Car sounds are mediocre

I think your comment above is spot on John.
Because compared to any RL driver then we are missing so many visual, auditive and plain physical inputs that anything that is able to compensate a bit for that will probably raise the imagination for most.
As an example I would rather have a lot of directive transmission noises/cues in my virtual cockpit than none - even if the RL driver in the car I drive dont exactly is able to hear the transmission noise above some engine or cockpit rattling.

ByTheWay: Having a dedicated sound card does also help to destribute the available sound cues.
Because with a dedicatede SC its often possible to tweak the sound destribution for the speakers or headphone better than if you just have some low end semi-SC integrated on the motherboard.

 

Yes, and if you look at the credits of the famous GP79 mod for Rfactor, you will see that the physics is by Renato Simioni, and the sounds of Vassalfada, who makes the sounds for R3E.
The world of simulation is small.

 

I think they have mentioned that there is room for improvements in all areas of the game, therefore I conclude audio is on their table too.

Personally I have no complaints to the cars sounds. To me they are good, overall.

 

For me the worst thing about the sound are the crackles and distortion.

After thinking it might be my equipment, i realized that those crackles are also audible on gameplay videos like this one

You can clearly hear the pops and crackles on various rpm ranges and probably some car and surface interactions and it's annoying the hell out of me to a point where i don't want to drive certain cars anymore (like the sprint car, it's one of the worst in that regard).

Are there any plans to iron this out?

 

Yeah its a shame as Sprint Car is definitely one of the better cars to drive but the audio crackling is more noticeable I find with this car.

Watching some in car footage of this, whilst the actual engine sound in car isnt too far off - personally think it its one of the more bland sounding in game - but certainly when comparing the real life footage when shifting down through the gears (

) there's a lot more whining and low-end rumbling going on there than in the game.

I know the latest patch notes mentioned prepping for engine splutter on downshift so definitely seems like some of the extra sound effects are being looked at which is great news. Has anyone noticed any difference in audio when increasing the LFE setting in audo? I've bumped it right up to 100 and don't notice any difference - is it meant for adjust the audio, I assumed it was just like a 'bass boost' eq, but maybe its for something else?

 

I haven't noticed any difference with LFE either. AMS2 audio kind of reminds me of AC, feels like pure engine sound without exhaust. I was surprised the audio dev said they have turned backfire up from where it should be also, I remember my friends NA MX5 (with straight pipe) backfire making me jump in the passenger seat, it sounded like a gunshot. Also at Goodwood FOS all the old F1 cars had massive pops of backfire when off throttle, when they were up near the top of the hill it was all I could still hear from them.

 

RaceRoom's recent audio updates have pretty well nailed the backfire effects imo, very immersive.

In regard to the audio LFE setting, it's for systems using a dedicated channel for the subwoofer, hence the reason many of us get no benefit from increasing the level. Even my Klipsh 4.1 surround system doesn't use a separate channel for the sub.