, but for others it’s understood to be a necessary evil before getting to the music. In the new age of Pandora, Slacker and huge digital music libraries it’s really difficult to go back to regular radio. The reception issues are not specific to Tesla but the nature of standard AM/FM radio. When was the last time you watched TV that came in over an antenna?

Fortunately for those that want the commentary, talk shows and the like, there’s an alternative on the Model S by the name of  TuneIn radio which I’ll cover in an upcoming post.

The post Dialing through AM/FM Radio on the Tesla Model S Touchscreen appeared first on TESLARATI.

The attributes that Tesla owners are attracted to are known as the Tesla Lifestyle. But these things can be found in many places.

The hallmarks are simplicity in design and the desire to abandon the comprehensive and abbreviated and focus on the essential. I borrowed that last part from a 12th century Japanese philosopher. Seems to fit perfectly. Teslarati is always on the lookout for items that embody this approach. This week we ran across the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors.

Antonio Meze is a Romanian born industrial designer, creative thinker and musician with many awards in his portfolio. He founded Meze Headphones in 2012 in London because he was not happy with the spectrum of headphones on the market. He leveraged his design skills, ability to think beyond the “box” and passion for music to create a distinctive line of headphones and earbuds. Meze blends classic design with technology and encases them in wood, which brings out a richer, more natural sound. The line of headphones is absolutely beautiful. For this post I’ll focus on the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors.

DESIGN

The earbuds come in a round case that evokes a woman’s make-up compact. Pure white with a full zipper that’s well stitched on both the top and bottom. The only markings are the Meze logo, a custom designed element that seems to be a cross between a person, earbuds and a classic string instrument. The typeface is lowercase and cursive. Everything is a silver-gray. Subtle and compelling. Using white is a departure from the standard black we see from so many other manufacturers. My study workspace at home is always packed with technology and my wife ignores all of them. But when this case arrived and I left it on my desk, it attracted her like a moth to a flame.

Unzipping the clamshell reveals the earbuds, two sets of cushions in case you’ve got freakish-size ears and a silver hook allowing attachment to a backpack for fast access. Easy enough. Plug them in and spin up the tunes.

PERFORMANCE

When trying out speakers or headphones it’s important to mix up the sounds. Most people want to listen to familiar tracks to compare what they’re used to hearing. They will of course sound different, because it’s a different set-up. Do you hear something you’ve never heard before? That’s an indication. Don’t forget to try unfamiliar tracks and genres. Classical, jazz, soundtracks and even spoken word such as podcasts should be sampled. I also used the built-in mic and made some phone calls.

I was more than satisfied with the quality of the sound. Good highs and lows separation. I put them to the voice test by listening to the distinct vocal stylings of Peter Gabriel, Lana Del Rey, Agnes Obel, David Albarn and Goyte. The delivery was crisp and clean. The bass seemed to be a bit more pronounced than I normally listen to, but this is a minor complaint.

COMFORT

They also score well on the comfort level. I used them for over an hour while penning this post. At times I forgot I even had them in. The length of the cord is sufficient and the plug has a slight offset which serves as yet another design choice, but seems to allow for more material and perhaps more durable. Time will tell. As mentioned the built-in microphone was excellent for phone conversations, but lacks a volume control.

These are not meant for workout or sports. They remain in your ears under normal movements, but will not work well on your morning run. More quiet, calm spaces are perfect for these ear monitors. Obviously electing the correct ear cushion size makes a big difference. The R and L notations on the buds are difficult to find. I’m a stickler for following those directions as it aligns the music to how the artist intended to deliver it. Mr. Meze’s design sense likely pushed him to display these cues in a very subtle manner.

Meze calls these earbuds,

“An earphone for those who already have a musical identity.”

I’m used to noise canceling headphones, especially while traveling. That means lugging around a much larger case and remembering to have an extra battery. I’ve got a flight to NY tomorrow and I’m going to forego my usual headphones in favor of the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors. At $79.00, these earbuds are a bargain.

Photos taken with an Olympus E-510 SLR. Exploded view of the Meze 11 Deco ear monitors courtesy of Meze.

The post Review: Meze 11 Deco Designer Earphones appeared first on TESLARATI.

Slacker Internet Radio

Before taking delivery of my Model S I had only heard about Slacker radio as a feature included with the Model S and even then I didn’t do any reading or research on it. I just figured it would either be useful or not, no big deal. I had low expectations. At the time I sort of thought it was going to be a bit like Pandora which I had used on and off in the past.

ALSO SEE: Playing Music from a USB Drive in the Tesla Model S

Slacker is one of two internet radio options included on every Tesla Model S. I’ll cover the other one, TuneIn, at some other time. Slacker Radio is music delivered over the internet via the 3G connection within every Model S. What’s great about the version of Slacker that comes equipped with the car is that it’s commercial-free.

Slacker appears to have two paid versions available, and the one provided with the Model S seems to fall somewhere in the middle in terms of features:

Full disclosure: this is my hack of a feature chart based on what I saw

It will be great if someday Tesla also added the lyrics and custom playlists options that Slacker is capable of.

Slacker offers a number of playlists you can choose from that are specific to genres, popularity etc. I find the selection to be quite rich. With Slacker you can listen to unlimited ad-free music of your preference any time you want. But what if a song comes on that you don’t like?

