Is300H Premier Opinion And Audio - How To Get The Best Sound

[poncho99990]

Hi Folks,

Just bought one of these babies in white, as a 'real' driver, my overall, road legal opinion is good:

+

light car (boot and bonnet) though boot does need a fair whack to close it due to its lightness, bonnet has hydraulic arms just like on ottoman storage beds so no chance of it concussively bashing you on the head when topping up the washer fluid

smooth ride, mega comfy and refined in fact compared to ze German models, and highly manouverable around corners + very stable handling

cvt box silent and smooth unless in sport mode, then it is mega noisy - the fake engine note doesn't cover it up and sounds like a bubble sound from a 60s space series

rim protectors work on the wheels

dash looks like 70k M3 beamer - cool! Controls and finish are similar to that on home cinema amplifiers

Touch control heating - nice!

tyre pressure monitors work though not obvious on the dash to warn you (looks like an orange cauldron) - though in screen LCD behind steering wheel is good and configurable e.g, range left etc.

v.high power in sport mode though still slow 0-60 and not sure if the rev limiter is actually working as it doesn't seem to stop itself in the higher ranges, but not going to kill the engine just to test it fully as I still got 6yrs finance to pay on this!

alloys not yet corroded - defo a plus point! as this gets me down otherwise especially when I had a 3rd party alloy refurb once on an IS250 and the paint peeled off in a bullet hole fashion after just 2 weeks :( Never again

comfortable steering wheel though this could be heated as well!

Eco mode dont do nothing extra

EV only mode works upto 30mph and anything other than a feather light foot touch and less than 2 bars of Battery charge kicks it out

blind spot monitors - ahh, just what I always dreamed of, best thing ever in addition to heating and cooling seats - I know heating kicks down after a while but this is good IMHO as sat in a german car and felt like my bonce was being fried to a kipper after 1 min - it was ridiculous in fact

OK lights - clean light and relatively bright - could have done with LED lights as well in the roofline as per the IS250

cupholder positioning and interface customisation is genius - the Lexus portal is a headbanger though

cheap road tax and insurance

hybrid tech is actually good - smooth, powerful - next car defo gonna be a hybrid - I hope Battery technology will improve to reduce weight, was stuck in standstill traffic due to a 3rd party accident, other car drivers turned off to conserve petrol, I just listened to music on a nice heated seat with my lights on as car turned itself off due to eco start/stop - hardly even drained the Battery - hehe

also, it hangs from a steep hill like a fly on sticky paper - the hybrid Battery kicks in to hold the car in place if you tap the brake hard once - love it!

excellent stopping power, bit of fun when using regenerative braking to try to charge the Battery - one needs ones little games to keep one occupied

the wipers work (for some strange reason my wipers never actually went back into their original position on my is250 on motorway wind) and dont look cheap like other cars

Auto exit seat driver seat moves back when you exit the vehicle

Key fob that actually works (batteries kept dying every 8-12 weeks with is250 fobs)

Comes with a puncture repair kit only for punctures - if it saves weight and gets me to the nearest tyre garage then I'm all for it

makes a beep sound near fixed speed cameras - took me 2 weeks to work out why it was beeping randomly until I read this forum!

-

like the sport stripe on the skirt, could have done with f sport style badges where the old style indicators use to go to give it a more sporty look

average fuel economy of 40-42mpg on combined motorway/roads - was expecting much more even on vpower and momentum 99, though gains much on long downhills and better than my previous petrol only vehicle, noticed it has bumped up a 1-2mpg after loosening up though

slow media interface

Nav occasionally crashes - think it's something to do with music and voice command working at the same time as Nav though I'm sure a future firmware update via wireless will fix this

rear view camera gets dirty easy

Rain sensing wipers are hit and miss depending on where the droplets are and tend to miss the sensor completely 50% of the time

