The Bowers & Wilkins audio system in a 2010 Jaguar XF I recently tested ranks as one of the best high-end stock audio options available. What I appreciate about the system (and previous non-B&W system in other Jags) is it gives you three ways to listen to music.
In the Sound menu are three touch-screen tabs for stereo, three-channel and Dolby ProLogic II. While they all have their advantages and disadvantages -- and it comes down to personal taste -- only one passed our test for accurate soundstaging and imaging.
I use test tracks from the International Auto Sound Challenge Associations' Sound Quality Reference CD. One track features seven drumbeats that are designed to march across the dash left to right at equal intervals in order to judge soundstaging and imaging, and the fourth drumbeat should be dead-center.
With the stereo setting, drumbeats 1-3 and 5-7 were stuck on one side of the dash, near the left and right dash speaker (and it sounded like the center-channel speaker was inactive). The Dolby ProLogic II setting creates a wider soundstage, but the first and last drumbeats were also squashed to one side. But with the three-channel setting, the drumbeats were precisely placed across the dash.
While no one is going to drive around listening to drumbeats to assess the accuracy of their sound system's staging, if a system can accurately reproduce this test, then it will make any well-recorded music sound better. And with the B&W system in the Jag XF, you can listen the way you like.
Doug Newcomb, Senior Editor, Technology
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