Ok, this is a stupid thread so I called it out. A few of you have asked me a few times already about what the noise level & such is between a Phantom and an Audi A8L. First and foremost, I've dodged this question for the longest time because it's such a stupid comparison due to the price delta between the cars. However, it has been on the back of my mind for a while so I figured, what the hell.

I can tell you what I objectively measure and what I subjectively feel, but I will start by saying that I adore my D5, as like everyone on this planet knows, and I'm happy with the Phantom and came from the Ghost. Too soon to tell if I keep the Phantom but anyway, I have to declare my bias.

Objectively, this is where things go off the deep end and I had to start pulling really old information to even be able to let my brain comprehend what I measured. At idle and WOT, yes, the Phantom is quite a bit quieter, but at 150kph, the D5 is quieter. To be clear, my D5 runs on the OE 7 year old Good Year Eagle AS tires with acoustic foam. The Range Rover and Phantom run on OE 21"s (smallest one can option). The Phantom has 300 pounds of noise insulation AND the acoustic laminated glass is very thick, even when compared to the D5. Yes, tarmac matters. I'm driving on the same road, about 30 minutes apart, in the same weather condition with the HVAC off. I'm splitting hairs, but at best I can say the two cars have the same noise levels and at worse maybe the D5 inches ahead?...so, my brain refuses to accept this as an answer so I turned to data.

Edmunds and Car And Driver *used to* do very scientific sound testing.. I know based on personal tests I did 7 years ago (I posted data here) that the LS460 is the only vehicle in the luxury segment that I have ever driven that is as quiet as the D5. The data tells me this is true. While this is old data, bear with me. Google "Edmunds "test results"" followed by cars.

At 70mph cruise:
2010 Lexus LS460 (SPORT): 58.2db - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/...50i-sport.html
2013 Audi A8L 3.0: 58.4db - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/...t-quattro.html

For fun, if you look up the 7 series and S class numbers from the time, they are all much louder than the above two vehicles. I also know the D4 is louder than the D5 so I accept based on personal testing the D5 and the LS460 is ~ the same noise wise.

Anyway, so I started to pull Rolls Royce testing but unfortunately only C&D did testing, and in 2019 at 70mph, the Cullinan clocked in at 60db. https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews...y-the-numbers/
The FULL EV Spectre clocked in at 63db -https://www.caranddriver.com/rolls-royce/spectre

The Cullinan and the Phantom share the same architecture. I'm not willing to accept a Cullinan and a Phantom are the same noise levels, nor is it appropriate to compare testing across two magazines (not the same road, not the same conditions), but objectively, we're all within the 58-60db mark.

The other piece is...what if I got new tires on the D5? That'll be tested in a few years....

Surprised? I sure am.

Now onto ride quality - this is totally subjective and it wasn't until after my 'testing' did I start pulling comments from reviewers. My own opinions are exactly mirrored by others which I'll link below.

The Phantom actually doesn't really glide over bumps. It pummels them into submission. It's...last I checked, 6000 pounds or so. On the highway, it...just...destroys everything on the road, but within town and especially on smaller bumps which is like every single piece of asphalt around me right now, the secondary motion just isn't as well controlled. On specific road surfaces with fairly moderately sized imperfections, the D5 makes those completely go away. I can hear it vis a vis tire noise, but I can't feel it. On the Phantom, I can indeed feel it especially thuds from larger potholes (due to the mass of the car and the wheel weight). So on the highway, the Phantom and D5 are close, but in the city especially given the Phantom's weight, the D5 wins.

https://d2km96w3x5blkf.cloudfront.ne...royce/phantom?
https://www.whatcar.com/rolls-royce/...n/review/n131?

So there you go. tl;dr, save your money The A8's lighter weight, sleeker profile & better aerodynamics coupled with smaller wheels is not that far off or is in some ways better than a super duper heavy Rolls Royce Phantom which uses brute force, insulation, and technology to try and make itself the best car in the World. The differences between the two cars are much smaller than you might think though!

 

The aerodynamics and drag coefficient play a huge role in determining how quiet the inside of the car is at higher speeds. So, it is not surprising to me that the D5 is quieter than the Phantom at 150kmh. The D5 is much sleeker than the Phantom. The Rolls is a rolling luxury status symbol, and that, to me is the opposite of what the D5 is as a purely understated performance beast, and obviously not as luxurious as the Rolls, but still considered a luxury sedan.
I have had many clients I advised in my past career, who used to buy a new Rolls every year or so. For them, it was not a question of making rational buy decisions, because there is really nothing rational in the purchase of a Rolls unless you are buying a collectible one; they are not competing with a normal car, but rather private jets, fine high-end art, yachts, jewelry etc....People buy them because they can and they want to, and my take on this, do what makes you happy. Life is too short. Enjoy life to the max.

 

Thank you for the insigths! I did a lot of test driving other cars and came to the same conclusion. The Maextro S800 got closest to the A8 but the seats were not large enough.

Two questions:
- The A8 has three rubber lips around the interior of the front door to block noise. Other cars I have looked at got two at the most. What about your Phantom?
- How compares the haptic feeling, like leather quality/backing of seats and door fittings?

 

3 but remember the doors open backwards relative and there's no comparison. The parts and such on the Phantom are light years ahead of the D5

 

I have a professional dB meter and I performed my own test of my 2023 S8 vs. 2018 S560. I drove the exact same 1 mile stretch of smooth interstate. I drove in the same lane for both tests. I put the cars into cruise control at 70 mph.