Heated wing mirrors would be nice as they do not auto demist in the cold

no self parking, lane tracking etc. at this level (£), AHB extra etc. - this sucks big time! - should have been 10k cheaper! esp. when compared to safety shield on the Nissan Qash which is only £500 quid or so

minor judder when petrol engine starts from eco mode but not a deal breaker

need the footbrake on to view DVDs

No HUD option

I spent time on these forums to work out my niggly questions that I had i.e. the ML sound for one + how to get the best sound/surround sound so normally don't post but I thought I would share my testing experiences.as despite the hype, MP3 does not appear to have the same amount of 'spatial' sound at any bitrate

Ok, normal sized USB stick don't fit, so suggest a proper tiny Kingston microSD, 64gb didn't read but 32GB did, so whacked into into a USB converter that came with the Kingston (never ordered memory off the bay as too many fakes)

Formats - interesting this.. if you use WMP for CD extract, the sound is poor, in itunes it is better when using CD extract but still not good, so tried EAC CD software, still seemed pretty poor if you ask me.

So went to a legal download site starting with the word Juno - damn, at £1.60+ per wav track, they is expensive and not everything is available, but the result is amazing. Simply, compress to lossless WMA format (tried lots of other lossless formats but they are not supported). Suggest this free software - EZ CD Audio converter and if you want to edit your own personal Wavs that you have created yourself - Wavepad

Simply, stick in the root folder of the USB - think it was formatted to FAT32 off the top of my head, that's it, not sure if it reads more than 200 or tracks in the root folder, so feel free to create subfolders.

This is all 100% legal BTW, as the software is free, the tracks have been purchased and the speed limit has not been exceeded - and no I don't work for any of the above sites, but will give a free plug to Lexus Bolton for outstanding customer service! Went to 3 pointed star dealer and got dumped on + they were sleazy but got a CLA (definately not designed for a guy) for the wife as well, simply because I couldn't afford anything else! LOL!

[Roger Bill]

Hi Assam

Excellent write-up, amusing and very informative. Many thanks.

Re audio file formats, did you try MP3? I'm hoping to get an IS300h next year. I'm old school and still buy CDs. Recently amazon started to offer customers for most CDs, MP3 files which I believe are encoded at variable bit rate averaging 256 kbps and so I'd guess they should be reasonably good quality. If so, this route could provide a relatively low hassle method of getting at least some music from CD onto memory sticks for use in the car.

[poncho99990]

Hi Assam

Excellent write-up, amusing and very informative. Many thanks.

Re audio file formats, did you try MP3? I'm hoping to get an IS300h next year. I'm old school and still buy CDs. Recently Amazon started to offer customers for most CDs, MP3 files which I believe are encoded at variable bit rate averaging 256 kbps and so I'd guess they should be reasonably good quality. If so, this route could provide a relatively low hassle method of getting at least some music from CD onto memory sticks for use in the car.

Thanks for the kind comments Roger :) MP3 is no problem at all, worked perfectly fine when I tried it.

[Alexch1974]

I actually have a portable SSD drive connected via USB lead to the car with all of my music (45Gb) - WMA, MP3 and apple formats - the system recognised it straight away and plays all of them without any issues.

The only thing I have found is that searching for the tracks you want can take some time - particularly when you have as much music as I do but its nice knowing that I have everything that I need on hand.

CD's also sound very good btw - the ML system is superb IMO.

[Silver Arrow]

Nice one - completely agree about the BSM (blind spot monitor), once you've had this baby you will NEVER want a car with out it (or at least that is what I have found). The minor judder is something I noticed too….

Also, did you compare the suspension to an F Sport model? If so what did you think??

[poncho99990]

Nice one - completely agree about the BSM (blind spot monitor), once you've had this baby you will NEVER want a car with out it (or at least that is what I have found). The minor judder is something I noticed too….

Also, did you compare the suspension to an F Sport model? If so what did you think??

Alas not, but it's something I would have liked to tried unless someone else can comment - I ordered before they were even released so didn't even test drive as the reviews seemed good :)