Subwoofer distortion?

[Ruffles]

Hi everyone,

One of the things I kept hearing about was that the CT audio system was out of this world. Now that I have it, I'm underwhelmed and think maybe I have a problem. On the ride home from delivery, I noticed a rattle from the rear seat area that I assumed was the cause of the "muddy" bass. No problem I thought, I can fix that (or take it to service). I attempted to pop off the rear wall lower trim ( Passenger Compartment Carpet - End Item, Rear Wall Lower Trim, Soft Trim (Remove and Install) (tesla.com) ) to poke around and look for loose wires etc. but even with those instructions, I couldn't find all the attachment points and ended up breaking some clips and still didn't get it all the way off. I did manage to solve the rattle I was hearing by pushing it back together and I thought I'd solved the problem.

Now, listening to it more, the bass is still sort of muddy/distorted. It's hard to explain but there is something there. Even at low volumes, it's not clean bass. The problem is, I can't constantly reproduce it. I downloaded a frequency generator for my phone to see if I could isolate the specific frequencies but can't seem to reproduce it with a single tone. Playing with the fader and balance to see if it's one specific speaker doesn't seem to make a difference either. Side note - do the rear door speakers literally have zero bass?? (turn the sub down in the EQ, raise the bass, and fade to rear speakers - there are no low frequencies)

I'm comparing this to my 2020 Model Y Performance. It seems to have cleaner, clearer bass. The CT seems to have more volume for sure but right now, the system in my Y sounds better. Is it possible I just have something else loose? At this point, it's the kind of thing where if I take it to service, they will listen for 5 seconds and say it sounds fine. If I had a damaged speaker or amp or something, it would be an easy replacement. I'm starting to second guess myself, but I feel like the fact that I've never had any concerns at all about the Model Y system should indicate it's not all in my head. What do you think? Is something else just loose somewhere? Am I being too picky?

Thanks!

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[Coagulation]

I sort of feel the same way. Maybe I need to play with the equalizer a little as a first step

 

[UberNoob]

Any friends also concurs with your assessment?

Might just be your ears play tricks? Can’t hurt to submit a ticket tho, worse they will tell you is it’s in spec.

 

[RoboTaxi]

I have the bass at -1. Anything higher than that and it sounds muddy to me. I don’t know how some of these people have the bass cranked up.

also at -1 it still hits pretty solid.

 

[XCeilidhX]

So I don’t have my CT/CB yet but I’m a bit of an audiophile sound nerd (to some degree).

Hard to know without hearing it myself in person but you may simply be describing the disadvantage of ported subwoofers. I personally am not a fan of them because they are really hard to tune to get unmuddied sound and not have chuffing at the ports with certain frequencies when played.

In the most basic and generalized terms in compariaon to sealed subs, ported subwoofers are popular for being able to generally take less power to drive to get a given volume of bass out of them but unless they are manufactured extremely precisely and tuned obsessively they will sound muddy in comparison to sealed subwoofers. The problem with sealed subs in vehicles are space for the sealed box that makes the speaker and the power it takes to drive them.

Light harmonic is planning a set of speakers with a conversion of the subs to sealed if you also add on an amp they are working on but it’s otherwise going to be difficult to find amps compatible with the wiring architecture and voltage on the CT.

Not sure what you listen to at home, etc. but it may be that you are someone who can hear the difference between a ported and a sealed sub and have a clear preference (as I do). Both a blessing and a curse. There are also other types of sub designs (passive radiators, etc) I’m leaving out of this that aren’t usually oem in production vehicles to keep things simple in terms of this discussion.

Perhaps I’m off and it is something wrong with your system, but the way you described it is pretty similar to what annoys me when i hear ported subs.

FWIW

Cheers

 

[HaulingAss]

Hi everyone,

One of the things I kept hearing about was that the CT audio system was out of this world. Now that I have it, I'm underwhelmed and think maybe I have a problem. On the ride home from delivery, I noticed a rattle from the rear seat area that I assumed was the cause of the "muddy" bass. No problem I thought, I can fix that (or take it to service). I attempted to pop off the rear wall lower trim ( Passenger Compartment Carpet - End Item, Rear Wall Lower Trim, Soft Trim (Remove and Install) (tesla.com) ) to poke around and look for loose wires etc. but even with those instructions, I couldn't find all the attachment points and ended up breaking some clips and still didn't get it all the way off. I did manage to solve the rattle I was hearing by pushing it back together and I thought I'd solved the problem.