Slacker Controls on the Model S

The basic options to Pause/Play and Skip songs are all there, but what’s missing is a re-play or go back to the previous song button. You may be able to get to a previous song with music search (more on that later) but otherwise once played it’s gone.

Two other options that I enjoy on Slacker are the “I like this song” and a “I hate this song” icon. This sends your preferences to the Slacker app, and in theory it should use this information to either play more songs like the one you liked, and omit the ones that you do not. Whether it’s using that information for more intelligent behavior tracking is unknown.

You can favorite stations which are either ones you’ve picked from a list or ones you’ve found via search, but you can’t favorite individual songs. Overall the controls are really decent.

Music Search

The Model S allows you to play songs on demand using the “push to talk” button situated on the right of the steering wheel.  Holding it down and speaking the name of the artist, song or both will return a list of results that matches your criteria.

What’s interesting is that selecting a result from the list doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll hear that exact song that you selected. It’s merely a station that Slacker feels is within that genre/category. Your song will eventually come up, but it’s definitely not always the first one played.

ALSO SEE: The Sound in the Tesla Model S

Elon is on record saying that you can play any song at any time , but that doesn’t always hold true. You can play most any song, and you can play that song pretty close to when you want it to be played, but you can definitely not play any song at any time.

Slacker Account

Your Slacker equipped Model S gets the music over the internet via 3G connection. It requires a normal user account and password to connect, but thankfully Tesla pre-configured it using their own account. You can use your own Slacker account if you choose to do so, but unless it’s a Slacker Premium account with custom playlist settings, its really not worth your time.

There are some reports of owners getting Tesla to disclose the Slacker account password and then using that account online too.

Special Feature & Quirk

One really cool feature of Slacker in the Model S is that you can pause and resume music at any time. It does this on its own when you exit the car. That means you can be listening to a favorite song, go out and do some shopping, get back in and the music will resume from where it last left off. You’d expect this behavior from a DVD or USB player, but not from internet radio. Pretty cool.

That said, there’s also a quirk in Slacker that makes it skip to a new song after resuming from a previous one. People have speculated that this may be due to some legal licensing limits, or perhaps even bugs in the Tesla or Slacker systems or software. Either way its annoying on the rare events it does happen.

Summary

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well Slacker works in the Model S. The album art is great, the controls are good and the sound quality is fine for me (even on the “medium” setting). Although I was disappointed with the USB music player, the Model S Slacker Internet Radio functionality is impressive.

The post Slacker Internet Radio on the Tesla Model S appeared first on TESLARATI.

The USB music interface on the Model S is well is designed. You can swipe between levels of organization (i.e. Genre->Country->Artist), album art is automatically downloaded, and the buttons and controls are presented in an intuitive and clean manner. A high speed scroll function gives you the ability to scroll through long lists very quickly.

Both ports work for playing music directly from a USB thumb drive but it’s important to note that the port closest to the driver provides twice the current than the port closer to the passenger  (2.1A for the driver’s side and 1A for the passenger side). Use the port towards the passenger side for USB music and leave the port closest to the driver for charging USB devices.

Also see: The Sound in the Tesla Model S

The sound system will index the music from your USB device (I use a SanDisk Cruzer Fit 64GB) and categorize them into the following buckets:

• Songs (all songs, alphabetically)
• Genres
• Artists
• Albums
• By Folder (folder on the USB drive)

The categorization makes searching for music much quicker especially since the interface does not provide a search function. The ability to favorite a set of songs for quick access also exists.

Tesla supports a broad range of music formats from the more common MP3, MP4 and AAC (without DRM), as well as formats such as FLAC, AIFF, WAV, WMA and lossless WMA. The sound system will attempt to play these formats and download its album art whenever possible.

There are a lot of really nice touches on the Tesla Model S sound system interface and in many ways it is nicer looking than other USB interface I’ve seen in a car.

The Negative

Ok, so I’m a Tesla owner, not a fan-boy nor an employee so I’m going to start with a bold statement and then explain my position.

Tesla’s USB music interface is useless.

Doing the Shuffle

Let’s start with the big one: You can’t shuffle. Thats it, no shuffling, no random play order of songs, albums, folders, anything. Apple believes so much in shuffling that they made a product that only did that. Without a shuffle, the USB music feature is quite useless in the real world.

Songs are arranged alphabetically which can be annoying depending on how you loaded your music. Playing music from the Album view will also play each song in alphabetical order.

Folder Foul Up

The folder function was clearly an afterthought in my opinion. Album art appears for each song but when you find that same song through the folder view, no album art appears.

Take my “Cowboy Casanova” song for example:

The fast scroll option also doesn’t exist in this folder view.

And the rest

There are some other oddities that I noticed in the interface. There’s 2 USB ports to play music through, “USB1” and “USB2” as displayed on the touchscreen.

What’s odd is that the name is based on the order in which you insert the 2 devices and not on the location of the USB port. Essentially “USB1” can represent the driver’s side USB port if you happen to plug the device into that slot first. However it can also be presented with the same name if you plug it into the passengers’s side USB port first.

That’s just silly.

I have favorite artists, albums, playlists (folders), genres etc. Why can’t I favorite anything but a song? I want to go back and (randomly!) play my favorite playlist over and over, not just a song.

USB devices are designed to be inserted and removed whenever you want. Start playing USB music on the Model S and then remove the USB stick. It will attempt to play the songs next in line and fail without being able to detect that the USB device has already been removed.

Conclusion