Although not in the Jag, the general view among Range Rover Sport owners seems to be that the standard fit audio system is deliberately poor to encourage you to specify the Meridian upgrades. These cost �1,700 for the intermediate and �5,000 for the high end system.
I have a RRS and did not opt for either of these expensive upgrades as I do not think the car environment lends itself to critical listening. In fact the standard system is quite adequate for MP3s and radio. I also like to listen to the car and outside noise when driving and not have this obliterated by drum and bass.
There is no chance of it being modular. You order what you want fitted from the factory.
Having changed head units regularly over the years, I notice the great variation in quality. DACs can be rubbish, and as for DAB radio in cars - a bit hit and miss. I disagree about the general in car appreciation of music. I do a lot of driving and if I listen to good quality head units and 320 MP3s the experience can be impressive. I have gone through almost every make - and last purchased a really good "Pure" head unit - and the DAC on that is far far superior to other makes and makes a huge difference. Also the DAB is half acceptable where others are just impossible to keep tuned in on a long journey.
I have tweeters at dashboard level which divide and raise the sound away from knee level! And front and rears and a subwoofer. Each part adds to the experience. I notice that the higher end Meridian in the XF has many speakers and fitted into the roof? The price is difficult to ascertain until the dealer gets back to me, but from the "build your own model" web site it seems the entry level Meridian is around �600 extra, which seems a bit low.
Door speakers do not appear to have developed much in the last 10 years, so it really is just the head unit which is variable.
I test drove today the Jaguar XF Sportsbrake. I listened to the Meridian �590 stereo add on to the Jaguar brand, and the Meridian �1580 surround sound system.
The �590 stereo version was nice and clean and radio quite good quality, but all a bit weak in a car environment.
The �1580 version however was great and I will be ordering it.
The spec is unclear as to whether the CD part plays SACDs or DVD audio (the salesman thought yes but he knew nothing really!) and if the USB plays WAV files. I have emailed Meridian to clarify.
I would imagine that Meridian would be the manufacturers of Meridian in car systems, not Jaguar. And I did as the Jaguar salesman suggested as Jaguar did not know the answer (bigger sigh)
Just take discs and files to the showroom and try...
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"Wonderful perfect quadraphonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council
Such a good suggestion They are closing many Jag showrooms - so I have to travel 2 hours just to put a disc in when a simple email answer from Meridian would do? Is that what Meridian also expect? And yes - where is the 8 trackplayer??? I had one in my first car - a spitfire - and it was GREAT. There is no suitable hole to stick them in these days!
I am taking delivery of the Meridian top of the range system in my new XF sportsbrake in two weeks.
When it was demoed I compared it with the normal system and the lower range Meridian system - and of course years of third party hi fi in my current Jag.
The higher set really was impressive. Very clean, tight well presented sound - really the best I have ever heard.
Can't wait for accompanying my long and regular trips. For those who say I should be concentrating on my driving ... ******** ******
But then of course I am a moaner! Getting on certain Hitchhikers nerves with my complaints.
When Meridian get it right I will say, and when they get it wrong ... well ... yes it ... (getting it wrong).... gets on my nerves too.
Good question I did email on the Meridian website asking such a question. I received an automated reply that they would respond as soon as possible That was 2 months ago? I do believe however that they CAN play WAV files off a USB but as USB can come in various sizes I do not know what capacity I can buy - so I will have to slowly increment. A waste of time but - hey - I am just a customer. It also seems they don't actually play cds, they read them in and then play from a hard drive .. very odd but I suppose they have worked out a reason for that. I may be wrong but as nobody seems to know much about these things, then it is a question of wait and see. Anyway - should be worth it from what I have heard so far.
I'm assuming it's the same Meridian system as I have in my Freelander - in which case, you can play a CD as normal in the single slot head unit, but you can also rip up to 10 CDs (complete with Gracenote metadata) in lossless onto the HDD.
Ian
___________________________________________________________ 861v8+ID41, 8000.2, various other M processors, DSPs and MDMS zones
Playing AAC and WMA is not normal, compared to MP3, WAV and FLAC, so if the system plays those I am sure it is just a matter of an incomplete listing.
I wonder if WMA has anything to do with the hard drive. It seems it is converting CD audio from the CD part into something different. I wonder if it has some similarity to the conversion taking place with say WAV files into an MD600/Sooloos?
It does not state that it WMA is the lossless version so if I understand it correctly, it is only an 'MP3' alternative.
Is AAC is a better quality? I Don't know, never used it.
I have already mass converted my home WAV files to 320 MP3s in a separate drive so a decent MP3 is pretty ok for a car. WAV though would obviously be the icing on the cake and require more USB pens lying around - depending on the power going through the USB port and the size USB it can support, which at present is unknown.
