Harman Kardon - Something is wrong with the system in the P2

Nothing wrong with my HK.

A good, accurate home audio system...one costing a LOT of money....will be designed, with speakers positioned, to try and replicate one's acoustic experience you get at a good symphony hall. And that means, the sound you hear is all coming from the front, with no acoustic reflections, etc from the rear. When you go to the symphony, this where the symphony is, and where the vocalists are. This is where the sound is coming from...not the rear, as it should be.

Don't confuse that experience with one you get with your surround-sound home "theater" experience...where you get a lot of sound behind you. That may seem more pleasing, or realistic for an action movie, but it's artificial, and not how true, accurate audio systems replicate sound.

The HK in the P2, IMO, is closer to a good audio system, not perfect, but better than most car systems.....than it is my home, surround sound system I use to watch sporting events or action movies.

If you sit in the back seats and let someone else drive, you will hear plenty of music coming from the back, but not so overwhelming as to make it impossible for those in the back to not be able to hear what someone in the font is saying. Sitting in the front, the sound I hear is audible, but just barely so. Its serves only to give a more spacious, or "accent" sound experience.

Thacyoon said:

And what is the conclusion? Have Polestar replied or talked about these issues? Or does Polestar think there are no issues? (yes, I have reset the infotainment/equaliser on both cars).

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The issue is that no-one has done a proper A-B test to work out if it's car specific. I -love- the HK system in my car. It's the best audio I've had in any car and every car I've had, I've paid for whatever the premium audio system is. It's crystal clear and the imaging is perfect. If I was designing a system myself, this is probably as I would have done it. It could do with a bit more LF maybe, but that's the compromise that has arisen from not having 'proper' subwoofers.

So for me, I find it completely baffling that people are not happy with it, so this can really only mean one of two things.

1) I have very specific and peculiar ideas about what a good in car audio system should sound like

2) there's something wrong with some cars

3) people just want BOOM BOOM BOOM hitting them from all directions

Now as audio is basically my day job, not to mention obviously being biased, my view is that 2) or 3) are much more likely than 1)...

First things first, there's obviously no cure for 3) and it's a lost cause trying to solve that one.

To rule out 2) I've offered multiple times to meet up with people who were complaining of bad sound - including two people quite near to me, but they always bailed out.

If you like, try my settings and listen to my sound check playlist. There’s lots of different music genres in there and they’re all carefully selected tracks.

Make sure you’ve set Spotify to the best quality setting before starting. Surround: OFF! Listening experience: Driver focussed.

Optimum volume setting approx 75% (the car has a preset non-defeatable loudness curve linked to the volume control)

Nothing beats a Bose, in my opinion. I've had Wave radios for years and Bose systems in Buicks as far back as my parent's '85 Park Avenue.
However, if you fiddle enough, the premium Harman/Kardon comes close.
I'm pretty sure the radio set up is not part of the pre-delivery process since it's so personal to the driver. Over time I have adjusted the settings several times to match the type of music, news, or sports programs I'm listening to. (This was easier to do with the Bose systems as there are presets for different types of listening.)I don't remember how the system was set up when I got the car because I always set radio systems to my preferences but some complaints may be related to the fact that the factory settings are all flat.
After reading some of the opinions and comments on this thread, I explored more options in the Sound Experience section. You can set up the listening experience the way you like it. The equalizer, bass, treble, and sub-woofer adjustments, along with the equalizer mean you have a lot of options. Also, you can set volume levels for several inputs including media player. Seems very versatile to me. So I recommend exploring all the options before condemning the system.
I agree with the observations of Dude regarding how the system is designed for the P2. One thing I noticed today is that the Radio App does not drive the rear speakers as well as IHeart Radio, Spotify, Pandora, and the Bluetooth player. Even my local FM stations played through IHeart Radio are superior to listening to the same stations using the Radio App. Also, Surround OFF, as stevelup indicates, is the correct setting.