Tesla is known for being a premium luxury brand, even outside its EV capabilities. If you’re thinking of getting a Tesla or have one, you’ll naturally want to crank your favorite tunes as you autopilot down the highway, but one question remains: what are the best Tesla audio settings?
Teslas have no best audio settings, but you may wish to boost the treble and bass to start. Other than that, what settings work best for your music are purely personal preferences, and you will have to play around with the settings to find what works the best for you.
In this article, I’ll be detailing how playing audio works in a Tesla, including premium features, as well as how to personalize your equalizer settings for your perfect sound experience.
If you’re no stranger to new cars, you probably know that most cars these days are equipped with touchscreens that control their music, radio, navigation, phone calls, and various other functions. In this regard, Teslas are no different.
Teslas support FM/AM radio, internet radio, DAB (digital audio broadcasting) radio, and Bluetooth or USB audio file compatibility. This gives users a wide range of audio choices to occupy themselves while they drive, including talk shows, music, podcasts, and more.
Tesla has a few premium options that set them apart from other car brands, including Premium Connectivity, Immersive Sound, and Ultra High Fidelity Sound. While the latter two actually alter the sound, Premium Connectivity is a data plan that lets you access a cellular data network.
The most important aspects that affect audio, and music, in particular, are your equalizer settings – these include treble, bass, and mids. Anyone passingly familiar with audio will know these settings well, but not everyone knows how to take advantage of these settings.
Immersive Sound is a premium audio option for Teslas, and effectively creates a sense of audio immersion by employing delays in sound to create the illusion of the sound coming from three dimensions. This creates the sense of the music being heightened, establishing a new surround sound-like feel.
Immersive Audio can be turned off, on, and controlled in increments depending on whether your Tesla has a partial-premium package or full premium – partial-premium users only have on, off, and auto.
Immersive Sound also controls the level of reverb and echo, further enhancing audio. To access this setting, go to your Settings in the Media player and there should be a slider for Immersive Sound.
Immersive Sound may sound like it’s a good thing, and it usually is, but you may wish to turn it off under some circumstances. For example, you don’t really need immersive audio to listen to a radio talk show or podcast.
Some types of music, too, may benefit from turning the setting off, but you have to tweak the setting along with your favorite tunes to find out what best suits your needs.
Ultra-High Fidelity Sound, or UHFS, is a premium audio package available on older used Model S and X Teslas. In more recent models, including the Model 3, UHFS has been repackaged into ‘Premium Sound’ and included in every Tesla.
So, for new Teslas, this doesn’t exist. But if you’re concerned about finding a used Tesla with the best possible audio, you may want to look for one that’s equipped with UHFS. There are a number of differences between a regular Model S or X and one that has UHFS, and they make a huge difference.
Some differences include:
It’s important to know that the newer Model 3s have a totally different stereo system that doesn’t include UHFS under any name, but many people believe its audio system is superior to those packaged in Models X and S.
So if you’re in the market for a used Tesla Model X or S, ask the owners if the car has UHFS. This may also drive the price of a Tesla up too, so bear that in mind when looking: UHFS was originally between $990 and $2500, so you’ll have to consider what kind of deal you can make.
The equalizers in Teslas aren’t magically different from other equalizers, and in fact, still accomplish roughly the same thing as many early digital equalizers. Presets are available such as Hip-Hop, Rock, Bass Boost, and more.
Equalizers control how prominent different types of frequencies are within the audio. You may wish to have very loud treble (high-pitched tones) and little bass for certain situations, for instance, or vice versa. Certain types of music, too, are ideally listened to with certain equalization settings.
But first, let’s check out exactly what treble, bass, and mids do for the music you listen to.
Many prominent female vocals fall within the umbrella of treble, or high-pitched tones. Lowering treble on an equalizer may cause female vocals and other high-pitched instruments to sound muffled or hushed, while drums and other mids will overpower them. It’s critical to balance treble with mids and bass to ‘brighten’ the music – this means that the treble balances the ‘dark’ mids and bass in music.
