Weirdness with the AudioPilot
 

On our way home today, we had the moonroof open and the stereo turned on with the AudioPilot on. Some dumbass teenagers driving mommie's giant SUV got behind us at a light, decided to show off, and turned their bass WAY up, to the point where every time it thumped, it drowned out my stereo. BUT, the AudioPilot decided to take over, and every time the bass thumped, MY stereo turned itself up a notch. It was the weirdest thing I've ever heard. At first we weren't sure what was going on, but it gradually got louder with each thump. Before the light turned green, we could hear the stereo again just fine.

The only thing we could think of was that the bass was vibrating the car so much that the audiopilot thought we were going really fast and tried to compensate. Has this happened to anyone else? Or are we just crazy?

Hi Elara,

If I'm not mistaken the audiopilot system has a microphone in the dash near that center speaker. It's supposed to monitor the noise inside the cabin and adjust the music so that it sounds as it was intended to sound regardless of road noise, open windows, or teenagers with loud S.U.V.'s. The mazda site has a decent amount of information about the bose system; I visited the site at least 3 times a day before I got my 8 so I remember almost everything on it. You should still check it out though if you haven't already. Hope that helped, this is my first post after lurking here for months.

Kenneth

That's what I assumed. So the excess noise from the other car probably did jack my volume up. Was still really weird to hear. Thanks :)

Yes, there is a microphone, but I think it's actually near the driver's right knee... you'll see a 'slotted' area there in the dash covering, and I'm pretty sure I've seen a diagram somewhere that shows the mic there too.

I know, that's not technically very specific, but I'm only half-way through cup of coffee. =P

Also, my experience with the AudioPilot is that it tends to boost the bass end more than the treble, since the treble notes have an easier time of piercing other noise on their own.

before my 2cents that turned into 3c becomes 4c...

Everyone is correct about the Bose system having a mic. to monitor cabin noise and adjust the volume accordingly by way of the "Audio Pilot".

I found it annoying and disabled it. I'm used to listening without this sort of auto adjustment and I don't find that the system does a good job of "normalizing" the volume anyway. After all, I feel the volume control buttons on the steering wheel are idealy placed to make any adjustments myself when needed.

I disabled my Audiopilot a long time ago! It would do bizarre things like turn the volume way up after I pulled into my garage, and I just don't think the system sounds as good with it on. I wish the Bose stereo had an option to just use speed-sensitive volume like the non-Bose system has.

I turned the Autopilot off in mine because it kept pissing me off. What I hated is when I would get off the highway come to the light at the end of the ramp the stereo would be loud because the autopilot is slow to react down. Then after a second or two the radio would be loud again. So I would turn it down a couple more notches. Same thing would happen again.

I also didn't like the way it pushed the base up to make the sound louder. It was annoying to have everything go to heavy base when I was on a rough road.

there was a thread toward the end of last july or so with a bunch of us saying how we thought the audiopilot was annoying and turned it off =p

it was especially bad for me because i like the windows down and wind noise around your head isn't the same as wind noise around your knees hehehe

/edit oh yah i forget...i don't know if the rest of you get it too, but with the windows down there's like this wind-resonating boom from the backseat at ~55mph or so...starting faintly at ~40 and then is absolutely unbearable at 80...that REALLY confused my audiopilot.

I usually do have it off, which may be why I never noticed it before.

the wind noise seems to be lessend when you open the rear wing-windows.

When I first got the car I thought the Audio pilot was really cool. I'd hear the volume increase and decrease. After a while though I realized that it was just annoying and didn't really help. So I turned it off. Too bad the only reason I was impressed with it was because it was new and fancy, not because it worked.

-JiM

My though exactly on all the things you said!

Mine cranks the volume for some reason when I'm in my garage!! The speed sensitive system with the levels of adjustment on our 6 works much much much better.

The Bose Audiopilot in the 350z was recalled.

Similar 'problem' (for me) to what the rX-8's audiopilot does. Mebee it'll get recalled to - Audiopilot just doesnt work very well - mine has been switched off from day2.

Kinda seems like the volume control on the steering wheel makes the AudioPilot sort of excessive. If it worked extremely well and reacted instantaneously, it would probably be worth it, but otherwise it's dumb and just should get turned off. The worst is when cars have auto-adjusting volume that you can't turn off.

Wow, I'm glad to read all this, believe it or not. I was ready to resign myself to the sad fact that it was my hearing that wasn't working right... now that I find out it's just the AudioPilot I can go on pretending that age is just a state of mind. :D

I find myself using the steering volume controls to do what the AudioPilot is supposed to be doing for me. As elphkotm said, at least we have the option of disabling it.

My partner's Infiniti has speed-sensitive volume adjustment. It works beautifully -- I wish my 8 had this instead of the useless AudioPilot. Funny thing is that his system is Bose as well.

i haven't had much of a problem with the AudioPilot, but i'd say that's due to lack of patience. with the handy volume control right there on the steering wheel, i've already adjsuted the volume before the AudioPilot even figures out the decibel level has changed. i did experiment with the AudioPilot a bit, and i completely agree that it is sluggish to respond & does tend to crank more bass which sounds kinda weird.

-Lynx