It would have been nice to get a response from Meridian. Yes I will have to wait and see, but these are simple questions that Meridian have not answered and Jaguar staff have no idea on this front. Spending a lot extra and not being able to find the spec of the extra, is somewhat frustrating.
Funnily enough the phone has just gone with the dealer telling me my car is with him as from yesterday. He confirmed that the Meridian handbook states that the system plays WAV files although the advertising blurb does not state. He also confirms that it appears the CD is ripped to the hard drive prior to play. Something reminds me it can hold the last 6 CDs (10 according to the recent post from Ian) therefore in its memory thus reducing the need for physical CDs lying around the car. That seems a great feature - maybe Ian can say if he uses that much or not.
Also there is on the spec in the handbook (as verbally told over the phone) DTS capabilities and thus I think it will play DVD audio - which will be rather interesting as certainly on my list of things to test.
The dealer also told me that in his opinion the sound from a CD is better than from a USB pen, but I would assume he is then comparing MP3s to CD audio (converted), which is not a fair comparison.
The handbook emailed by the dealer refers to a CD/DVD player The CD/DVD player will accommodate one CD or DVD disc at a time.
I would not imagine Meridian would allow a misprint like that to creep through if it did not play DVDs?
If I can play DVD-Audio hi res discs that will be fantastic. And if the half remembered comments about DTS are correct - wow - all those dts DVDs will be transferred to the car!
A DVD or DTS x 10 will be substantially larger disc space than 10 normal CDs. How big is the hard drive? So many questions Presumably it compresses them on to the hard drive in another Meridian used format like the Sooloos?
Can you find out what it does to the rate or what rates it can send out at? i.e what it can be pushed to?
If all this is correct - Christmas has come early.
It does not state "DVD Audio" - it states DVD. So what does that mean? If not answered in two weeks I will have to trial and error it - but I shouldn't really have to - there must be a proper spec somewhere (probably there is NOT!).
And the dealer I am sure mentioned DTS, so if not DTS but another DTS (god knows I fail to understand all this) then what does DTS on a spec mean?
Time will tell, but I would have thought Meridian would be trying to flog these items better by attracting users to possibly great specs - because if the hints are true then it would be revolutionary at the moment.
Mind you .. the dealer told me that I was the only person who has bought the system to ask any questions - not sure what that is a reflection of ... and he was waiting with baited breath for my feedback so he can sell better!
DTS CD"s (i.e. not DTS DVD's, as they came out around the time of DVD-A) are the only thing that MIGHT play... and even then I have my doubts.
The "DTS" logo refers to the fact that DTS-Neo is available as one of the DSP Soundfields, in the same way as "Trifield" is also available... this has been covered in some of the video reviews posted here down thru the times.
Prepared to eat my hat if DVD-A discs will replay.
And if the CD "copying" system is like most other cars I've tested, then the CD will be ripped and stored as MP3 to the small internal "hard drive".
And usually, it's only MP3 and AAC files that will play via the USB Auxiliary input... which is usually attached to the USB Outs of Android phones and MP3 players.
I think it has to be remembered here that usually, Meridian, B&O, Bose, Harmon Kardon etc., etc., are asked to SUPPLEMENT the basic playback hardware within a car, and typically don't replace that playback hardware.
They merely add Speakers, Subs, Amps and various types of DSP to the playback hardware already in the "head" unit of the car.
As good as the Meridian processing is, the combination of that basic hardware with downstream Amps, DSP and Speakers will not allow a user to distinguish between 320 MP3 and Lossless anyway... whether driving or stationary.
I've burnt a few files to a USB drive to see what the Meridian system will recognise. I've also tried out DVD-Audio and an old DTS 5.1 music only disc.
So, pretty much as expected:
Through the USB input, you can play MP3, AAC and WMA files. I tried files up to 320 bit rate and they all played fine. Unfortunately WAV files aren't recognised (nor, for what it's worth, Ogg Vorbis.)
From the disc player, you can play only the Dolby Digital and DTS tracks, either 5.1 or 2.0. You can't access the DVD-Audio layer. All the surround sound files I played didn't sound that great to be honest - you'd be better off with Red Book CD.
On a more positive note, I'm pretty sure that the CDs are copied in lossless to the 10 disc virtual library - they certainly sound better than 320 bit rate mp3s and indistinguishable from the source CD.
Overall, it's a great system though not comparable to our home systems, again as you'd expect really. And many of the nuances between qualities of source material will be irrelevant when the engine is running!
