Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Automotive Jaguar I-PACE unwanted automatic volume leveling

Hello!

Posting on the off chance that somebody has some knowledge that will help with a very specific problem. I have a 2019 Jaguar I-PACE with the 380w Meridian system that was the base option in the US. Since updating the software over the air last December, the system has been applying an aggressive and annoying dynamic process that sounds like one of those automatic volume leveling features (to compensate for road noise or speed or whatever), only my system doesn’t have that feature, and if it did I’d expect to be able to turn it off.

The effect is in place on all sources. I’ve tested it with a sound file I made with bursts of white noise at various levels. What I get is lots of quick dynamic compression above about -15dB (digital scale), coupled with a gradual but very aggressive boost (across 4-6 seconds) of anything down around -35dB. Depending on the music going on, this goes from mildly distracting to barely listenable. It happens at all listening levels.

I haven’t been able to persuade my dealership to flash and reinstall the software. Meridian support referred me to Jaguar. Jaguar says everything is fine, without saying whether they’ve really understood the problem. So I’m stuck.

Does this sound familiar to anybody? And is there somebody who has some kind of secret bat phone to Meridian where I can get some more detailed technical information about what kinds of DSP stuff these systems do and why they aren’t user addressable?

Thank you!

P

Yeah, this'll have nothing to do with Meridian. The head unit (Bosch/JLR) is what will be doing speed-related adjustments before sending the audio to the amplifier/DSP (LEAR). I do not believe the amplifier/DSP can be upgraded "over the air" and only in a dealership, so it's probably the head unit.

Our 2019 I-Pace had a bundle of problems after the December update (USB sticks stopped working, driver key detection for settings was broken, all logins forgotten) - but it fixed itself a few weeks later (either by another OTA update or other mystical process). The other possibility is that the December update was somehow lossy and the variant configuration (what peripherals are connected, what model it is) has somehow become corrupted.

If you don't mind losing your local data, you might find asking your dealership to perform the "NDU/New Dealer Update via Pathfinder" process (a rather magic phrase): it entirely reinstalls all the infotainment software fresh.

I followed-up a YouTuber tip that Jaguar are pre-registering iPace models with 100 miles on the clock at 50% discount on retail. A check on Auotrader (UK) confirmed it.