B&W Sound System in Ultimate model - very poor

[Marmaduke]

I'm now three weeks into my new 2024 XC90 Ultimate.

I'm still learning lots about how to operate it, with lots of delving into the 'manual' in the app... Oh, for a paper version! "Just use search" I hear you say. Well, I don't want to search for something specific, just wander through it randomly in front of the TV, stopping off where something catches my eye... I used to learn a lot from manuals that way, in the old days before companies scrapped paper manuals, claiming they were saving the planet.

I spent a lot of time trying to get the 'top of the range' sound system settings right. I just can't get a proper stereo picture and balance between L and R sound where I'm sitting in the driving position. My 2016 Landrover Discovery had a far better system than this B&W one. In the Discovery, I could move the whole sound stage to the left or right, so that the sound coming out of the L and R door speakers were biased to the right, i.e. giving a perfect L and R sound balance to the driver. The B&W system has no such control. I can highlight 'driver' in one of the settings and that just makes the right speaker louder and the left speaker hardly discernable at all, even if I lean right over to the left past the middle console (not whilst driving, of course...)

I think I've exhausted every permutation of sound setting, but just thought I'd post here in case someone had stumbled across anything that might help.