My (Visual) Lexus History
#2
Welcome back! While you may have been gone for quite some time, I'm glad you came back with great news! Congrats on your RC!
BTW, the condition of your IS when trading to the GS was outstanding!!!
BTW, the condition of your IS when trading to the GS was outstanding!!!
#4
Good Evening fellow Lexus enthusiasts (specifically now, RC350).
A quick introduction and then, for your viewing pleasure, what brought me here.
Long time follower, first time poster. Well, that's not entirely true... but I'll explain.
My first Lexus was the 2006 IS 350 F-Sport:
This was a dealer special with everything you could get on it at the time. Being a Sound and Video guy, what most impressed me was the ML sound system with DTS. Now here's where I clarify the "first time poster" moniker. 8 months after I bought this, I carefully, over a 2 hour period, modded the DVD to play while in motion. If you search the posts around 2006, you'll see my nod to the original poster, along with my detail description of removing the console, vents and cutting the wires to enable this capability. I loved this car so much!
But as is life, things change. Went from married to single and thought, let's start over with a new Lexus as well. So in 2012, drove my 7 year old 2006 IS350 Fsport with 40K(!) on the odometer to my awesome dealer and said, "what do you think"? They were floored that it was in near mint condition! While working with one sales guy, another one walked up, stuck his head in the IS and said, "What do you have in this? I've never seen one of these tricked out like this!". I said, "Everything". I knew I was in for a good deal!
Upgraded to a 2013 GS350-Fsport (seeing a pattern here?):
Want to know how good of a condition my IS was after 7 years of care? Here's the photo of the IS next to the newly purchased GS. This was the setup that prompted the other salesman to do a double-take:
Now, I really liked the power and performance of the GS350-Fsport. It also happened to be a dealer special, so had everything on it... well, almost. I settled on the basic sound system, which I knew was a mistake, but this car was such a great upgrade from the IS, that I hardly noticed. Also, I had in the back of my mind that Lexus was coming out with "something" based on the LFA. I decided to enjoy this car until that day came.
Fast forward two years to Feb 2015. I had my eye on the RC350-Fsport (obsessive compulsive much?) from the moment I saw the first pictures. I called up my guy and said, "I know I have another year on the GS, but if you get me out of it, I'll go all out on the RC." Being a long time customer definitely carries some clout. I described exactly what I wanted on this one... Everything, including the ML 17 speaker premium sound system (more on that later).
I read all of your stories on how folks had to wait for weeks, but 2 days after I made my wish list, I got the call that the exact car I described was just unloaded from the dock... did I still want it? I was so fortunate to call when I did!
Ultra White exterior, Rioja Red NuLuxe with Silver Performance Trim interior, and basically ticked the boxes next to everything else you could put on this.
Back to the ML system. Again, being a Sound and Video guy, first thing I did was transfer all of my SACD and DTS media to DVD-A. Now, I'm not going to get into a "what sounds better" debate. The simply fact is PCM is uncompressed. However, everyone's ears, environment, taste and clarity is personal. So Dolby Digital surround on a 836 watt, 17 speaker system housed in moving compartment accompanied by road, and cars noise, still sounds awesome! I'm so happy with the sound system, that I remind myself of it each morning with the Lexus start up screen:
But that also reminded me that something was missing from my RC. A certain umph, if you will. So after only two weeks driving it, I brought it back and said, "please fix it". And they did:
Adding the Fsport performance exhaust has made a huge difference! I can hear it in the start up, feel it in the seat and it flat out improves the performance. It went from 306hp to about 311hp. That may not seem like a lot, but when I went to pick it up, a bunch of the salesmen and service folks were smiling, saying, "Nice choice". I agree. So here she is today:
Finally, I've definitely decided to do a slight front lowering in few months. I've seen a lot of the work on this forum on lowering your entire RCs, and though it looks nice - if that's what you want. I think it's all about personal preference. I don't need to drop the back. Just a little off the front to complete the profile should do just fine.
I want to thank you all for your posts over the years. I promise to stay active and not let another 7 years pass between posts. This is a very well educated, highly proud community of enthusiasts and I have learned so much. Anything I can do to contribute is my pleasure. Hope you've enjoyed this post and much as I've enjoyed yours!