Now, listening to it more, the bass is still sort of muddy/distorted. It's hard to explain but there is something there. Even at low volumes, it's not clean bass. The problem is, I can't constantly reproduce it. I downloaded a frequency generator for my phone to see if I could isolate the specific frequencies but can't seem to reproduce it with a single tone. Playing with the fader and balance to see if it's one specific speaker doesn't seem to make a difference either. Side note - do the rear door speakers literally have zero bass?? (turn the sub down in the EQ, raise the bass, and fade to rear speakers - there are no low frequencies)

I'm comparing this to my 2020 Model Y Performance. It seems to have cleaner, clearer bass. The CT seems to have more volume for sure but right now, the system in my Y sounds better. Is it possible I just have something else loose? At this point, it's the kind of thing where if I take it to service, they will listen for 5 seconds and say it sounds fine. If I had a damaged speaker or amp or something, it would be an easy replacement. I'm starting to second guess myself, but I feel like the fact that I've never had any concerns at all about the Model Y system should indicate it's not all in my head. What do you think? Is something else just loose somewhere? Am I being too picky?

Thanks!

Well the only way to determine if your Cybertruck has an audio problem would be to listen to the same recording, at the same bitrate/quality in another Cybertruck.

My observation is that the Cybertruck isn't really designed to have super powerful, punchy deep bass like a narrow genre of recording demands. It's designed to have an expansive soundstage with good spatial depth, and a full bass, but it might not have the bass punch necessary to do justice to certain types of recordings, especially at a very loud volume level. My guess is your music preference has overwhelmed the bass capabilities of the Cybertruck at your desired listening volume. The audio system is not magic, it just has a wonderful and full spatial presence when playing balanced recordings. And the deep bass capabilities are impressive, but I wouldn't say the bass is particularly "punchy", if you follow.

As a side note (that is probably not relevant to your particular disappointment), it's been painfully obvious to me since I took delivery that the sound system is so good it almost demands a higher fidelity source than available via streaming. For that reason, I've found that I only listen to higher fidelity (non-compressed with more dynamic range) tracks I download via wifi from Tidal onto the included memory stick. At least I assume that's where my downloaded hi-fi tracks are stored. When I stream from Tidal it uses less bandwidth via compression and lower bitrates and the result is noticeably inferior to the hifi downloads. Not a night and day difference, but the high-fidelity recordings definitely have more depth and presence.

But you can only troubleshoot your problem by finding another Cybertruck to compare, to see if your disappointment is more a function of the sound system not being able to do what you want it to do, or if there is a defect in your particular vehicle.

 

[XCeilidhX]

The fact that Tesla has no Aux miniplug input for people to use their own DAC and / or music source has always kind of killed me. Agree that Tidal or one’s own ripped files in as high quality as possible off a USB stick rather than via bluetooth helps a lot when you have a system where it matters.

Cheers

 

[SentinelOne]

in the month I've had the truck it's gone from great to less so (I think it was the last update).....I figured I'd worry about it after the next update and see if it sticks. also being deaf out of one ear doesnt help the debugging process!

 

[HaulingAss]

in the month I've had the truck it's gone from great to less so (I think it was the last update).....I figured I'd worry about it after the next update and see if it sticks. also being deaf out of one ear doesnt help the debugging process!

Mine still sounds just as awesome as it did on day one. I love driving it out in the wilds of the mountains, listening to the rich, full sound that fills the cabin. It just sounds so natural and the presence is unreal.

The boxy shape of truck cabs are notoriously difficult for high-fidelity sound and spatial imaging but the unique shape of the Cybertruck's cabin seems to be uniquely well-suited to reproducing a dynamic soundstage, compared to any other truck I've been in, even one with high-dollar custom audio done by mobile audio professionals.

 

[SentinelOne]

Mine still sounds just as awesome as it did on day one. I love driving it out in the wilds of the mountains, listening to the rich, full sound that fills the cabin. It just sounds so natural and the presence is unreal.

The boxy shape of truck cabs are notoriously difficult for high-fidelity sound and spatial imaging but the unique shape of the Cybertruck's cabin seems to be uniquely well-suited to reproducing a dynamic soundstage, compared to any other truck I've been in, even one with high-dollar custom audio done by mobile audio professionals.

