'Active Sound Design', is that the real sound?...

[calster17]

"Active Sound Design", that's the marketing name BMW have given there system which reproduces the sound of the engine, and pumps it into the cabin via speakers. Meaning that in the car you hear the growl of the engine, but outside the engine is actually much more quiet to keep things politically correct...I mean not anti-social.

The feature is in the current gen of M5 as I'm sure most of you know, as well as in the current 135i. (I don't know about the M6 range, feel free to add if it does). But similar ideas are likely to catch on with other manufactures for there sporty cars.

 

What's everyone's take on this? See it as dimming down the experience? A great idea? or not really care?

 

I'm leaving my opinion for another post, just so the topic at hand doesn't seem biased to one side or the other.

[berindea]

It's an interesting thing, but in my oppinion it just doesn't cut it for some models.Okey, the M5 is not a biggy, the car is a sports luxury saloon, it's supposed to be luxurious, but when you want that extra grunt, it's a button away, it's a good idea, I don't think you want your wife/kids to be "bothered" by the V8 sound all the time.But in some cars it would be just plain retarded, for example:

Can you imagine a V12 Ferrari being cut down on "real" noise just for comforts sake?

It's not much to talk about, but in my oppinion, it's only suitable for a small range of cars, and honestly, I have a few friends who own loud and powerful sport sedans, not one of them is complaining about their car having a spirited exhaust note, it's WHY you buy a big petrol engined car and not a diesel...

 

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It's an interesting thing, but in my oppinion it just doesn't cut it for some models.Okey, the M5 is not a biggy, the car is a sports luxury saloon, it's supposed to be luxurious, but when you want that extra grunt, it's a button away, it's a good idea, I don't think you want your wife/kids to be "bothered" by the V8 sound all the time.But in some cars it would be just plain retarded, for example:

Can you imagine a V12 Ferrari being cut down on "real" noise just for comforts sake?

It's not much to talk about, but in my oppinion, it's only suitable for a small range of cars, and honestly, I have a few friends who own loud and powerful sport sedans, not one of them is complaining about their car having a spirited exhaust note, it's WHY you buy a big petrol engined car and not a diesel...

BTW, the M6 has it aswell.

[The Compensator]

Meaning that in the car you hear the growl of the engine, but outside the engine is actually much more quiet to keep things politically correct...I mean not anti-social.

 

It is the exact opposite imho. You definitely hear the engine and exhaust more outside, but since the cabin was designed to be very quiet you can't hear the engine/exhaust at all so BMW had to bring the noise to the passengers. Almost every car manufacturer is doing that nowadays - Peugeot, Ford, Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG (911, Cayenne), Lexus and so on. Sometimes it is a simple channel going from the engine to the cabin (case of older Pugs) or more complicated things (see Pork). You can turn down the symposer by putting the car into comfort mode.

 

As long as it is only a system that enhances the real noise I don't mind it. But, and that's a big but(t), BMW has clearly gone more cheaper and artificial way. The problem is, as we know, that they recorded the sound of the engine, tweaked it a bit obviously and put it into the car's software. So what you're hearing is about 40 % real deal and the rest is fake-ish real deal. Do you want a BMW that plays a fake noise? No. Does the M5 sound bad inside the cabin? No.

 

I wonder why BMW didn't want to design a system like Porsche's for their new cars even though they had this sort of thing in the old Z4 3.0si several years ago. It wouldn't be that ridiculous and would do the job equally good or better. Maybe money was really the object. By the way, not only the M5/M6, M135i, M550d do have the ASD - in late 2011 they started putting it into the Z4 roadsters, then F12/F13 640d and will probably continue in this in the future. According to realoem.com other cars seem to not have it, not even facelifted 5 Series, 7 Series, 3 GT etc. The new X5 is still not listed on realoem, though.

 

As we know, you can plug it off but it also disables the whole sound system including radio, bluetooth and whatnot (does not apply to Bang & Olufsen in the M5 and M6)... HOWEVER, some German M5 owner has found out that there are probably options in the car software where you can change the reproduced sound so it can play some diesel N57 noise!

 

In my opinion, the whole ASD thingy is totally stupid. Specially in M cars.

[Fear Deer]

Don't know how it works in other bmw, but in the M550d apparently it amplifies the exhaust note according to what I've read, which can be true since the interior sound is a bit like what we hear from the exhaust.

 

However it's not always there. My dad was at 220km/h, on a private road eerr..ofc, and you couldn't hear the engine at all. It was at around 4000rpm iirc (around that) and all you could hear really were the tires, and I'm not exaggerating. We were in Comfort mode. In comfort mode you only hear the engine / ASD sounds during accelerations, for the most part. If you are gently accelerating or just cruising the cabin noise is just tire noise at basically any rpm.

 

However, in Sport mode it's a different story. I don't know about Sport + as my dad never uses it. In Sport mode you always hear engine sound inside the cabin, even if you are not accelerating, and it's much louder. Gives a much more muscly personality to the car.

I don't think it's such a terrible idea, but it depends on how it's done.