Zero-G
A quick introduction and then, for your viewing pleasure, what brought me here.
Long time follower, first time poster. Well, that's not entirely true... but I'll explain.
My first Lexus was the 2006 IS 350 F-Sport:
This was a dealer special with everything you could get on it at the time. Being a Sound and Video guy, what most impressed me was the ML sound system with DTS. Now here's where I clarify the "first time poster" moniker. 8 months after I bought this, I carefully, over a 2 hour period, modded the DVD to play while in motion. If you search the posts around 2006, you'll see my nod to the original poster, along with my detail description of removing the console, vents and cutting the wires to enable this capability. I loved this car so much!
But as is life, things change. Went from married to single and thought, let's start over with a new Lexus as well. So in 2012, drove my 7 year old 2006 IS350 Fsport with 40K(!) on the odometer to my awesome dealer and said, "what do you think"? They were floored that it was in near mint condition! While working with one sales guy, another one walked up, stuck his head in the IS and said, "What do you have in this? I've never seen one of these tricked out like this!". I said, "Everything". I knew I was in for a good deal!
Upgraded to a 2013 GS350-Fsport (seeing a pattern here?):
Want to know how good of a condition my IS was after 7 years of care? Here's the photo of the IS next to the newly purchased GS. This was the setup that prompted the other salesman to do a double-take:
Now, I really liked the power and performance of the GS350-Fsport. It also happened to be a dealer special, so had everything on it... well, almost. I settled on the basic sound system, which I knew was a mistake, but this car was such a great upgrade from the IS, that I hardly noticed. Also, I had in the back of my mind that Lexus was coming out with "something" based on the LFA. I decided to enjoy this car until that day came.
Fast forward two years to Feb 2015. I had my eye on the RC350-Fsport (obsessive compulsive much?) from the moment I saw the first pictures. I called up my guy and said, "I know I have another year on the GS, but if you get me out of it, I'll go all out on the RC." Being a long time customer definitely carries some clout. I described exactly what I wanted on this one... Everything, including the ML 17 speaker premium sound system (more on that later).
I read all of your stories on how folks had to wait for weeks, but 2 days after I made my wish list, I got the call that the exact car I described was just unloaded from the dock... did I still want it? I was so fortunate to call when I did!
Ultra White exterior, Rioja Red NuLuxe with Silver Performance Trim interior, and basically ticked the boxes next to everything else you could put on this.
Back to the ML system. Again, being a Sound and Video guy, first thing I did was transfer all of my SACD and DTS media to DVD-A. Now, I'm not going to get into a "what sounds better" debate. The simply fact is PCM is uncompressed. However, everyone's ears, environment, taste and clarity is personal. So Dolby Digital surround on a 836 watt, 17 speaker system housed in moving compartment accompanied by road, and cars noise, still sounds awesome! I'm so happy with the sound system, that I remind myself of it each morning with the Lexus start up screen:
But that also reminded me that something was missing from my RC. A certain umph, if you will. So after only two weeks driving it, I brought it back and said, "please fix it". And they did:
Adding the Fsport performance exhaust has made a huge difference! I can hear it in the start up, feel it in the seat and it flat out improves the performance. It went from 306hp to about 311hp. That may not seem like a lot, but when I went to pick it up, a bunch of the salesmen and service folks were smiling, saying, "Nice choice". I agree. So here she is today:
Finally, I've definitely decided to do a slight front lowering in few months. I've seen a lot of the work on this forum on lowering your entire RCs, and though it looks nice - if that's what you want. I think it's all about personal preference. I don't need to drop the back. Just a little off the front to complete the profile should do just fine.
I want to thank you all for your posts over the years. I promise to stay active and not let another 7 years pass between posts. This is a very well educated, highly proud community of enthusiasts and I have learned so much. Anything I can do to contribute is my pleasure. Hope you've enjoyed this post and much as I've enjoyed yours!
Zero-G
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#12
There are varying tools and workflows that allow for this process. A search at this board on "SACD" will bring up a mind-numbing number of discussions on the topic. Here are a few I recommend:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...diophiles.html
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lex...dio-discs.html
Hope this helps.
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/gs-...diophiles.html
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/lex...dio-discs.html
Hope this helps.
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