LONG-TERM UPDATE 6 | Putting our Mustang's B&O sound system to the test

Evaluating my Ford Mustang GT California Special usually involves the burning of fuel and rubber. Today, however, is different. Other than driving to a better lit part of our basement parking garage, this exercise involves zero tillermanship. I am not even in the driver’s seat. Behind the steering wheel is a man named Joel Kopping, an experienced audiophile about to put the car’s B&O sound system through its paces.

Once the assistant editor of Audio Video Magazine, Kopping spent 15 years reviewing high-end home stereo and theatre systems. He’s also dedicated a large portion of his life to the car audio scene. An accredited International Auto Sound Challenge Association (Iasca) judge, the man has a set of ears on him that can fast sort the sonic wheat from the chaff. When not scoring sound systems at competitions, Kopping helps put together award-winning installations, many of which have won multiple South African sound quality and SPL (loudness) titles.

It's an impressive CV: one that should help ascertain whether the Mustang's standard Bang & Olufsen audio system is as good as the Blue Oval's marketing department would have us believe. To refresh your memory, this set-up pairs 12 speakers (including a small 10.4-inch subwoofer mounted in the boot) to a 900W 10-channel analogue amplifier with digital signal processing. You get a midrange driver in the middle of the dashboard, a three-way set-up in the doors and a set of two-way speakers mounted in the rear parcel shelf. Wired to Ford's eight-inch Sync 3 infotainment system it can recreate sounds from a variety of inputs including USB, bluetooth and CD.

Though the latter seems redundant in 2023, Kopping is appreciative of its presence and fills the slot (probably the first time it's ever been used) with his Iasca official sound quality reference CD. On it are 32 technical and musical tracks for judging car audio systems. He taps the play button and we start working our way through them. 

In the passenger seat, I watch as Kopping cranks up the volume. He starts with some basics — left/right channel verification and phase verification — before moving on to higher grade audio assessments such as tonal accuracy/spectral balance evaluation, imaging and sound stage evaluation. The latter involves a short clip of Brad Fiedel's Terminator Theme played by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, a cinematic classic.

“Everything is upfront and at a nice level,” he says of the Mustang's sound stage. “What this means is the music doesn't sound like it's coming from down at your ankles. Instead it is coming from directly in front of you. This is down to the tweeters mounted on the vehicle's A-pillars as well as the centre channel set in the middle of the dashboard.” 

The test tracks roll on and with them a surprisingly diverse array of musical styles. 

“It's a very listenable system,” says Kopping. “There are some areas where it could be improved, though. Some of the vocals could be a bit better as could the definition between the instruments. I also find the system gets a bit confused at times; it can't quite play some of the instruments right when there's a lot of them playing together. This might just be a power issue. Perhaps it needs a little more power — not to play louder — but to control the speakers better. Better control would result in a more cohesive sound.”

I ask Kopping if there's a certain style or genre of music the system seems to favour.

“It seems to prefer simpler music where there aren't a lot of instruments in the mix. It's probably designed for general pop-type music where there isn't a lot going on. It doesn't seem to like classical type stuff where there is a lot of stuff going on and things tend to fall apart somewhat because it doesn't quite have the definition required. Ford know the demographic they're selling this car to and I would guess they're not listening to classical music. So does it matter it doesn't play that music that well? Probably not.”

Next, Kopping reaches for his laptop and attaches to it a small but expensive looking free-standing microphone. Once booted up, he opens an application called Room Analyzer Pro: a piece of software that might help us tweak the system for a better listening experience.

“This is a realtime analyser,” he explains. “As its name suggests, it will show us frequencies playing in realtime. This one measures in third octaves from 16Hz (lows) all the way up to 20kHz (highs), which is typically the range in which humans hear. So what we will do now is measure the response of the car's system. Ideally, we are looking for a flat 'skyline' with a bit of a bump towards the low side of the spectrum to create a bit of warmth. Slight dips in the graph don't really matter (the brain fills them in) but any peaks are a problem.”

With his laptop on the centre console, Kopping plays another tune and crunches the data.

“So what we're seeing here is things are fairly flat from the mid-range up to the brilliance range. But there's quite a noticeable bump down at the low-end frequencies, particularly around the 31.5Hz mark, which is probably why things can get a bit boomy at times. So what I'd like to do now is dial back the bass settings a bit and test the system again.”

Since I took delivery of the GT CS in September I've been running +2 clicks of bass on the system's equaliser settings. Kopping now dials this back to -2. The results are surprising. 

“We didn't lose a lot of low frequency bass but we gained quite a lot of definition in the mid-range and even the higher frequencies. I also feel there is now better space between instruments and voices up front. What often happens in audio is louder sounds tend to muddy softer sounds. So here the exaggerated bass was detracting from the finer details in the music. As we dialled it down, those details came to the fore and gave us improved definition, better sound and better overall presentation of the music. 

“After running the realtime analyser and making our adjustments, I've got to say it's a very nice system. I wasn't expecting it to be quite as good as it is — it does lots of things well. Downsides? There is a slight tonal shift from left to right, which is probably because it has fairly big drivers in the doors and a smallish speaker in the centre. But again, if you can hear things like this while you're driving, please, stay off the roads.” 

2023 Ford Mustang GT California Special: Update 6

ODOMETER ON DELIVERY: 9,956km

CURRENT ODOMETER: 11,135km

AVERAGE CONSUMPTION: 11.7l/100km 

PRICE AS TESTED: R1,154,900

PRAISES: Standard B&O sound system leaves a professional sound man impressed

GRIPES: Be wary of bumping up the bass — less appears to be more.

• Kopping is a partner at Simply Digital Multimedia Solutions: a supplier and installer of high quality systems for home and commercial applications.