Both cars registered 58-60 dB of noise. It's not really possible to get a single digit number because noise levels fluctuate constantly and the meters are very sensitive.

The only difference I could tell between the 2 cars was that the majority of the noise for the Mercedes was wind, while most of the noise for my Audi was tire hum. I recently got new tires from Audi and they gave me a bad set, but refused to replace them when I turned around 60 seconds after leaving the dealer and I told them I had bad tire hum. They refused to believe me, so I was stuck with crap tires.

I think if I had a proper set of tires on the Audi, it might register a little lower on the dB meter.

 

Yeah the S8s are noisy. For one similar comparison, C&D did a test of the D4 4.2 V8 and it was 62 or 64db or something at 70mph. The link can be found somewhere online. The article was comparing the A8 and the 7 series at the time and I remember it standing out to me because of how much noisier it was, even at cruise vs the 3.0 V6 A8 (58db~)

It's actually very hard to do semi professional noise testing - one has to buy an ANSI calibrated sound meter (weighted A). Then, for example, the arm holding the DBmeter has to be suspended / e.g. elbows not touching anything. I hold mine in the air with nothing touching my arm in between the two front headrests. HVAC off. No jacket on (noise), same road, and I go as fast as I can, which, in my neck of the woods is 148kph. 2 more over and I lose my car, get my license suspended and get a $10,000 fine...so no, I'm not going above 150kph

The W222 was surprisingly noisy to me. It was equally noisy as the 5LS (present gen LS500). I expected it to be quieter, but nope. It was on par with the Genesis G90 (last gen) but if memory serves me right, the W222 came with run flats. (like the 5LS, and unlike the G90)

 

You asked a very important question that has had my mind going non-stop since then.

Those of you familiar with home construction will know that the weakest part of insulating a house are going to be the windows. You can have R 40 in the walls if you want and R80 in the Attic but the weakest part of insulating a house is going to be the windows. I keep on wondering what is going on with the problem of diminishing returns as the price of the car goes up and the goal of reducing noise seems fleeting at best.

Fundamentally speaking the vast majority of noise of any car will come from glass. Many cars now have acoustic windshields including many mainstream household automobiles. A smaller section of cars now have acoustic side Glass which we find on our cars. But then after that what can an automaker do.

You can throw as much insulation as you want in a door but there are thickness maximums there and if you go and throw a ton of insulation there it won't matter because noise comes from glass.

I think this is why cullinan and other large SUVs simply are still noisy relatively speaking at high speeds because there's just so much surface area to try and kill noise wise.

So if you think about the Delta between a Mercedes C-Class and an Audi A8 yes the noise Delta is massive and I've owned both and I can attest to that. But after that you can pay for a car that is four times as expensive as an A8 but you're not getting a car that is even 30% quieter and that's because of the glass.

I think I may have made a mistake or two along the way in my purchasing of cars 🤣😭

PS - at some point I need to measure the thickness of acoustic laminated glass between the cars I own but even then I have no doubt the law of diminishing returns is a bitch.

 

I've had a lot of time on my hands, and have been parsing through a lot of feedback from fellow AW members on here about my strange....love affair with the D5 and what I should and shouldn't do with it. Some of the feedback was critical and made me introspect, so I finally figured out what's what.

If you objectively asked me what is it about the D5 that makes me pause, I couldn't tell you 3 weeks ago. I think I finally have figured it out. I've been trying to find a next 'daily' sedan and have hit wall after wall, and to make a long story short, here's my learning.

I don't think the vast majority of large German executive sedan owners realize how close the D5 comes to the Ghost or Phantom. The difference between a Camry and an S class is huge. The difference between an A8 and a Ghost / Phantom is marginal. I think this is why I have such a love affair for the D5.

The D5 isn't flashy. It's not the inside of a 1970s strip club (S class). It's fairly boring, fairly mundane, but well put together, well screwed, and well executed. This realization for me was the epiphany. The difference between an A8 (or Flying Spur) and a Ghost is...actually not large. - noise, isolation, ride quality, sound system (B&O wins, by a mile vs bespoke Audio IMHO)...

So yeah, it's what, 3 years of me going on and on and on about this... - I just realized it! I think this is why I like the RR products, but I love the A8. If you are holding onto or cherish your A8 and you haven't driven a Rolls Royce product, you can rest be assured knowing you're getting a lot of car.

-Meh cars I'm exploring next. W223 Maybach. Ghost (had one before but...eh). BMW 7...eh. Just a lot of eh cars one after the other. More modern than the D5? Sure - the D5 is almost 7 years old now. But better built? Mercedes and BMW have nothing on Audi on build quality.

 

Noise noise noise...The simplest fix to make a car quiet is to crank up the volume of the music you like to listen to, and enjoy it. Voila...

 

I believe the A8/S8 are slightly more quiet than the S class on the highway, it just requires a good set of tires on the Audi. I measured my S560 vs S8 on a dB meter and they measured the same. But the noise in the Mercedes was wind noise. The noise in my Audi was tire hum from a bad set of tires the dealer sold me. Put good tires on my Audi, I think it will measure lower dB vs. the Mercedes. Maybe 2-3 dB lower is my estimation.