Some people in the UK have failed to find their Sub in the Avant when going for the B&O upgrade, in the saloon/sedan its on the parcel shelf.



Sedan Technical specifications

Front door & Front/Centre loudspeaker:
Two 25 mm tweeters
70mm full-range (centre)
80mm mid-range +200mm woofers

Rear Door & Parcel shelf:
25mm tweeters + 168mm woofers
Two 80mm full-range + 200mm "free-air" subwoofer that uses the parcel shelf as a baffle (like the A5)


Avant Technical specifications

Front door & Front/Centre loudspeaker:
Two 25 mm tweeters
70mm full-range (centre)
80mm mid-range +200mm woofers

Rear door and "D" pillar:
25mm tweeters + 165mm woofers
Two 80mm full-range

Luggage compartment:
A 165 mm subwoofer in an 11L bass reflex ported cabinet placed within the excess space of the spare tyre.


Amplifiers (for both Sedan and Avant):
Five 25 watt Class-A/B amplifiers for tweeters, mid-range and centre driver
Two 40 watt Class A/B amplifiers for rear woofers
Two 75 watt Class D amplifiers for front bass drivers
One 150 watt Class D amplifier for the subwoofer



Specifically regarding the subwoofer differences:


The Limo (sedan) has a 'free-air' subwoofer that uses the parcel shelf as a baffle. The A5 uses the same principle.

The Avant does not have a parcel shelf so we opted for a subwoofer in a ported cabinet. The only difference in performance is below 30Hz where the subwoofer port starts to roll off. This will make little difference to the listening experience for 2 reasons : 1. Most music contains very little information below 30 Hz. 2. This frequency area is masked by background noise while driving. The Q5 uses the same principle.

Of course it is possible to put a subwoofer in a sealed cabinet but the loudspeaker itself needs to be very large (as in the A8 / Q7). A ported cabinet can achieve good SPL at low frequency with a relatively smaller loudspeaker.


Furthermore, B&O also told me that:


Both cars are tuned individually as each car is unique. Further there are usually two tunings per car as a car with fabric seats and no sunroof will differ from one with leather and sunroof.