S5 SB Engine Sound
 

Hi all,

I test drove the S5 this weekend and love the engine sound, best is when it downshift, forgot the ask the dealer if this is real engine sound or simulated ?

Thank you,

Both. There is a "soundaktor" attached to the firewall that uses the windshield as a speaker diaphragm and pumps in some artificial engine noise. It's possible to disable this device by pulling a fuse or controlling the volume level by using an ODBII device to set a parameter in the control module.

I turned it off completely for a while and the difference was very subtle. Basically these cars are so quiet on the inside and insulated from outside noise that it sounds a little unnatural. I think they choose to pump in some engine noise in order to make it seem more natural and provide a little feedback on what the engine is doing. Audi (and VW) claim that the sound is resonated engine noises, implying that it's just an amplification of the natural engine sound, but that's pure marketing bunk. The sound is artificial and fed from a digital source into the soundaktor the same way audio signals are fed into a normal loudspeaker. The primary difference between this system and others that pump fake engine noise through the entertainment system is that the diaphragm that is actually generating the sound waves is actually part of the structure of the car, and it happens to be the same structure that already transmits the natural engine sounds.

Great explanation about how the soundakator works!

Thank you for the detail explaination.

What fuse did you pull to disable this system?

Thanks,
Ken

Any evidence of this?

Which is exactly why I opted for the S5. Loved everything about the C43, except that interior. AudiCare also played a roll. What's not to love about a 1% bump in residual? The interior was much better in the S5. Maybe after they refresh the C43 this year, it'll be on par.

great info- how did you turn off the Soundaktor?

I didn't pull the fuse, I used OBDeleven to set the volume parameter to 0%. Drove that way for about a week and then reset it back to 100% where I've left it ever since.

The control module has a self test feature which causes the soundaktor to go through a frequency sweep from low to high. You can rally hear both the tones that it is capable of as well as the volume it can produce. There are some cool youtube videos where people take soundaktors from an car and re-purpose them as low quality audio speakers by holding the resonator against some solid object.

Yes - the self test function in the soundaktor module. It's very clear that the source of the signal is digital and not a mechanical resonation from the engine as the VW marketing implies. In other words, it is not amplifying existing noises, it is digitally adding to them via a separate mechanical resonator. Since both the engine and the soundaktor will resonate sound through the firewall they are able to get away with this marketing slight of hand.

I haven't gone so far as to test this, but it would be pretty simple to just clip some leads to the soundaktor itself and hook up a standard loudspeaker in parallel to it. Use a long speaker cable and place the speaker far enough away from the car and you would clearly hear what sound is being added in.