Ian
___________________________________________________________ 861v8+ID41, 8000.2, various other M processors, DSPs and MDMS zones
Reasonably sure that what you'll find is that the difference you hear between the USB and Hard Drive is the actual quality of the connection of the USB to the head unit... as more often than not, that connection ends out being a compromised Analog connection, rather than the Digital one that you would expect... typically the Car Head units offer Analog Inputs only and not Digital ones.
Using OBD equipment thru the OBD II port on all modern cars, you can usually (eventually) see what's on the hard drive (actually Flash memory these days) of a car. These "drives" are typically quite small and also need to have space for the usual 2Gb of Map data that it takes to cover Europe or the US... plus all the data that drives the usually comprehensive Touchscreen and all of the typical myriad options.
As a result, any time I've tested, the CD's have been ripped to the 'drive' as MP3 files and not WAV or FLAC as most of the Head units in cars are incompatible with those files.
To my knowledge, Mercedes are the only one who keep all of their connections (aside from the Headphone jack connection obviously) Digital all the way i.e their iPod and USB connections are Digital to the Head unit... and the Head unit is connected via Optical Fibre to the DAC & Amps in the rear of the car.
Down thru the years, I've found the iPod and USB connections available in most cars to be compromised in some way... even though the Dension iPod connection offered in some BMW's can also be quite good.
Summary: The quality of the connections from the Inputs to the "Head" unit needs just as much 'tlc' as a home system... and car manufacturers either don't know enough, or care enough to spend the time necessary on the tlc
It must be remember that the Wiring Harness of a car is something that is developed and tested in Prototypes and Test Mules, sometime several years before the Final Model is produced... and it's only after all that test work has been done that people like Meridian, B&O etc. are asked to get involved... at which stage, it's too late to change the core wiring harness
As stated earlier, it's been my experience that Meridian, B&O, Harmon Kardon etc., should be considered as a "Layer" over the standard Hardware and Cabling that already exists in the base car. They are never given the opportunity (due to Health & Safety, Crash Testing and similar considerations) to change those "core" elements of a car audio system
None of this means that the Audio produced isn't "impressive"... nor that these Systems aren't an improvement over the standard systems (they mostly are... and Meridian likely more so)... and despite the sometimes compromised file compatibility and connections, these systems can add value, especially those who drive long commutes or journeys
The Land Rover manual for the Freelander states that the Meridian 825 watt system rips the CDs as uncompressed, so I'm pretty sure that will be accurate.
Unfortunately, there isn't a specific manual that covers the upgraded audio system in any detail. Whilst I'm as confident as I can be that they're being copied as lossless, short of someone at Meridian confirming this, I guess we can't know for certain.
Ian
___________________________________________________________ 861v8+ID41, 8000.2, various other M processors, DSPs and MDMS zones
A couple of things to add. The sound quality in the 2014 model XFSportbrake is, to my ears, definitely superior to the 13MY. It's as if the drive units are higher quality or the DAC has been upgraded. The sound is just that little bit tighter and more nuanced. There is also, incidentally, more info on the display about the track playing.
In terms of playback, the sound via iPhone's lightning connector and from USB hard drive (I use a 1TB drive in mine) are indistinguishable given the same track in the same format at the same bitrate. Unsurprising given they are both digital.
The best quality available via USB is a 320k CBR rip which sounds good, if not spectacular. An Apple lossless rip via the iPhone sounds better for obvious reasons. I am hoping that the forthcoming Jaguar XE which uses a quite different head unit will support WAV and/or FLAC over USB.
G98, HD621, 568.25, 558.2, 559, B&W 803Ds, HTM2D, 4xSCM1, ASW850, Pioneer PDLX5090 50" Plasma, Cables by Atlas and Chord
I have the Meridian system they fit as standard on some XF models. There is a facility to upload CD's to the hard drive and I would say this is superior in sound quality to other sources. I have an iPod with some MP3. The only issue is the track data source seems to be out of data even when brand new and no one seems to know what the update process is.
Tried DVD and did get it to play through the onboard.
Yes I have an XF with the Meridian upgrade. Sounds great and I would recommend the option if budget allows but the track database seems to be out of date. Any ideas on how to update?
My neighbour has an XF - very high end version, incredible performance. He only noticed it had a Meridian system because he knows about my love (vice) of M.
He said it sounds very good (and it does) but he only listens on radio. I tried to encourage him to load some good stuff onto the hard drive, but he has not bothered so far. It will only happen if I do it for him.
I would love such a system in my 911 which has the Bose enhanced system - frankly that's pretty mediocre.
At the end I prefer driving a 911 to XF despite the flawed audio. Pays your money and you takes your choice as they say.
I have been running my XF for about six months. I didn't specify Meridian because it was standard on the spec level.
My view is that it is by far and away the best in car I have heard. Ripping CD's to the on board hard drive is particularly good although the track database is out of date too easily
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