How to Enable B&O Beosonic EQ with FORScan

[Bruboy]

Just got this working in my 2023 premium! My first, but not last FORScan mod. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this and the other FORScan threads!

Oh, by the way, I find that my equalizer does indeed work in conjunction with Beosonic.

Does the Beosonic make a big difference?

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[McSquashy]

Does the Beosonic make a big difference?

I've only used it briefly so far, but I already feel it makes a positive difference in the overall listening experience.

While I don't know if it necessarily improves the sound system itself (I would think that's limited by the hardware), I really like how it allows you to change the sound profile for different types of music or listening preferences.

I'm no hardcore audiophile, but I do appreciate a decent sound system. From the reviews I've read, the B&O system in our cars isn't the best, but it's by far the best sound system in any vehicle I've owned. Enabling Beosonic definitely improves things even more!

 

[Rory]

Does the Beosonic make a big difference?

To be clear, I'm kidding:

 

[Snakebitten]

There's nothing subtle about the Beosnic affect if it is functioning.
You'll definitely notice.

Especially if you move exactly 180° or 90° on the outside edge. Far from just marketing hype.

But I'm a bit surprised that someone reported that the equalizer changed settings in conjunction with Beosnic. My EQ settings stay in the position I had them previously in and the audio changes to those settings if/when I exit Beosnic and switch to EQ.

So are there 2 different behaviors possible between different cars?

 

[Neil4Real]

There's nothing subtle about the Beosnic affect if it is functioning.
You'll definitely notice.

Especially if you move exactly 180° or 90° on the outside edge. Far from just marketing hype.

But I'm a bit surprised that someone reported that the equalizer changed settings in conjunction with Beosnic. My EQ settings stay in the position I had them previously in and the audio changes to those settings if/when I exit Beosnic and switch to EQ.

So are there 2 different behaviors possible between different cars?

Are the Beosonic settings just EQ profiles or does it mess with other settings to get the sound profiles?

 

[Snakebitten]

Are the Beosonic settings just EQ profiles or does it mess with other settings to get the sound profiles?

I haven't a clue.
Is it just an equalizer with more than the 3 adjustable frequency bands? Could be.

But that's why I was quick to make a large change in Beosnic and then click back to the EQ to see if it reflected what I was hearing.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Possibly a dumb question but does Beosonic override the Equalizer settings or work in conjunction with them?

No. It's A or B. You either have the 3-band EQ active, or Beosonic, not both. They are separate modes that don't influence one another. I've confirmed that by A/B testing.

Followed these steps and got the UI, but it doesn't seem to actually work. So I guess maybe 23-PU1024-6CH-AUD isn't new enough for the DSP? Ah well.

I also got that OTA but had to update my DSP module with FDRS before it would work.

Perhaps your ears are just not sensitive enough to pick up the minute differences that B&O intended.....or it's just marketing crap.

The differences are gross, not minute. There are very noticeable tonality differences between the extremes of the Beosonic circle. If you are an audiophile that cares about adjustability, Beosonic is for you.

Does the Beosonic make a big difference?

Fair difference, see above. It's not earth shattering, but it's just a much nicer EQ method that allows you to dial in the sound to your preferences with much better granularity. It's not going to turn the car into a $5,000 HiFi setup however.

Are the Beosonic settings just EQ profiles or does it mess with other settings to get the sound profiles?

From what I understand, it's more than just EQ profiles. It's sort of a two-dimensional EQ with gradual tone changes in the x and y plane. You can put the dot wherever you want in the circle so you get fine control over the sound. There's a little bit of DSP thrown in too that I'm sure is proprietary.

 

[avdonr]

Got it working on my 2021 in about 3 minutes. Very easy and I can appreciate the difference from the regular EQ. Thanks for the write up.

 

[joes723]

Anyone in the greater King County area here in WA state that has the equipment to do this, I’ll host a gathering! ???

 

[Snakebitten]

Wanna go on record and state that I had already successfully enabled Beosnic before Mach-Lee created this thread. So I didn't pay close attention to the opening post.

After swapping out my steering wheel airbag cover, and leaving the battery disconnected overnight, I later noticed that my FM presets were not visible in Sync4. They were still active, but just not visible.

I assumed it was a bug introduced after leaving the car dead overnight without 12V power. But when I did a forum search regarding FM presets, the link to the first post in this thread popped up. ?

Sure enough, an 8 in the APIM Asbuilt edit I did, did in fact successfully enabled Beosnic UI. But it nixed the presets.
I edited the 8 to a 9 and all is well.

Thanks Mach-Lee

 

[Mark Hassa]

Just got this working in my 2023 premium! My first, but not last FORScan mod. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this and the other FORScan threads!

Oh, by the way, I find that my equalizer does indeed work in conjunction with Beosonic.

You should activate the Power Meter from the GT. Easy to do in Forscan. Just one line to change.

 

[Mark Hassa]

Anyone in the greater King County area here in WA state that has the equipment to do this, I’ll host a gathering! ???

I’m in Vancouver BC and can do this for you if you ever venture north. King County is the Seattle area?

 

[McSquashy]

You should activate the Power Meter from the GT. Easy to do in Forscan. Just one line to change.

That was next on my list of things to do until I just read about the latest Powertrain update breaking the meter. I may try enabling it anyway and see what happens.

 

[scharebear]

Beosonic is sort of graphic equalizer that allows you to adjust the tonal quality of the sound to your liking. It's much better than the standard 3-band EQ (bass, mid, treble) that Ford gives by default and allows you to dial in the tonality with greater precision. It debuted on 2024 Mach-E's, but is present in the current SYNC software and can be enabled by simply changing a few as-built values.

Requirements:
B&O sound system
Recent APIM version (6.2.1 or later)
Latest DSP software (14C589-AD)
FORScan license
OBD adapter

I'm not going to explain the whole process of using FORScan, if you haven't used it before read Livnitup's FORScan tutorial here. Remember you can mess things up if you do something wrong, so make a note or save the original config before editing.

Here are the required as-built hex changes for Mach-E's:

DSP 783-01-01 xx1x xx

APIM 7D0-01-01 xxx9 xxxx xx

You can edit the number, double check you did it correctly, then click the write button. If it doesn't work, turn the car off, open the door, wait 5 minutes and try again. Then proceed to a SYNC reboot if necessary.

If you are successful, the Beosonic option will show up in the sound settings:

Drag the white dot and release it to change the sound. If the bright and warm positions don't sound any different, your DSP software is too old to support Beosonic, update it with FDRS. Double tap the dot to enable/disable surround sound mode (there will be double rings around the white dot when enabled).

Bright = increased treble, sounds hot
Warm = decreased treble, sounds muddy
Energetic = increased bass, sounds punchy
Relaxed = decreased midrange?, sounds hollow

My personal favorite is the yellow/orange position shown in the above photo. I prefer stereo mode instead of surround mode (surround puts too much emphasis on the center speaker). Enabling this has increased the clarity and punchiness of the sound significantly, I like it a lot better now. For audiophiles you'll notice a slight increase in distortion when Beosonic in use, but it won't be that noticeable while driving with all the road noise. Fixing the tonality is the greatest benefit.

I got it to work and seems to be a bit better to my ear. Thanks for posting this.

I am curious though my next 4 numbers after F511 are 8012 and yours are 8002. Did you change something else? I tried to look at the Forscan MME spreadsheet but do not see a tab for DSP, although I see you have a pic of it? And it looks like those spaces are --, not xx, so does that mean they don't do anything?

 

[fawzib]

verified that it worked on my 2023.6 premium ER AWD

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