100% agree, but something changed on mine to keeping aware and seeing if it self resolves....

Way better than any of my previous trucks...

 

[TruckGenio]

Hi everyone,

One of the things I kept hearing about was that the CT audio system was out of this world. Now that I have it, I'm underwhelmed and think maybe I have a problem. On the ride home from delivery, I noticed a rattle from the rear seat area that I assumed was the cause of the "muddy" bass. No problem I thought, I can fix that (or take it to service). I attempted to pop off the rear wall lower trim ( Passenger Compartment Carpet - End Item, Rear Wall Lower Trim, Soft Trim (Remove and Install) (tesla.com) ) to poke around and look for loose wires etc. but even with those instructions, I couldn't find all the attachment points and ended up breaking some clips and still didn't get it all the way off. I did manage to solve the rattle I was hearing by pushing it back together and I thought I'd solved the problem.

Now, listening to it more, the bass is still sort of muddy/distorted. It's hard to explain but there is something there. Even at low volumes, it's not clean bass. The problem is, I can't constantly reproduce it. I downloaded a frequency generator for my phone to see if I could isolate the specific frequencies but can't seem to reproduce it with a single tone. Playing with the fader and balance to see if it's one specific speaker doesn't seem to make a difference either. Side note - do the rear door speakers literally have zero bass?? (turn the sub down in the EQ, raise the bass, and fade to rear speakers - there are no low frequencies)

I'm comparing this to my 2020 Model Y Performance. It seems to have cleaner, clearer bass. The CT seems to have more volume for sure but right now, the system in my Y sounds better. Is it possible I just have something else loose? At this point, it's the kind of thing where if I take it to service, they will listen for 5 seconds and say it sounds fine. If I had a damaged speaker or amp or something, it would be an easy replacement. I'm starting to second guess myself, but I feel like the fact that I've never had any concerns at all about the Model Y system should indicate it's not all in my head. What do you think? Is something else just loose somewhere? Am I being too picky?

Thanks!

Does it happen with BIRDS OF A FEATHER, by Billie Eilish?

 

[SeasonedTech]

I concur of the muddy distorted audio sound coming from the 200mm subwoofers. And I have confirmed it in 3 different CT’s. I’ve brought it up to service and they don’t hear it or understand what I was explaining. But there are many songs with certain bass frequencies that create that “sound” at low volumes (only from the subwoofers). Setting the left side of the EQ to 0 helps but it shouldn’t be like this. Maybe replacing the subwoofer may help ??‍ - here’s a photo from the Tesla service manual*. Oh Tesla.

*https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybe...UID-61BA0B18-6B25-4BE5-A4CC-228D78AD3828.html

 

[AO-Pete]

I kinda agree with OP, the sound system is either not awesome, or the materials in the truck don't properly support it. Right now I have some resonance from the drivers door, which I can more or less stop if I lean on it hard enough. There's something from the rear passenger area too, not traced that yet. If I end up removing panels I'll add some sound deadening to try to help with things. I tend to listen to podcasts more than music, but my normal test-track USB doesn't sound great at high volumes. It's good, maybe great for a truck, but the Meridian system in the R1T is better overall to my ear. Not as bass-y (or boomy) but better balanced.

 

[mongo]

The fact that Tesla has no Aux miniplug input for people to use their own DAC and / or music source has always kind of killed me.

Cheers

That wouldn't work for Cybertruck since it has distributed amplifiers with their own DACs, so anything you feed would be resampled.

 

[TCT2024]

Now, listening to it more, the bass is still sort of muddy/distorted. It's hard to explain but there is something there. Even at low volumes, it's not clean bass.

I’m a huge fan of the sound system but also agree with you OP. There is something less than perfect with the subwoofer, though I do have to have the volume higher than average for it to bother me.

Hard to know without hearing it myself in person but you may simply be describing the disadvantage of ported subwoofers.

Didn’t think about this but you're probably absolutely right! The issue in my CT didn’t quite sound like simple distortion (I don’t need the volume to be *that* high to notice) but this explanation makes a ton of sense.

Cybertruck's cabin seems to be uniquely well-suited to reproducing a dynamic soundstage, compared to any other truck I've been in, even one with high-dollar custom audio done by mobile audio professionals.

Totally agree. The crispness of the speakers combined with the soundstage is stunning! If not for the woofer issue, I’d give it a perfect 10/10.

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