2018 B&O Play System

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troverman

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I hear they are also deleting the ability to decide what color your ambient lighting will be.

I've heard this too...

But depending upon what color they choose, I wouldn't be unhappy. Most of the available colors were garish and clashing. In my 2017 Super Duty, I always chose the darker blue (not ice blue)...which added some contrast without being awful like red, pink, or orange.
 

PyroRaptor413

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I've heard this too...

But depending upon what color they choose, I wouldn't be unhappy. Most of the available colors were garish and clashing. In my 2017 Super Duty, I always chose the darker blue (not ice blue)...which added some contrast without being awful like red, pink, or orange.

I change my ambient lighting all the time. I seem to have good luck at the casinos when I change the lighting to money green for the trip.
 

troverman

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I change my ambient lighting all the time. I seem to have good luck at the casinos when I change the lighting to money green for the trip.

Oh, I'm sure some people do...that's cool.

The other thing with ambient lighting is that it was installed into vehicles almost 20 years ago by higher-end European brands (Mercedes, etc). They would only use one color that could not be changed, and it would match the color of the dash lighting. The intensity could also not be altered, and it was subdued. The Americans added ambient lighting quite a while later, and in the usual way of being over the top (think Cadillac Escalade) they allowed many colors which were not subtle and different intensities.

I haven't been in a modern high-end Euro car in a few years; maybe they allow color changes now.

But its all good...
 
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lawdog

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Just picked up my 2018 SCREW Saturday...still playing with the B&O on various sources, etc. Will give it a week or so to break in and then report back. I know you'll all be waiting with bated breath...so far, I'm not that impressed.
 

SilverBolt

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Pick mine up yesterday. It's tolerable for me. Much better than the JBL system that my Toyota came with. It doesn't come close to the B&O systems in the high end Audi's and such but I do think it is an improvement over the Sony.
 

vitaminR

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There is a HUGE difference in the output based on the source.

Sirius < FM < FMHD < Bluetooth < CarPlay (wired)

Haven't tried a CD yet because I can't even find one at my house right now. LOL

I get the best sound so far out of my iPhone when in CarPlay mode playing off Apple Music with the EQ on the phone set to rock. YMMV
 

troverman

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Pick mine up yesterday. It's tolerable for me. Much better than the JBL system that my Toyota came with. It doesn't come close to the B&O systems in the high end Audi's and such but I do think it is an improvement over the Sony.

Wouldn't take too much to beat the Sony, lol.

It's interesting, years back Ford had an exclusive contract with JBL to do the sound systems on their high trim level vehicles. I can remember my 1996 Explorer Limited had the Ford/JBL system with 4 door speakers (maybe two-way?) plus a 6" sub in the rear. The head unit was a double-din AM/FM/Cassette (lol) plus a 6-CD changer in the front console. When listening to CD's, the sound quality was excellent. It really was much better than the modern Sony system.

I even had a 1992 Range Rover with a factory a/d/s system: AM/FM/Cassette / remote 6-CD changer; 7 speakers including a sub. Each door had its own amp and the sub had a very large stand-alone amp with a major heatsink and the sub was in its own ported wooden enclosure. That system sounded terrific! Today, I think most car makers are more concerned about head unit features (screen size, bluetooth / smartphone / USB connectivity / voice commands) than actual sound quality.

But its good to hear the B&O is an improvement, at least.
 
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lawdog

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Well, it's been two weeks, and here's my amateur review of the B&O system:

Overall, not bad, for a factory setup. I still haven't heard a Sony yet to see if it's better, but I assume so based on what others have said/what I've read.

To me, and like almost all factory systems it seems, it has way too much mid-bass bias in stock modes. This system seems to push a lot of bass to the lower speakers in the front doors, instead of the sub. If you don't address/correct this, it gets awfully muddy/boomy. Like most, its output varies greatly by input. I'm not going to fuss over Am/FM or even satellite, due to the compression/vagaries of each.

I was surprised at how little I could do with a good/well-recorded CD...making adjustments to the stock levels still couldn't mask the faults very well.

The best thing I've found, like I did on the JBL in my Tundra, is to send a pre-equalized signal from a digital source...I use my iPod Classic via USB and/or iPhone via BT. For me, I get the best results sending the "Treble Booster" EQ mode, and then adjusting from there. On the Tundra, I would switch between that and the "Rock" EQ for certain types of music, but the B&O puts too much mid-bass in the Rock EQ setting, period. When I do this, I seem to be able to get good sounding output, with more real bass coming from the sub and not the lower door speakers. It's a little disappointing overall, but it's probably good enough that I won't undertake any changes, unless a much easier sub upgrade comes down the pike. It's not as good as the Mark Levinson system I had two vehicles ago in a Lexus GX, but it's certainly not the worst, and obviously not the reason you buy the truck.

Some minor Sync/infotainment issues:

1. The inability to change modes/sources from the steering wheel...dumb, dumb, dumb. Apparently, we have the handsfree button where the mode button is on all other Ford products. Still, there should be an audio/infotainment menu in the main gauge menus, wherein you could navigate source, tracklist, etc. My wife's Mercedes does this very easily. Ford fail here.

2. The inability for scrolling through presets on radio to roll over to the next 6 presets without having to touch the nav screen...again, dumb. It's great to ahve 18 presets, but it sucks to have to reach over and touch the headunit to get to the next 6. My Tundra had like 40 presets for all you could mix how you liked and scroll through all easily. It's especially annoying on a source with many presets you actually use, like Sirius. Same for accessing HD sub-channels.

3. As pointed out above, the entire steering wheel audio control system is needlessly spartan, limited in function/benefit, and poorly thought out. Making people repeatedly take their eyes off the road to look at/touch small parts of the nav screen is a bad idea. Again, an audio menu on the main menus/display would address nearly all of this, Ford.

4. The Genres on an iPod are different/truncated on Ford's system....why? Would Apple Car Play solve that?

5. Many factory systems allow for an EQ to be set for each source...this one does not, and it's definitely not "one size fits all" for each source.

6. Like my Tundra, the Ford's radio reception, especially FM, is hampered by a device charging via USB. On many cars, this is not an issue. At least I'm used to this one.

7. When playing a playlist/through a genre when you have it set on random play, a FF click will only go to the next song on the list, not a random selection. Again, nothing major, but kind of annoying/defeats the purpose of having it set on random when you hit a song/artist you're not in the mood for.

8. System seems to "index" iPod at startup every time...I have a ton of songs on mine, so system will not let you browse beyond current track/playlist for quite a while.

9. On the plus side, it is/plays louder than the JBL on my old 2014 Tundra, so yay for that.

All said and done, I love the truck, and like the B&O...YMMV.
 
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TNMtnRaptor

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Thanks for the post. I just got mine Wednesday, and my opinion is about the same as yours; the B&O system is satisfactory, but just a little more effort would have made for a much better system. And thanks for the EQ tip; I'll try that on my iphone too.
 

ss_raptor

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what kills me about this system is how the source on sync 3 doesn't automatically change when you play something on your phone. I have other vehicles that will switch the source automatically from let's say Satellite to Media as soon as I play a song on Spotify from my phone. With sync 3 when I play a song on my phone I have to manually switch the source to media before it plays on sync 3. I've asked this question before so if I'm doing something wrong please let me know. Like everyone has mentioned it sucks navigating through all the sources on this system.
 
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