The new Kia EV6 Meridian system is a premium audio setup featuring “14 strategically placed speakers throughout the cabin,” Meridian says. The designer also offers a premium system for the Kia K8, though it is not currently offered in the US. If the Meridian name sounds familiar, they share partnerships and build systems for brands like Land Rover, Jaguar, and Rivian. Kia vehemently progresses to be considered a luxury brand and as part of that employs high-end brands associated with what would be considered rivals to Genesis. So how does this Kia EV6 sound system compare to other luxury brands?
A rear-mounted subwoofer, four door woofers, four tweeters, two rear surround speakers, two mids, and a front-mounted centre channel speaker all make for a B-tier experience. Charlie’s observations during his Kia EV6 Meridian sound test found this premium system to have great imaging and placement of the speakers for surround sound effects. Though, the issues he found with the Kia EV6 sound system were of the tuning; mostly the meat and potatoes of the mid-range. The tweeters should be pumping out more of a crisp sound. The lows overall are good but don’t pump out the deep rumbly bass. The mid-range seems to fall on its face when it comes to more complex songs which is the biggest disappointment. In the end, the Kia EV6 audio system doesn’t perform as well as some luxury cars like the Volvo XC90 Bowers & Wilkins, but this system definitely is a worthy contender once Meridian makes some more tuning adjustments.
Click Here to Watch Our Kia EV6 Sound System Test:
How We Test the Kia EV6 Audio System:
We take audio systems seriously here at Daily Motor. That’s why we take every vehicle, from a Kia EV6 Meridian sound system to supercars like the McLaren 570S, and put them through our rigorous audio-system testing. We use the same lossless, uncompressed WAV audio files on a USB drive plugged into the audio system so that every radio we test starts from the same baseline. To provide a realistic example for the Kia EV6 sound system experience, we record with high-quality binaural microphones. We test every system with their sound settings set to their factory defaults, because that’s how the radio’s engineers designed it to sound, but we test all the sound settings on many different genres of music before shooting the reviews. After demonstrating the Kia EV6 audio system settings, adjustments, inputs, speaker locations, and Android Auto and/or Apple CarPlay functionality, we head out on the road to listen to our sample tracks at highway speeds. Most cars can sound great while stationary, but road, wind, and engine noise can deteriorate music fidelity. At the end of the Kia EV6 Meridian sound test, we give an objective rating based on audio quality and overall system usage as well as a subjective rating factoring in vehicle attributes and price.
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