[Grestorn]

I've got my car a couple of days ago. I was really happy with the Harman / Kardon sound. I tweaked the settings a bit and got a real nice, full and strong sound in the car.

At some point after a couple of hours or driving, the bass suddenly dropped out right within a song. At first I thought it was some strange effect in the song itself, but then it occurred to me that it's the sound system. Next time I used the car the sound was fine again.

Today the bass was missing right from the start and I couldn't get it back, no matter what. No settings changed that, not even resetting the sound settings to default.

To me it doesn't sound like the woofer is failing, it sounds more like you switch to a very flat equalizer setting. But I could be wrong of course.

Tomorrow I will try to reset the whole software (pressing the volume knob for 20 seconds, right?). Let's see if that changes anything. If it doesn't, I'm afraid that this might be a hardware problem - and I have to bring in the car ...

Has anyone experienced something similar?

 

[m345]

Does messing with the equalizer cause audible changes in other frequencies? If so, it would suggest an issue with the sub or its power supply.

 

[KBS]

If it stays broken, that's good! Getting something that's intermittent fixed is really hard.

 

[Grestorn]

Does messing with the equalizer cause audible changes in other frequencies? If so, it would suggest an issue with the sub or its power supply.

I'm not at the car right now (it's charging). But I will check later. Before I made a quick check with the normal bass and treble settings, but I couldn't hear any difference.

If it stays broken, that's good! Getting something that's intermittent fixed is really hard.

Indeed! That's what I'm afraid of!

 

[Grestorn]

After getting back to the car, the sound was fine again.

Let's see how it behaves in the next days. I'm a bit worried that this might indeed be an intermittently appearing issue

 

[rollermonkey]

Well, intermittent generally suggests a bad wire or a loose connection.
One of those is incredibly easy and cheap to fix once found, so intermittent failure isn't always bad.

 

[Math1as]

I had the same issue in my 320i, increasing bass in EQ made it drop out. After the car had been turned off it would reset and work. With maybe 1 step increase in EQ it would be ok. Never hade the issue again unless I upped the bass in EQ. I deducted that i was some protection and never bothered trying to get BMW to understaned my predicament…

 

[ssh]

After getting back to the car, the sound was fine again.

Let's see how it behaves in the next days. I'm a bit worried that this might indeed be an intermittently appearing issue

I’m sure you have, but worth an ask… have you checked the connections at the subwoofer and head unit? I’m not sure how easily accessible they are, but worth a look… or even a bit of physical coercion (shaking/tapping) around the areas if you can’t get to the cables.

 

[Grestorn]

I had the same issue in my 320i, increasing bass in EQ made it drop out. After the car had been turned off it would reset and work. With maybe 1 step increase in EQ it would be ok. Never hade the issue again unless I upped the bass in EQ. I deducted that i was some protection and never bothered trying to get BMW to understaned my predicament…

If that would be true... oh my god. I hate it when systems try to be overly protective over yourself. Like my phone telling me not to increase the volume too much...

 

[Grestorn]

I’m sure you have, but worth an ask… have you checked the connections at the subwoofer and head unit? I’m not sure how easily accessible they are, but worth a look… or even a bit of physical coercion (shaking/tapping) around the areas if you can’t get to the cables.

Next time I'll encounter this, I will try go around and nudge at the woofer casing etc. But I'm not going to dismantle anything, not with a brand new car on leasing...

 

[Math1as]

The 320HK did only have under seat ”woofers” and as it corrected with on/off of car my thoughts were it was the syste. Could of course be very different to i4. Am a bit apprehensive re this for my i4…