Quote:
Originally Posted by PinkNinja400Guy
You don't get it. In automotive, B&W IS Harman. Harman group owns a bunch of brands or licenses brand names. B&W is a separate company, but they allow Harman to use their name. B&W does not make any automotive sound components. For automotive, Harman designs the B&W speakers & amps and controls the manufacture of the B&W parts.
In automotive, AKG, B&O, Mark Levinson, Harman/Kardon, B&W, Lexicon, ... are all engineered and designed by Harman - by the same engineers working at the same company. The speakers in a B&W BMW are not designed or manufactured by the same B&W that makes home speakers. The B&W speakers are designed by Harman engineers and manufactured in Chinese factories under contract to Harman. The actual B&W company has nothing to do with these automotive B&W speakers.
And the BMW H/K sound system is good, but not that good. Definitely not amazing. You're exaggerating with your #2.
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The X1 E84 FULL Logic7 with THX and Equalizer is really good. (very few got that option as it was cancelled after a few months as the car was a bargain for the money).
Samsung bought HK on 2017. All the previous cars where usually assigned to harman kardon to analyse, design and implement competitive sound systems. Before BMW got cheap like today, some serious work was done in these cars.
Today, the new cars do not benefit from the same serious design and sound study. The new recipe is “aproximately ok position” relying on the quality of the speaker to compensate. Many times the angle and the materials, location, echos, sound reflex, etc. can beat ten times a better speaker.
An excelent speaker will be impacted by the floor, ceiling height, wide, walls, materials around it, angle of sitting, cables, power supply, amplifier, etc…
Same speakers will never sound the same in differente environments. From angles and accoustics to materials and insulation everthing plays a role.
PS
BW “being” HK means nothing as a concept. Or It might mean something today as in truth, neither my 2021 M340 nor my 2021 X4 both loaded to the teeth do not sound that good.