MY BLUE TESLA

For over a decade I put up with the cheap Base Audio factory speaker system in a car designed for The Future, all because I wanted to save a couple thousand dollars. Which is fine. It was a tradeoff I was willing to make back then, and it's not like the car insulates me from road noise much and I don't blast music that high anyway.

But replacing the original factory speakers using drop-in replacements required a 2 ohm (or less) rating and a housing with a wiring harness that was essentially customized for the Model S. Most Tesla owners seemed to gravitate towards the Light Harmonic option (a rather pricey one at that) or be willing to adapt the typical aftermarket choices to the physical constraints at hand. There's also another purpose-designed set by Diamond Audio which I was not aware of until relatively recently and it includes a tweeter set.

Otherwise the standard aftermarket options seemed to require cutting the original housing brackets and/or fiddling/soldering with the wiring harness to co-exist with what came from the Tesla factory. I'm not fond of the idea of using my old (and budget-grade) soldering iron anymore and I don't have the mental fortitude (read: I'm lazy) to deal with all the extra work.

When I emailed Diamond Audio about their offerings I never got a response back. Then in November, Light Harmonic provided me an Annual Sales Event coupon code for a discount on the two-speaker Gen 3 option (which has been out-of-stock for a while as I figured they're trying to push the four-speaker kit instead) with expected shipping in mid-December. This shaved $124 off the original $620 price tag, or at least compensated for the sales tax and shipping. I've only dealt with pro audio speakers in the past, not car audio, so I had no knowledge of Light Harmonic as a brand until after I got my Model S. The reviews seemed optimistic back then, although the complaints I read were around customer service.

It's not often I make an impulse purchase, but cha-ching there I was making a nearly-instant decision to hit the Buy Now button. It was in my personal watch queue anyway, and sometimes if the budget allows ... well, the budget allows. I just worried whether this upgrade would really be worth it considering the premium I was paying for was at a minimum the promised plug-and-play experience.

Shipping in mid-December did not happen. I was out of town around the time so I didn't mind anyway, but when I got back after the first week of January the order still had not shipped. Contacted their support and apparently some odd software bug/glitch/whatever in their ordering system resulted in my order being delayed. They apparently resolved that glitch and said my order would be processed.

A few days later my order still had not shipped, so after contacting them again they mentioned that they'll upgrade my order to the newer iteration of the product ("Infinite" S4D, whatever that means) which would ship out a few days after. My gut feeling said this is probably some yet-again delay tactic. And you guessed it, it took longer than that. It wasn't until January 23 that I received the actual package. Seems like it got shipped overnight and it was delivered as if it was Prime Shipping.

So while it felt like an eternity once I started nagging them, in the end it was delayed by a little over a month from the original ship date. And in practicality, I wasn't in a rush to get these into the car right now or anything. I've lived with crap audio for ten years, I can wait a few more days.

Inside the shipping box:

One of the drivers:

The rear shot of the driver (which, while impressive looking, I'll never be able to admire it once it's installed). The infinity symbol in the center I guess represents this updated version of the Gen 3 offering ("Infinite" S4D):

It certainly looks nice - much nicer than the cheap piece of **** that Elon decided was appropriate for a budget-conscious peon like myself who didn't want to pony up for the UHFS (Ultra High Fidelity Sound) from the factory.

Looks don't reveal everything, but c'mon ... which one of these gives you more confidence?

The weight difference is substantial. One of these can deadlift 405, the other can hardly pull the bar off the ground. Where did you get these factory speakers, Elon? From some shady street vendor in a third-world country? I'd think China would do better, unless you specifically asked them to throw something together using standards from the 1960s. I hope SpaceX isn't cutting corners like this.

One last look before install where it hides behind the speaker grills forever:

During the install I did a listening comparison between the old and new with only the passenger side installed. There was a noticeable difference on the low end and the Light Harmonic overall had a "fuller" sound. The factory Base Audio felt thinner on the low end for sure.

As a former (somewhat casual) sound engineer, I'll say that gauging differences between two speakers isn't always straightforward due to a number of factors including the location/position of the speakers relative to each of your ears (the inside of a car isn't exactly a square box), the surfaces and materials from which the sound reflects off of, standing wave potential (unlikely in a car though), how well-tuned/trained/discriminating your ears are, your hearing's deterioration (mine's questionable after years of managing sounds systems for larger venues) and whether that deterioration is the same for both ears, as well as your personal palette when it comes to audio preferences which isn't exactly that granularly adjustable for with a simple 5-band equalizer via the Model S on-screen options. You'd think Tesla could add a 31-band option in some advanced setting somewhere. Also, expensive audio analyzers only tell so much about what personally "sounds better."

Some research revealed that upgrading only the front speakers are worth the price tag. Upgrading the rears don't provide much benefit. Fine. I'm not looking for a 96-speaker, 5-dimensional concert experience inside my car while I sip my wine and swirl the glass like I'm in some high-society royalty with Golden Ears being able to discern every nuanced harmonic distortion due to subpar audio engineering. Get real.

An initial test drive seemed to only demonstrate a minimal improvement. I used a USB drive with tracks I'm familiar with. The change wasn't immense by any means, although I got the sense that "something" was better, so I was somewhat disappointed considering the price I paid ... until I turned Autopilot on. The Autosteer chime was glorious compared to before the install. An odd way to experience the epiphany. This implies that my sound tracks are of inferior quality, somewhat not surprising since I don't often use the highest quality export settings for much of my car's MP4 collection. Low standards which were masked by sub-par factory speakers. Time will tell as I listen to more content through the system.

Overall the sound could certainly still be improved, notably by adding a dedicated amp, subwoofer, etc. but for the simple install/swap experience I'd say the improvement with the Light Harmonics solution is welcome. My hearing isn't what it used to be so I can't exactly snob my way around criticizing or praising these Gen 3s. It took longer to remove the door panels (the 10mm bolt and the T30 screws) and remove the various wiring harness than swap out the speakers held in place by four T20 screws. For the time savings involved and how precious my minutes have become as I age, I think the cost has been worth it for me.