Treble is crucial because it helps add clarity, focus, and aggression to music. Many people focus on bass for their bass-heavy music without realizing that it still won’t sound right if your treble is off.
Most sound falls under the hat of mids. The low range of mid, or low-mid, includes deeper male vocals, bass guitars, and some lower electric guitar sounds. Snare, tom-tom, and other drums usually fall here, too. A fun fact is that most hearing is focused within this range, so it’s absolutely critical you have the right balance of mids.
Electric guitar, higher male vocals, and deeper female vocals often fall under high-mid. These can be some of the most important sounds, but too much can sound brittle, peaky, or harsh.
Bass is over-emphasized in a lot of circles, especially audiophile and hip-hop communities. Bass provides music with a punchy quality that you can feel – it’s exciting to be able to feel your music in your seat, right? Well, if we’ve learned anything, it’s that balance is important, and that goes for bass too.
Too much bass can overpower the other tones in your music that help come together and make the music what it is – vocals and other instruments will sound muffled underneath the overpowering bass. For most music, a fine balance of bass is important, while others place a high value on lots of bass. It all depends on your music.
The front-back balance of your music is critical to ensuring a good listening experience for the driver as well as any passengers who may be riding in the back seat. If it’s just you as the driver in the car, setting the balance to the front may be ideal. However, if you regularly ride with other people in your Tesla, you’ll probably want to push the balance back a little so the people in the back can enjoy the music too.
Setting the best audio settings in your Tesla depends primarily on the type of music you’re listening to and what you hope to get out of your listening experience.
To access equalization settings in your Tesla, select Settings at the bottom of your Media Player.
While it’s fun to customize the way music sounds, sometimes the default is best. In fact, most music is developed to sound the way it is under ‘flat’ conditions – that is, without equalization. Virtually all equalizers, including Tesla, have a flat setting. Ideally, you should select this setting and listen to your music with a critical ear.
Flat doesn’t always work because speakers aren’t perfect, and nor are their reproductions of the sound it’s playing. But a lot of the time you’d be surprised how good the flat setting works for music!
If you’re a bit of an audiophile and like to tweak your music, try changing the settings while you listen to your music. So now you’re parked and have your favorite tunes playing, you’re no doubt wondering where to start.
Well, you can’t go wrong with flipping through the presets. If you’re a rock fan, you should try that preset, and hip-hop will enhance that type of music too – hip-hop is notorious for heavy bass, and rock will enhance the mids and treble a bit while keeping bass respectable.
If you’re not into tweaking every little aspect, you can’t go wrong with just finding a preset that sounds good and sticking with it.
If you want more control, Tesla allows you to adjust five frequencies – Bass, Bass-Mid, Mid, Mid-Treble, and Treble. These are controlled on the touchscreen with sliders that adjust the dB, or decibels of each frequency – decibel is how volume is measured for each frequency.
The ‘best’ equalizer settings are highly subjective and subject to personal preference.
If I had to recommend where to start, though, I would recommend a few places where you can start to tweak your equalizer settings and figure out what you like in your music.
Some suggestions are:
In the end, there are no ideal or perfect equalization settings, but these are a few good places to start. There are five sliders to tweak, after all, so go play some music and mess around with them! Don’t forget to adjust your balance to match who’s riding in the car, too.
If you find that the Tesla stereo system isn’t up to your standards, you’ll likely want to look into replacing the factory speakers with aftermarket speakers that play higher quality audio. But seeing as how Teslas are considered sophisticated and packed full of proprietary tech, can you even upgrade a Tesla stereo system?
You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that you can upgrade a Tesla stereo system, and it’s not much different than upgrading a different kind of car’s stereo.
If I had to recommend just one thing you add to your Tesla, it’d definitely be a subwoofer: adding a sub to your Tesla, especially if you don’t have one, will completely change your listening experience no matter what type of music you listen to.
You’ll need a wiring diagram and a repair manual to do it yourself, but qualified professionals are available to make the upgrades too. The difference is that when hiring professionals to replace a Tesla stereo, you’ll probably pay a fair bit more, depending on if they specialize in Tesla stereos.
