Burmester sound system option

[OzzieT]

When I was ordering my Taycan GTS, one of the decisions to make was which sound system? The included system in the GTS was the Bose and the expensive option was the Burmester. After reading lots of posts on the taycanforum and viewing a number of videos, I decided to go with the Burmester. Unfortunately at the time of order there were no Taycan’s in Sydney with a Burmester that I could view or try out, and I could not find a set of photos which detailed the look inside the car. If you are in this situation then please read on, as I’ve now taken delivery of my GTS.

APPEARANCE

Front Door:
You can see from the photo there are two speaks in each front door. The first speaker is in the middle of the door above the handle with no logo. The second speaker is at the base of the door behind the storage bin with a logo. I don’t like the mix and match here, one has a plastic cover no logo and the other a metal cover with logo. They should look the same. I don’t like the polished metal, better with a mat finish. The speakers have no backlight capability unfortunately. The Burmester brand in italics looks medieval in a modern EV Porsche. So the aesthetics aren’t the best. Then in the second photo you can see the design snafu. Rather than the speaker being recessed in a fitted way into the storage bin facade, it is actually recessed behind it and about one third of the speaker is below the top of the facade. This is very disappointing from an appearance perspective, and while I’m not a sound engineer, I have no doubt the sound experience is impacted.

Rear Door:
The rear door is similar to the front door, however we are losing a bit more of metal covered speaker behind the storage bin facade.

Rear Shelf:
There are four speakers on the rear shelf, you can see the two left side speakers in a single plastic enclosure with no logo.

Front Dash Side:
There is a speaker on each side of the front dash, in plastic with logo.

Front Dash Centre:
There is a speaker in the centre of the dash, in plastic with no logo.

Front Pillar Speaker:
There is a speak in each front pillar, in plastic, a slightly lighter colour of grey than the other plastic speakers, with no logo.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT
The Burmester sounds great, I’m glad I bought the option. I’m using a USBC connector and USB drive with my music cut at 320kbs. I’m also using Spotify which worked seamlessly once registered. I’ve tried recording a video of the sound experience but it does not come through. Subwoofer (no photo) output is terrific, mid range seems very good and there is no distortion at high volume. The controls are very simple, with four different modes (I have mine on Pure), a 3D spatial effect (off) and bass (+2) and treble (+1) adjustment. I don’t mind that as I have no idea how to tune an equalizer.

Is the Burmester the best sounding premium car sound system I’ve experience, no. I would rate the Bang & Olufsen and Bowers & Wilkins Diamond from my past two BMW’s more highly. Is it the best looking premium car sound system, no. In fact the mix and match of styles, materials, colours and poor recessing of some of the speakers is a big disappointment - for the money we’re being asked to paying - in my case $8000 (=USD 5500, =EUR 4900, =GBP 4200).

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[rim23]

I also have burmester. What disappoints me most is the poor vibration suppression. I could fixed most of the rattles but it’s so disappointing there are still some. The only way to fix that is a full disassembly of the doors, which I don’t have time for.

 

[Bao1303]

Also have Burmester and agree with your assessment. Best OEM Ive had was B&O in a Q7. That was really good but also quite a bit more expensive than even the Burmester. Also have B&W in my X5, cheaper than Burm. But better. Now I must say that I haven't experienced the full potential in the Taycan due to design or assembly mistakes. I have dismantled the doors and there is an issue with all drivers mounted directly in the panels. There is not enough clearance between membrane suspension and the doorpanel, so at high volume, the membranes will actually touch the support base and distort horribly. Dont know if its a general design flaw or if they changed supplier of panels with bad tolerance. I have another post with pics. Describing the issue. I have fixed the above issues, but still the doorpanels themselves are to soft an rattles. Download frequency sweeps from spotify 30-100Hz in steps of 5 hz, use the fader to direct sound to the individual (more or less) and experience how bad it is esp. From 70-100 hz

 

[f1eng]

This is very disappointing from an appearance perspective, and while I’m not a sound engineer, I have no doubt the sound experience is impacted.

Shiny front panels are a Burmester trademark if you look at their HiFi kit.

The lower speaker in the front doors is an 8” bass unit with all Taycan audio including the standard and at frequencies of longer wavelength than twice the gap from the loudspeaker driver to the storage bin won’t be affected much, so from around 1500Hz and up, so from an acoustics pov this isn’t a problem - though it may be a small one if you fill the door bin simply reducing the area.

After years of expensive disappointment I realised the laws of acoustics guaranteed limited sound quality in a car so don’t stress over it any more.

Digital signal processing can mask a lot of the problems nowadays but there is no actual solution to the fundamental problem that the position of both the listener and the speaker drivers is inevitably always wrong for good sound.

It is polishing the turd, though DSP turd polish has come quite a long way in recent years..

 

[Jancha]

Burmester was in itself great, however the resonating door panels, trim, even the rear mid seat and shelf, made it unbearable. Especially when you have some vocal focused song with a strong bass. As suggested, use the tone gen to identify the weak spots, around 100hz its especially horrible. Dealer said it’s normal ?‍ now driving with bose, which is actually quite good, and I would pay less attention to the rattles as the expectations are much lower (its in 911 though).

