I've had my 2015 with the Lexicon 14 speaker system for a few weeks now and I think it sounds superb for a factory audio system. It did take me a while to find some settings that my ears like for the limited "3 band EQ" bass, midrange, treble tone controls. At the moment I'm very happy with the following settings:
Surround: On - when it's off, I think the sound gets noticeably worse and I typically hate surround modes. If this is Lexicon Logic 7 matrix mode for stereo sources, it's phenomenal compared to what I've heard from a lot of matrixed surround modes from 2 channel sources.
Position: 1 notch forward since I have a kiddo in the backseat and when centered, the surround is a notch too high for the back seat dweller. When I'm alone I move it 1 notch to the right for my preferred imaging since I'm sitting closer to the left side speakers.
Tone Controls: Bass +2, Midrange -2, Treble +2. This is subjective but the midrange to my ears was too prominent. Bass at +2 is a little too much while parked but while driving it adds enough low end to overcome the limited low frequency road noise that may interfere with bass in the 100Hz range while cruising around.
Side note - when I drove off the lot, the Lexicon head unit was not updated to the latest software so I didn't have
Android Auto or the ability to play FLAC files from USB. The Lexicon system seems heavily dependent on source material so compressed MP3s even topped out 320Kbps can sound a little crunchy with emphasized midrange screech. CD and FLAC sound ridiculously good as long as the source recording is top tier. Garbage in -> Garbage out is what I've found after reading a lot of the boo birds and hate posts about the Lexicon audio in the Genesis. Upgrading the software was an instant audio upgrade since I can play uncompressed FLAC compared to just MP3. Add in
Android Auto and my 2015 Genesis sedan has better head unit features than some Lexus models from 2018/2019 and it just took an hour or so download and 30 minute update process in the vehicle to make the magic happen.
My old car was a 2008 Honda Civic Si with an audio system I installed myself so it sounded pretty nice to my ears with an Arc KS300.4 amp and some Frankenstein quality components that didn't break the bank since I purchased from places like Parts Express and Madisound. The head unit was a Sony XAV-8000 and it had a pretty good MP3/FLAC decoder so USB audio sounded very nice in my old vehicle. The speaker setup was limited to 2 way front with a good 8 inch driver in the rear deck for bass minus the neighborhood annoying thump and to my ears the Lexicon 14 speaker system is superb coming from my old car with very good DIY audio upgrades compared to the joke called Honda "premium sound" that was in the vehicle when I bought it. The only car with worse sounding audio I've had was a WRX and I think Subaru threw two flip phones in the door panels for speakers and called it a day. Granted the Subie was a base model but still, 2017 and the Subie standard audio sounded like ear sandpaper for the most part.
Hope this helps anyone else wondering about the 14 versus 17 speaker Lexicon systems in the 2015 Genesis. My official review is two thumbs up and it ain't too shabby. I don't find the bass lacking like some but everyone has different tastes. If you like bass thump and reverberating throughout a neighborhood, by a sub because the stock bass is very much tilted more to the accurate side of the spectrum even with the 100-150hz overemphasis my ears are picking up due to what may be a crossover choice that thickens that frequency range more than I'd like. Other than that unfortunate business, everything else about the Lexicon 14 speaker system is quite nice to my less than golden ears, especially with quality source material like FLAC or CD audio piped through the amp/speakers. YMMV.
Head unit deets after the software upgrade via USB stick.
Android Auto works flawlessly.
will be using my Galaxy S10 via Bluetooth and Spotify most of the time so quality should be good!
