I have been driving a Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 sedan for the past couple of days. It’s an amazing vehicle and worthy of the Premium Car Award that it got last year from the Indian Car of the Year jury.
One thing that most reviews of the vehicle didn’t mention much was its stunning Burmester audio system.
The vehicle is fast and you can have a lot of fun driving it while getting a heated shoulder massage. However, it’s the audio system that truly steals the show. I found myself enjoying it so much that I took a drive solely to indulge in the music. The sound quality surpasses that of other vehicles and rivals the finest home amplifier-speaker systems that money can buy.
These days, it’s not only Mercedes-Benz that offers an excellent audio system; most luxury vehicles have them. Audi features Danish experts Bang & Olufsen audio system in their top models, while Hyundai and Kia offer BOSE audio systems even in their more affordable vehicles. Mahindra equips their top variants with Sony. Experience the immersive sound of Apple Music’s ‘lossless’ tracks on these exceptional audio systems, and you will feel like you’re in a studio.
The audio quality is limited to pop and rock tunes. I had quite an enjoyable time listening to Rabindra Sangeet, which, despite not being my usual preference as a Bengali, took on a new level of complexity when played through the car’s speakers than when I used to listen to it in my childhood.
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The journey of audio systems
The first vehicle I learned to drive, a Maruti Van, didn’t even have an audio system. The cars I later drove, which belonged to my parents, did have them but were, for lack of a nicer word, pathetic. As students, we only had cassette tapes and became skilled at rescuing mangled tapes from audio players. Compact discs were a luxury, costing between Rs 500-700 in 1997. Nowadays, an Apple One package, which includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, and 50 GB iCloud storage, costs Rs 195 per month. An Amazon Prime subscription with Amazon Music is Rs 1,499 per year. These services provide millions of songs at affordable prices, sparing us from listening to distorted audio through poor speakers.
Interestingly, I am not the only one who is impressed by the audio quality in modern cars. During a recent conversation with Tarun Garg, COO of Hyundai Motor India, he mentioned that the BOSE audio system was a primary factory driving buyers to upgrade to the top variants of the Creta and Venue SUVs. Santosh Iyer, managing director of Mercedes-Benz India, told me, “We Indians love music and the Burmester audio system in our top variants sets us apart from the competition.” Gone are the days of expensive aftermarket music systems with media changers and fancy displays. Factory-fitted audio systems have made life much easier for car buyers.
And then it struck me why that was the case. The reality is that traffic moves at a slow pace in most major Indian cities. As a daily commuter in any of these cities, you rarely exceed an average speed of 30 km per hour. When you are stuck in traffic, factors like acceleration and handling become insignificant. Instead, it’s the quality of the audio system that becomes the key focus. And the fact that you can play any song ever released with just a voice command adds a whole new level of enjoyment. For someone like me who appreciates driving while listening to music, this is truly remarkable. Unlike those who long for the ‘good, old days’, I embrace and appreciate how far we’ve come.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)