Many people who have just bought a car for the first time must have once wondered, What is speed sensitive volume?
This modern feature allows drivers to have a more joyful time driving as it changes the radio volume according to their speed.
However, not many drivers actually understand what it is and how it works. That is why we prepared this article. Scroll down to unclog your curiosity.
What Is Speed Sensitive Volume?
In short, speed-sensitive volume is a new audio tech focusing on maximizing audio clarity while your car is moving at high speed.
This feature eliminates the annoyance that wind noise, road noise, engine noise, and tire noise usually bring whenever you cross a certain speed threshold.
It works by adjusting your car’s audio volume according to the speed you are traveling at.
As the car accelerates, the volume level will also increase with the same pace and vice versa.
You do need to remember that due to its nature, the volume increase won’t work if your speed isn’t above 35 miles per hour.
However, as there are many manufacturers, this limit is only good as a reference. Some manufacturers go over it while others go under.
So, how does this feature attain this capability? The secret lies in how stock radio systems configure their output with dependence on the cabin’s ambient noise.
As stock radios tend to use hands-free calling mics, they can also serve as a measurement tool for cabin noise.
The speed volume control system can then know exactly how the ambient noise is in the cabin and configure the output accordingly.
How To Use Speed-Controlled Volume
Instruction
There are a total of three simple steps you need to go through to operate the sensitive speed control volume feature to its full potential.
Step 1
The first thing that you need to do is turn your car’s display on by accessing the touchscreen’s vehicle drawer.
Remember that you need to wait a little while so that everything can turn on properly. Otherwise, you run a risk of the feature lagging and not working at all.
Step 2
The next thing to do is access the Settings option and look for its Menu bar. We believe that it should generally be in the second row, near the second option on the left.
You should see some options popping up, one of them being Audio/Sound, then go for the Soundbar option.
There is a difference between Ford and other manufacturers in this step. With Ford, it should be near the second slide to the left, while other manufacturers tend to put it under App.
Step 3
The last thing to do is figure out which speed automatic volume control option you want.
Speed Dynamic Volume Control Options
There are two styles of options for this feature, Ford and the rest. While other manufacturers allow about seven options to configure, Ford only allows four.
For Ford, the four options are as follows: Off, Low, Medium, and High. As their name suggests, they turn the feature off, decrease the volume, set the volume to medium, and increase the volume, respectively.
How To Turn Off Speed Sensitive Volume Control
While it’s undeniable that speed-sensitive volume control delivers an interesting approach to volume adjustment, it can be quite annoying in the wrong circumstance.
For example, a loud radio program/music may become even louder when your car passes into the highway speeds, as it responds to the speed you are driving at.
Or imagine your car produces humming noise that gets louder with speed, and you can’t notice it due to the loud radio. That could be disastrous if you don’t detect the problem soon.
In these cases, it’s better to shut off the speed adjusted volume feature. That is also the reason the manufacturer offers a number of ways for you to shut the thing off.
The quickest way is to hold your scan button down for at least 2 or 3 seconds. A menu will pop up, and you can switch between your wheel settings.
Once you rotate your knob to the main menu, pick the speed-sensitive setting that your car uses and press Enter.
From this point, you must choose between On and Off for your Speed-Sensitive Volume Control.
What To Do If You Can’t Adjust The Speed Sensitive Volume Control?
There are several models in which you will find it very hard to adjust the speed-sensitive volume option. Some prime examples are Escape, F150, Edge, and Fusion.
As you can guess, they all share one similarity in the Sony sound system volume. That is also the main reason behind them having the same issue.
We believe that this issue has three main causes, consisting of problems in the Audio Control Module, bad module, and the user clicking OK too quickly.
These three encompass all the instances where your Speed-Sensitive Volume control cannot function as smoothly as it should.
Depending on the cause, you have specific courses of action to undertake if you want to fix the issue. For example, when the problem is in the ACM, then there is no other way than to replace it in its entirety.
We still recommend performing another checkup to see whether it can still function, as replacing it can be quite expensive.
You can do the same thing if the cause lies in another module.
The last case with clicking OK too early is the easiest to fix and costs you practically nothing. All you need to do is be careful before hitting the OK button.
The correct thing to do is wait patiently for the option bar box to appear fully on the screen. You should start choosing and then hitting the OK button after seeing it in full.
This approach ensures that there is no lag and that the feature can work properly.
Conclusion
What is speed sensitive volume? With this article, we have answered the question to the best of our capability. We have also shown you the proper way to operate this function and how to turn it on or off.
If you can make the best use of this feature, all your rides will become a lot more interesting.
After all, not many people can resist the temptation of music changing based on the way they drive.