richman6100

> I think my wife threw out all my old CD's when we moved That would be grounds for divorce in my house Rich. ;-) I'm embarrassed to say that my current HiFi system is worth a similar amount to my F-Sport and I dread to think about what I've spent on kit over the years before settling on what I currently have. Curse you McIntosh Labs and your overpriced beauties. CDs can be had pretty cheaply these days and they just about satisfy my nostalgic need to hold the media and artwork in my hands. They'll never match the physical and emotional input required of you when listening to vinyl, but they're a damn site more convenient. I'm not ready to go all out for convenience though, and listen to purely cloud-based music delivery. I can understand why others want to. Music is one of my greatest passions I guess, one of the reasons I opted for the Mark Levinson system and mandatory Premium Nav. Given the inevitable compromises when listening to music in a car (road / traffic noise, surrounded by lots of glass etc), the sound quality of the ML is really rather good. I tweak the EQ settings occasionally, depending on what I'm listening to, but its default settings are so good that it's clear a lot of thought has gone into it. The software / firmware that controls the Premium Nav interface, particularly the USB integration is less impressive. They really should improve this.

> Did try a USB but really these days who can be bothered to rip music. Errr...me, for one. I have a good sized CD collection (>2000) and I still add to it. Ultimately, I guess I like to own the media - I come from an era of vinyl, which I still buy occasionally. CD quality still exceeds most streaming alternatives too. Frustrating that the Lexus system requires that you downsample files in order to play them through it via a standard USB HDD. As mentioned above, a high capacity iPod (with its music in lossless format would pretty much match CD, maybe I'll try that route sometime to see if it works. Still, ripping CDs is dead easy, quick and reliable with the right software. I'm doing it anyway for my SONOS system at home. Obviously, I can't drag around thousands of CDs, hence the USB option works for me for now. The Levinson stereo is pretty good, so I tend to have a select bunch of discs in the car to spin through the CD player when I'm after the best quality (i.e. on my own in the car, stuck in traffic, enjoying the quiet of the IS in EV mode).The rest of the time I use the USB HDD and put up with the 5 min wait to be able to browse my music (which I admit is poor). YMMV.

>Maybe its just me but I never found much of a difference in ride quality between the Premier and F-Sport models at all. I agree. I think the 18" wheels do contribute significantly to the firmer ride. The F-Sport standard suspension adds a little too in my personal experience, not hugely though. The 16" and 17" wheels seemed more forgiving. The AVS seems to give me the best of everything, the F-Sport handling and seats, with the smoother ride of the 16" / 17" wheels.

Hi mpls, If you're happy with your F-Sport then I wouldn't fret. I'm pretty sensitive to how a car rides for reasons already mentioned, others clearly find the difference AVS brings to be fairly subtle. I think Steve44 summed it up pretty accurately when he said that AVS makes the F-Sport's suspension feel more like that of the standard IS. I'd say it's better than that on the 'standard' models that come with 18" wheels and comparable to those with smaller ones. The handling is better though. I'm slightly surprised by Rayaan's comment about expansion joints causing 'a huge thump'. Maybe in Sport+ mode, but I've not experienced such an effect on expansion joints or speed bumps in other modes. Only the very worst pot holes I encounter on my daily commute give a jolt in the cabin.

Hi, As I understand it, from what Lexus told me, AVS does two things: 1. It brings the additional Sports+ mode, which stiffens the suspension and sharpens up throttle (and possibly steering) response. I use this one very occasionally, on winding back roads, or when pulling out onto a busy roundabout where gaps in traffic are brief. 2. It constantly adapts to the road condition (when not in Sports+ mode), smoothing out harsher surfaces. You're unlikely to feel any difference in ride comfort between ECO and Normal modes on the same car when you have AVS installed (not sure about Sport mode) because it's affecting both of these modes, probably equally. Stepping out of one F-Sport with it installed into one without probably would be noticeable to me. Having surgeons chop bits out of your spine can make you a tad sensitive to road surface quality. I couldn't do a back-to-back comparison between an IS300h F-Sport with AVS and one without it before purchasing because I simply couldn't find one that had it installed. What I could do was compare both to my Accord Type-S. A car that I'd owned for several years and knew well. The demo F-Sports I tried (without AVS) before purchasing felt harder and less forgiving of bad road surfaces. When I got back into my Accord to drive home from the Lexus dealer, the ride was noticeably smoother. However, when I picked up my new IS 300h F-Sport and dropped off the Accord as a trade-in, I was genuinely surprised that the Lexus was smoother over those same harsh roads. For info, I had to drive over a particularly bad stretch of road near the dealer I purchased the car from, so this was a pretty good test. As I mentioned earlier, the superb seats are what sold me on the F-Sport (it's looks helped too). It was something of a gamble to purchase AVS; for me at least, it seems to have paid off. Cheers, Rich

