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In Reply to: RE: Why Lexus is more fun than you think...yes this is audio posted by MannyE on October 18, 2016 at 04:36:21
"...someone over at Lexus with considerable power must have been a tape head. "Nah, it's called catering to their ancient and bland market demographic. Only in recent years have Lexus tried to refresh their image with their over the top boy racer front facia. ;-)
BMW iPhone & iPod integration. No CDs. No tapes. No mess
Stream over the 4G LTE cellular data network or play stored music
Streaming Amazon Music
Streaming Pandora
Playing uncompressed files stored locally on the iDevice
Streaming the news
Streaming Business news
Streaming more news
Edits: 10/18/16 10/18/16Follow Ups:
I read an article quoting an exec at Toyota as saying Toyota maintained the tape player for so long because because there was a significant portion of their customer base that listened to books on tape.
I love Lexus/Toyota in general. Their trucks in particular are the finest in the world seen everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Reliable, safe, and overbuilt their resale value reflects their reliability. Look at how fast a BMW or Mercedes depreciate compared to a Toyota/Lexus. That alone speaks volumes about the quality of the vehicle. (I own Benz e550 too; I appreciate the vehicle for what it is: a toy.)
I call it the crab mouth. Remember how the Predator's mouth looked in the movie. I think that's where they drew their "inspiration". Deciding not to sit listlessly on it's laurels, Nissan has taken the leap with its new Maxima to try and one up Lexus by having the grill within the grill look,thus recalling the original Alien with its jaws inside the jaws look.
Next time you see one of these cars on the street, especially the Maxima (cuz the look is newer), see if you don't catch my drift here.
Preditor was one of my favorite Arnold movies. I see the ressemblance. I'll have to keep my eyes open for the new Maxima.
I think Audi started it all if I'm not mistaken. They were one of the first to 'big mouth' on their grills. ;-) I called it the giant grouper look.
That big Audi grill reminds me of the gaping maw of the baleen whale as it feeds on krill.
I think they all meet in the same secret room Hillary uses to meet with world bankers (the ones that are plotting out downfall) to laugh at us for buying these cars with ridiculous grills.
They are all mad at Cadillac for not playing along...
...on my 2015 BMW 535i Harman Kardon sound system I plug in my iPod with 6700 songs in Lossless for road trips.The album cover shows on the screen as it plays.
And surprisingly, the Audioquest Cinnamon USB to iPod cable made a big difference in the sound quality.
I haven't seen a cassette tape in years - next someone will retrofit a Muntz 8-track player.
Edits: 10/18/16 10/18/16
Don't know about Manny, but I'd rather have tunes playing for trips. :)
There are times when I want to be deeply engaged in the driving experience with exhaust note and such. But on cross country freeway road trips on cruise control, it's nice to have easy access to thousands of tunes w/o fumbling for physical media.
2015 BMW has a more recent infotainment / cellular 4G LTE telematics system than my 2013. BMW is retrofitting my 2013 with the newer system free of charge. Otherwise, many of the telematics features will no longer be supported in the older setup. They gave me a choice of a $300 gift card or the retrofit upgrade. That was a no brainer. One of the reasons I bought the car with the optional 'technology package' was for the extended telematics and infotainment features. They will start retrofitting older vehicles in early 2017.
Wow! That's pretty cool actually. I have never heard of a car company doing that. I can only guess people started balking at multi-thousand dollar nav/stereo systems that were obsolete in the first few months of ownership (example.. the very expensive Lexus ML stereo with navigation) and stopped getting them. An upgrade path is one way to remedy that situation.
I believe certain features like automatic crash notification, service interval notifications to the dealer, sending navigation information to the car's onboard GPS via Google Maps on a PC, and 'connected drive' features would stop working. Connected Drive gets me realtime weather, news, messages, and some other features. My iPhone BMW Remote App would stop working too including features like lock the doors, flash the headlights, honk the horn, and locate the car on the map.
Those are capabilities I paid extra for in the technology package and it wouldn't be right for BMW to abandon customers who paid for this capability. I'm sure it's costing them a lot more to do the retrofit than the $300 gift card offer they proposed. If you accept the gift card, you also accept the fact that you lose all the cool technology features.
$300 is what the Lexus dealer charges to say "hello." I'm sure it's much the same at Bavarian Motor Werkes.
I'm sure if you went in to have that work done out of warranty it's 4 figures for sure.
That cassette in the picture cost less than a nickle considering the amount of great cassettes that were in the box the thrift lady said, "5 bucks...get that thing outta here" I have owned that car for 7 years and never thought of popping a cassette in there.
This morning the garbage men were all dancing when I played Rock the Casbah (did i spell that right?) and I was pleasantly surprised that the sound wasn't awful, like I thought it would be. All I remember from cassettes is that horrible hiss.
But the point was to relax and have fun. OF COURSE modern auto music solutions are better. OF COURSE there are literally millions of songs available at the touch of a button or through voice control and OF COURSE they sound great.
Do you want to come over an tell my kids Santa isn't real? Maybe we can add on that they won't have as much opportunity for a good job to the mix? Oh! I know! Let's also mention global warming will probably sink their inheritance of Miami Beach property into the ocean. :)
I was just taking this opportunity to take a stab at Lexus! Toyota is an extremely conservative company IMHO but it's worked for them for many years. Fact of the matter is, they made awesome cars that are supremely more reliable than most.
You BMW guys are just pissed the LS is faster than the 740 (750? I can't keep up with numbers anymore) :)
Those interested in performance don't buy 7-series BMW. That is for the luxury oriented crowd much like Lexus. Decent performance but more oriented towards ride comfort, personal luxury.
The 7-series have always been the cruise liner (tugboat?) of BMW cars. ;-)
comes within 0.02 G lateral cornering capability and 1 second 0 to 60 time with the LS460 - for half the price. :)
;-)
...most don't realize that iPhone & iPod integration mean a direct digital connection from the iDevice to the car's audio/infotainment system. The internal DAC and analog stage within the iDevice are completely bypassed for better sound quality. It is merely a digital transport to the car's DAC.
Add thousands of uncompressed music files (in my case mostly 16/44.1 CD rips) along with easy access via voice commands, steering wheel controls, visuals on the Nav screen, and you have a very convenient setup.... that sounds great!
CarPlay and Android Auto take it up a significant notch in newer cars. My system is designed by the auto maker and they are all having a hard time keeping up. The smart auto makers are adopting CarPlay and Android Auto (by Apple and Google).
I'm an old Baby Boomer audiophile who loves using a similar Apple Play integration / external USB drive with my new Ridgeline. I have quick access to all of my 900 odd albums in addition to any streaming service.
With a push of the button on the steering wheel, I can ask Siri most anything. :)
My 2007 Ridgeline has a pretty good sounding sound system in it - for an auto.
It's decent SQ for the car.
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