Cadillac STS vs. BMW 740iL vs. Lexus LS400

Cadillac STS vs. BMW 740iL vs. Lexus LS400 Cadillac STS vs. BMW 740iL vs. Lexus LS400
Comparison Tests

I was stopped dead in Detroit traffic. Miles of it. Not far off the road was an immense Goodyear billboard with scrolling text. "SERIOUS FREEDOM," it flashed, as if taunting passing motorists, none of whom were passing. That information was followed by the temperature: "92 DEGREES." I adjusted the air conditioning, then the Goodyear sign had more information to impart. It flashed the number of cars and trucks produced so far in 1999: "9,805,941." Nine million of which, I estimated, were currently idling and fuming before me. As if determined to work me into a blinding, fist-pounding rage, the Goodyear sign taunted with another emphatic flash: "SERIOUS FREEDOM" it again insisted. This time it looked angry.

Freedom to sit in gridlock, maybe. Yet I was also free to listen to a multi-thousand-dollar Nakamichi stereo in one of the quietest cars C/D has ever measured. I was, in fact, being paid to do so. As the Cowboy Junkies' Margo Timmins sobbed her way through "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," there lodged in my brain a minor truism of late-'90s American motoring: Active-handling systems and movable spoilers make for riveting conversation, but the ugly reality is that we fritter away colossal chunks of our lives in stasis, studying the bumpers of strangers. Thus the importance of stereophonics, which maybe represents its own sort of serious freedom.

During comparison tests, we listen to stereos -- often even talk about them -- but not critically.

We vowed to change all that. But first we needed to tune our ears by identifying some sort of reference for excellence. Each editor was thus asked to recall the finest car stereo he'd heard in a Japanese car, a German car, and an American car. Minor bickering ensued, but when the ballots were wiped clean of blood, an alluring trio emerged. Representing Japan would be the Lexus LS400's optional Nakamichi head unit and speakers. This amazing stereo comes as part of a $4573 package that also consists of -- for no good reason except to harvest your cash -- a sunroof, heated seats, and automatically leveling HID headlamps.

Representing America would be the Bose 4.0 system that is standard equipment in the Cadillac STS (a $998 option in the SLS), although ours was also fitted with a $625 six-disc changer between the front seats.

And our Teutonic contestant would be a BMW 740iL's system with its 14 speakers and a 16-square-inch liquid-crystal display that subsequently sent two of our listeners to victim-outreach counseling not covered by any HMO.

Because we've never conducted a sound-off of this sort, we sought professional assistance. Our team of golden-eared voters consisted of two C/D editors, two editors from New York-based Car Stereo Review -- editor-in-chief Mike Mettler and senior editor Chuck Tannert -- and two professional musicians: rock-'n'-roll maestro J. Geils and one real maestro, Neeme Järvi, who is not only Dick Cavett's pal but also the director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

For four days we listened to CDs and talk shows, sometimes slamming over potholes, sometimes idling blissfully in parking lots, sometimes pretending to listen while actually flinching involuntarily in REM sleep. We listened alone and with every seat in the mobile house full. We took notes. We stole each other's CDs. We argued over who spilled the raspberry iced tea.

The Car Stereo Review guys, who indulge in similar exercises daily, discussed axial standing waves at 70 Hz and wondered aloud about Bazooka Tubes -- subwoofers, we surmised, that cause the glass to explode in the cockpits of rap-music devotees. Under their shirts the CSR crew tucked spectrum analyzers and CDs filled with test tones, which we initially mistook for the latest hip-hop music. They insisted that we ignore the number of watts and speakers that each system possesses. They demanded that we listen to music recorded acoustically, favoring discs that included small editing mistakes, tidbits of audience conversation, and the chirps of fingers gliding over frets. Either that or there were prairie mice lodged in the Lexus's steering column.

Our pro musicians listened with equal discrimination, and both turned out to be connoisseurs of fine automobiles.

J. Geils, now 53 -- and whose first name, we discovered, is not "Jay" -- was in the midst of his sold-out "Reunion Tour." In a former life, Geils was a mechanical engineer and proved it when he blurted, "Music is nothing more than math with feeling." Geils has owned two Ferrari 250GTs, a Spyder California, and a '58 Berlinetta "Tour de France" driven by Maurice Trintignant, who is not a member of any hip-hop band.

"If you have a really interesting car," Geils posited mid-test, "you don't need a stereo," which did little to explain the Alfa GTV "with a $100 Blaupunkt" that he drove for many years. Although he had been awake all night, traveling aboard a bus with his 11-man band, Geils further solidified his credentials when he recalled the first time he met Stevie Ray Vaughan's brother, Jimmie: "Guy walks up to me -- doesn't say hello, how are you, nothin'. First thing outta his mouth is, 'Can you help me with my Weber carbs?'"

During our tests, Geils listened to his own music from the Sanctuary CD but clearly favored jazz recordings: The Complete Coleman Hawkins and Live in Swing City by the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

Estonian born Neeme Järvi, 62, didn't ask about Weber carbs, nor did he much resemble a guy who rides the band's bus all night. But he did arrive at Detroit's Orchestra Hall in a flawless raven-black Benz 560SEL. His other car is a Volvo 960 -- "a salute to Sweden, near my home in Tallinn," he explained. Järvi has conducted orchestras in Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Gothenburg, London, Amsterdam, Dresden, Paris -- the man's passport is as thick as the Old Testament. During our in-car tests, when certain musical passages particularly pleased him, Järvi closed his eyes, raised his muscled forearms skyward, and began to conduct. In so doing he once knocked the BMW's mirror askew. We cheered.

The maestro knows his automobiles. He insisted that some listening tests be performed with the cars' fans blowing at full speed, and once, after climbing into the BMW, he commented, "Ahhhh, seats for driving, not sleeping." A man of firm forearms and feelings.

Järvi's reference discs included A Night in Tunisia; A Week in Detroit, by the Detroit Symphony; and Richard Strauss's Suite from Schlagobers, also by the DSO and conducted by hisownself. As far as we know, Järvi never once referred to any of us as schlagobers.

So how fared our three vehicular tenors?