Hi BB, I too work in I.T. for my sins and I'm relatively platform agnostic, but I feel your pain. There's no need for this to be so difficult - iOS and Android should be equally supported in my opinion. I happen to have a lot of Apple kit. I have an iPod I may try, but its capacity is limited and I have a large music collection (circa 2500 CDs). Unless there is a compelling reason to use an iOS device I think I'll persevere with the HDD. Limiting the quantity of music on it has improved the situation. I'm puzzled by the delay before the Browse function works though. The ML stereo is pretty good for a car stereo (my real passion is not I.T., but home HiFi, of which I have a reasonably high-end system), but it does seem unnecessarily difficult to get your music played through it. Cheers, Rich

Hi BB, It certainly seems like the Premium Nav could do with updating, it certainly isn't cheap. I hope Lexus's reputation for customer service is justified and that they are listening / reading. Much can be achieved by firmware updates. My (embedded) album artwork is significantly larger than 120 X 120 px and almost none of it displays correctly. Granted, some of my music isn't mainstream, but a reasonable amount is. You mention the Lexus system is better with Apple gear (I respect that it's not your preferred platform), do you know if an iPod would be a better solution than a portable HDD? Thanks, Rich

A real positive on my new IS300h F-Sport...the optional Adaptive Variable Suspension that I chose when I ordered it. Try as I might, I simply could not find a demo car with AVS fitted, but I purchased it in the hope that it would make a noticeable difference to ride quality. I've had a bit of surgery on my back over the years and comfort is something I'm forced to take seriously these days. I often face the dilemma that Sports seats are by far the best in terms of support, but they're often only fitted to cars with firmer Sports suspension. With the IS I tried out several models and ultimately found that the benefits of the seats in the F-Sport outweighed the negatives of its firmer suspension. I must confess to being somewhat sceptical about the claims that some manufacturers make about AVS, but in the IS I have found it to make a significant difference. I'm less concerned about the additional Sports + option it brings (although that does tighten up the car's responses for sure), but the ride quality in ECO, Normal etc is very impressive with the AVS. Prior to the Lexus I had a Honda Accord Type-S which I found to deliver a more comfortable ride than the F-Sports I test drove before purchasing; probably a fraction softer than the Premiers I also tried. I traded the Honda in against the F-Sport and it was immediately apparent that the ride in my new Lexus was better than that in the Accord. I have to say, I am really impressed by this AVS option. It's not that expensive when you take into account the overall cost of the car. Of all the options I added (and I added quite a few, including the Premium Nav which is a mandatory option if you want AVS) I think this might be the best. Ride comfort is a pretty subjective thing - I know a lot of people find the F-Sport absolutely fine. If, however, you're are concerned that the ride feels somewhat hard, then AVS might just be what you need. The handling is sublime and you don't have to suffer back-ache as a trade-off. I hope this feedback is useful to anyone considering this option. Cheers, Rich

Hi again, I deleted a load of music from my portable HDD, bringing the total number of files down to just under 10,000, and that seems to have done the trick. Many thanks to those of you who helped me with this. I'm still not entirely sure why specific artists / albums were missing before - they were't the last added to the drive, nor the last alphabetically - the premium nav does seem to read the drive in a strange order. The vast majority of the music was copied to the HDD in the same sitting, and the drive itself was never anywhere near full, so I would expect the files to be written contiguously. Anyway, we seem to have cracked it. One thing I have noticed is that when the drive is connected, although it's accessible within 5 seconds and the music can be played, the 'Browse' option can take between 5 and 10 minutes to become active. Up until then it's greyed out. Does anybody else experience the same? Thanks, Rich

Hi Steve, Thanks, that's very helpful. I'd read the manual, but somehow managed to skip the columns referring to max numbers of files. I suspect that this is the issue as I have because my drive contains more than 18,000 files. Codec, bit rate and file format should all be ok, so I'll delete some content from the drive and see if that resolves things. I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again, Rich

Thanks Thom, I'll give that a go tomorrow and report back. I've just made a list of the artists which I'll compare with what the premium nav is displaying. Cheers, Rich

Thanks for your input Rayaan, Paul, Yes, the artists that are appearing are in alphabetical order, as they are on the HDD. There are random ones missing though when displayed in the Lexus. I did wonder if it had something to do with the order that they were added to the drive, but, with a couple of exceptions, they were ripped in alphabetical order and added in that order. I don't know how the Lexus's system works. Could it be that it processes the metadata for the artists / albums somehow and it's running into issues during this process? Rich

Hi, As far as I can tell, it's certain artists and therefore their albums too. I have at least a couple of artists with over a dozen albums (in sub-folders, by album) that appear fine, so it doesn't appear to be as simple as too many sub-folders. Cheers, Rich

Hi Rayaan, Yes, it's FAT32 formatted. Cheers, Rich

Hi Paul, Thanks for the reply. The music is organised by artist, a folder for each each one, with sub-folders for their albums. For some artists there are a dozen or so albums (and therefore a dozen or so sub-folders), for others there may be just one or two albums. The missing artists / albums include both extremes as do the ones that are displayed (and play) correctly. I'm rather baffled. It's not like just the first 255 (alphabetically) are working. I have artists from A-Z that do appear and play. Cheers, Rich