Cupra Leon Estate VZ1 - long-term review

A there-and-back to Germany gave the Leon’s stereo a proper workout. At an indicated 220kmh on the autobahn it felt remarkably calm and tidy, bar the intrusive road roar. Tick the Immersive by Sennheiser box and you’ll mind the tyre noise far less. Clear vocals for podcasts, music that’s wide and full of depth rather than merely loud. The system itself is a 12-speaker setup including a sub, and in our car that sub lives neatly under the boot floor in the spare-wheel well, so it doesn’t eat day-to-day luggage space – though it won’t help if you pick up a puncture.

However, there’s some clever software trickery that takes the Sennheiser’s stereo a step further. It’s called AMBEO Concerto, and as they put it, "allows for traditional stereo content to be played back in full three-dimensional depth and resolution". Sennheiser also said: "No artificial reverb or reflections are added." The end result is a larger, more stable soundstage that feels planted in front of you rather than smeared across the doors. As the name suggests, it’s more like a concert experience.

Within the infotainment you’ll find a Sennheiser Studio page with an immersion slider, presets for Music, Speech and Club, plus EQ sliders for each preset. ‘Club’ is presumably for the young and shameless, so the outside world can listen to one’s questionable music taste. After living with it, my advice is to keep the immersion slider high. Wind it back and the sound narrows and thins. Frankly, the slider mainly proves AMBEO is doing something. I’ve yet to find a scenario where less immersion helps. Leave the EQ alone, feed it a decent stream, and the system rewards you with a clean, natural sound that still holds together when the speedo’s indicating silly numbers.

Of course, value matters and here the box is easy to tick. At £600 it feels like a no-brainer for the step it delivers when daily driving. Podcasts and music remain intelligible without constant volume tweaks. Yes, the Leon still isn’t a library at motorway pace, but AMBEO’s stage and the system’s clarity punch cleanly through the rumble of tyres and tarmac.

A short background on Sennheiser if you’re not familiar with the brand: founded in 1945, it’s no newcomer to quality audio. Its pro microphones routinely run to four figures. In fact, on our YouTube series Top Gear Tunnel Run, we used an £8,000 microphone from Sennheiser’s sub-brand, Neumann, capable of recording truly immersive sound. Perfect for slinging hypercars down a 1.7-mile tunnel (indulge yourself below). Essentially, this isn’t badge theatre. It’s innovative audio tech designed to improve sound without lobbing in excessive amounts of hardware, and in the Leon, it works.