 

[Winterfell]

Shiny front panels are a Burmester trademark if you look at their HiFi kit.

The lower speaker in the front doors is an 8” bass unit with all Taycan audio including the standard and at frequencies of longer wavelength than twice the gap from the loudspeaker driver to the storage bin won’t be affected much, so from around 1500Hz and up, so from an acoustics pov this isn’t a problem - though it may be a small one if you fill the door bin simply reducing the area.

After years of expensive disappointment I realised the laws of acoustics guaranteed limited sound quality in a car so don’t stress over it any more.

Digital signal processing can mask a lot of the problems nowadays but there is no actual solution to the fundamental problem that the position of both the listener and the speaker drivers is inevitably always wrong for good sound.

It is polishing the turd, though DSP turd polish has come quite a long way in recent years..

Thank you

 

[RAHRCR]

The best factory audio I’ve ever heard is in my wife’s Volvo XC90. The Taycan audio systems dont get close. The biggest difference I suspect is that car audio in an ICE vehicle is free to be heavy and draw massive amperage as needed. Not the case in an EV. If I had it to do all over again, I would get the Burmester….not because it’s great or worth the money but because it is indeed better than the Bose.

 

[CAGCTG]

I have a Burmester in my Carrera and a BOSE in my new Taycan GTS. The Taycan BOSE is far and away better and also better than any other Bose I’ve owned. I think they upped their game for the Taycan.

 

[SergeyIndy]

I drove Taycan loaners with Bose and thought it was terrific and much better than my Bose in a Cayanne. Optioned BM for my own Taycan and to me it is the best sound in a car for XM or 320kbps from external source, but I have nothing to compare it to since I did not own anything else with a premium sound system. I am not noticing any distortion or rattles when listening to it. Bottom line probably would have been totally happy with Bose but did not want to wonder what it would have been if I had the BM, since I was going all out on the Taycan with no compromises.

 

[Rik_CT4s]

I also have burmester. What disappoints me most is the poor vibration suppression. I could fixed most of the rattles but it’s so disappointing there are still some. The only way to fix that is a full disassembly of the doors, which I don’t have time for.

Is it difficult to remove the trim (I have the carbon strips). They rattle badly on some songs. Need to take them off and do something about the vibration.

 

[D00notD00d]

Love Burmester in my Cayenne, with fade biased to the rear, so more of the mids and tops appear to come from the front. It makes you want to listen to music - it’s a great solo road trip car, with the volume cranked up. In comparison the Bose in my Taycan is just, meh.

 

[jk981]

How does the Burmester system compare to an aftermarket audio installation? For the price of the Burmester upgrade, you could probably get a fairly high end system to replace the Bose speakers, as well as decent amps, EQ/DSP, and sound deadening for the doors.

Does the burmester have any sort of time alignment for the driver's position? Having a properly done time alignment is transformative on any sound system in a car.

 

[RSouthern]

Is it difficult to remove the trim (I have the carbon strips). They rattle badly on some songs. Need to take them off and do something about the vibration.

I have the same problem although I also get rattling on rough roads, but only when it's cold outside. Please take pics and share you experience with removing the carbon trim since I've been working with my dealer and have had the car in twice to try and fix but it's still happening on cold mornings. I'd love to get this rattle resolved!

 

[ct14garage]

Burmester is great no doubt. Auro 3D is magical.

But the value isn't that great... Extremely overpriced.

You can achieve nearly the same audio quality (and even better!) by going aftermarket. Grab a solid set of speakers like GROUND ZERO or even FOCAL (if you’ve got a bigger budget). Pair them with a powerful DSP and carefully tune it to mimic Burmester’s Auro 3D signature mainly by adjusting rear channel delays to trick your brain into perceiving vertical height in the soundstage. That’s Burmester’s (not so secret anymore) sauce.

You end up with audio very very similar to Burmester at a fraction of the price.

Same story with PCCB brakes. Unless you’re hammering the car on track every day, there’s zero reason to pay Porsche/Brembo prices. There are high-quality carbon ceramics out there that perform just as well on the street for way less money!

 

[RSouthern]

Just to add to the overall conversation about the Burmester option in the Taycan. I have to say that I'm overall a bit disappointed with it. Bear in mind that I'm comparing the Taycan Burmester implementation to the one I had in my Mercedes: Burmester 3D (in a 2015 S550). In the MB, the sound was richer and fuller. There was a sub in each footwell and a full range speaker pod in the headliner, as well as all the other usual places - I think that system has 30+ speakers and some ridiculous power rating. It just sounded better (and I really miss it), regardless of the source (USB, Bluetooth, XM or terrestrial radio) and DVDs sounded fantastic! I would really zone out on the drive home to some Dark Side of the Moon. You would lose yourself in the music, it was so immersive. I can't do that in the Taycan (I have the sound reducing glass and the Burmester) - same roads, same music, same source (USB).

I think the Burmester is better than the Bose, I've always felt that Bose is more about the bass and the highs can be too "bright" for my ears. It's not bad, it's just not good either. I wish that there was a way to improve the Taycan's Burmester implementation up to MB levels. Porsche has a quiet platform to build from, but maybe power and weight are limits and this is as good as they could reasonably get? Great but not fantastic.

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