[SoupAssassin]

I am totally not impressed with the Fender system at all. A lot of hype over nothing. Sounds like stock audio from every brand truck I test drove. 🙁

What lol? I've been in a lot of cars and it's a pretty great oem system. It's better then the typical system by miles. It comes weirdly calibrated though, bump both the bass and treble sliders up to about 80% for the most neutral response at appropriate listening levels.

It hits way harder and maintains a lot more clarity without any harshness at higher volumes than like 95% of other systems. It's obviously not perfect but it's very fun without losing tightness, and it's very "fast".

It sounds great and will satisfy 95% of people looking for a fun audio system.

 

[SoupAssassin]

Same for me. I rented a Frontier with the Fender system....meh. Was it better? Sure, but worth the money? No. If you want a real kicking system, install custom.

You also get leather and a sunroof, among a couple of other things. The pro premium package is a pretty good value imo.

As I said in my last post it comes weirdly calibrated. Set both bass and treble to about 80%ish for the most neutral response.

 

[SoupAssassin]

If I my stray just a bit.
I find most sound systems today, be they the latest and greatest for your vehicle or available premium systems for your home totally underwhelming. It's like with all the rush to physically downsize systems electronic manufacturers forgot that the real point of the exercise is quality sound, the audio experience. At one time I had, and DAMN I wish I still had it, a Pioneer home theater surround sound stereo system that would shame most systems available today. When you crank that system up the dishes in the cupboards rattled, you had to go around and re-level every picture in the house and it actually was 360° surround sound.

I install digital projection systems, sound systems, automation systems, and DCP cinema servers/networks into movie theaters for a living. I can tell you that you are very wrong. Movie Theater audio/visual quality and Home Theater audio/visual quality have never been better. You can get subs for you living room that are basically weapons if that's all you're after, and 360° audio has never been more 360°s with the advent of Dolby Atmos for both Movie Theaters and Home in addition to upscaling surround technologies like Dolby Surround or DTS Neo X.

You're looking down market and assuming that's all there is. The reality is simply there has never been a wider array of products to fit any budget and need, the high end is WAAAAAAY higher end than it used to be, and mid range stuff today gives high end stuff of yesterday a run for it's money. Even low end equipment can sound great these days due to the power of DSPs. Heck there are some Soundbars out there that, get this, are really good value for the money and deliver good sound at a good price with minimal space investment. The new Sony HT-A9 modular wireless speaker system delivers probably the most convincing Atmos sound bubble you can experience at basically any price, and it does it purely through the dark art of Digital Sound Processing by utilizing 4 1ft tall canisters with independent forward and upward drivers. I personally use this system in my living room now and it easily beats my outgoing full-on component Atmos system which consisted of Klipsch Speakers and subs, including proper ceiling mounted overhead speakers.

Also the latest and greatest for your vehicle is unequivocally better than it used to be - wildly better. Not 10-15 years ago even the most expensive cars usually came with absolutely pitiful little systems, where a dirty low power amp that was more noise than signal fed 1w RMS to a set of door speakers with voice coils made from corporate cost cutting wishes with absolutely zero meaningful DSP to back them up in some way.

Also just throwing it out there, but paper speakers aren't inherently bad. A lot of really good speakers in a number of applications use "paper" cones, which is really secondary anyway to the voice coil itself. Almost all cars with "premium" sound systems rely heavily on DSP to make them sound good and this Fender system is no exception. A car is an inherently awful environment to get good quality audio playback and it generally works best when the manufacturers lean into modern DSP technology to deliver fun over nuance. The Fender system delivers ample bass that is surprisingly controlled, and it delivers a lot of clarity without becoming too screechy (which is does start to become at really high volumes to be fair, as basically any car system including aftermarket will). I'm not going to go sit in my Frontier to enjoy the finer aspects of a Chopin piece, but scooting down the interstate listening to some The Glitch Mob, Mr. Kitty, Hatsune Miku, or Mori Calliope? Does the job, does it well. Cabin be shaking and cymbals be slapping.

 

[SoupAssassin]

Is the original "Fender" company still in existence? If not, then this sounds like a brand name purchased and reused to wring out anything they can get out of it. Pretty sure this is how the reemergence of Westinghouse came about = a name many of us older folk will recall.

Yes, it absolutely is. It's still a privately held American company that primarily produces instruments and musical equipment. In 2017 Servco Pacific, another Privately held American company based out of Hawaii that is a huge manufacturer of automotive parts and accessories, purchased a controlling stake in Fender, which was likely their gateway into car audio.

Idk the extent of the hand they had in it. I would imagine that Nissan pre arranged some Clarion speakers and sourced the amp out to the same company that builds almost all of their head units and amps, then handed the setup to Fender's automotive people who built the DSP. So Nissan pre-arranged the equipment and Fender tuned it. It would still largely be considered primarily a brand acquisition thing but I'm sure Fender had a hand in the final product.

It really sounds pretty good, like, objectively. It doesn't really matter where it came from or who did what. I'm not sure where any "meh" would be coming from because again you have to consider it within the scope of typical car audio, even upgraded audio, where the Fender system stands out as pretty decent. As part of the pro premium package it's a great deal because you also get leather (decent leather too, significantly nicer feeling than the "leather" in my Xterra), and a sunroof. That's three big nice to haves. It's a $2,790 package. I think it's crazy not to get it by the time you're already spending that much money. A lot of it should come back in the form of resale too, as again that's three big nice to haves. You also get a dimming rear view mirror and homelink, but those are more minor add-ons.

You also unfortunately get saddled with the ugly fake beadlock wheels. But then again the stock Pro-4x wheels are ugly too IMO. As are literally every wheel you can get on a 2022 Frontier. Nissan made terrible wheel decisions.

But you're not paying $2,790 just for better audio, which seems to have been implied by a couple people in this thread.

 

[SoupAssassin]

I got the "Premium Package" for the "leather seating and the sun roof mostly. The Fender Stereo is ok...but I will be replacing all the speakers with 2.7ohm Infinity reference speakers in the near future. Did not really get it for the stereo. Another plus from the premium package was the LED lights and running lights. As I have gotten older I just don't see good at night with the old cat piss yellow halogen lights. You can always add LED bulbs and fogs but the running lights require the premium package.

I think the LED lights come with all Pro-4x, not just the premiums? At least I thought that was the way it worked.