Couldn't think how to describe this one, in a nutshell -

New Octy Mk4 - put all my music on a stick which plays perfectly in the PC at home...but...

In the car, some tracks play perfectly...but around 30-40% of them have an issue ie it's hard to describe but the tone seems to fluctuate every 5-10 seconds, ie it seems to lose midrange and treble and sounds pretty flat....then a few seconds later it seems to correct itself but only for a few seconds then the issue returns and so on all the way through the song.

Radio and music from other sources don't have this issue. Anyone notice this on their Octy?

I haven’t experienced the issue you’ve described but I have to say that overall I’m very disappointed in the quality of my 2025 vRS sound system.

3 hours ago, Bobra5037 said:

I haven’t experienced the issue you’ve described but I have to say that overall I’m very disappointed in the quality of my 2025 vRS sound system.

Good morning!
What’s the problem?

It’s just a thin sound. Poor bass response. I think my 2016 Octavia was a better system.

On 07/01/2026 at 17:47, chelon said:

Couldn't think how to describe this one, in a nutshell -

New Octy Mk4 - put all my music on a stick which plays perfectly in the PC at home...but...

In the car, some tracks play perfectly...but around 30-40% of them have an issue ie it's hard to describe but the tone seems to fluctuate every 5-10 seconds, ie it seems to lose midrange and treble and sounds pretty flat....then a few seconds later it seems to correct itself but only for a few seconds then the issue returns and so on all the way through the song.

Radio and music from other sources don't have this issue. Anyone notice this on their Octy?

I’ve never experienced this in my 2020 Octy 4.

Is it the same tracks that suffer the effect? If so, compared to the tracks that play OK, are they from a different source (eg. Downloaded or ripped from a CD); or are they different bit rates?

Another thought, could it be the USB drive which the car is struggling to read whereas the PC can cope? Maybe try a different stick.

5 hours ago, SteveTheElder said:

I’ve never experienced this in my 2020 Octy 4.

Is it the same tracks that suffer the effect? If so, compared to the tracks that play OK, are they from a different source (eg. Downloaded or ripped from a CD); or are they different bit rates?

Another thought, could it be the USB drive which the car is struggling to read whereas the PC can cope? Maybe try a different stick.

Guess it could be any or all of those things, but as it plays perfectly in the PC could be a lot of work involved in the root cause, but maybe I'll try a diff stick first as thats an easy one to try. With my previous Octy I used an iPod so the decompression etc all done before it hits the cars audio, but with this new car...as with everything else...totally dependent on the car computer which seems to struggle with just about everything...

For clarity when you say new mark 4 you mean the facelifted car or the pre facelift one?

20 hours ago, whippersnapper said:

For clarity when you say new mark 4 you mean the facelifted car or the pre facelift one?

Didn't know that, how can you tell? It was new in Feb last year