Glad it wasn't a placebo effect! But this got me thinking. Is it that the car sounds are actually correct, but due to them trying to keep it realistic, a normal speaker doesn't have the capacity to output all these sounds? Obviously there is always room for improvement, but they aren't as bad as people are making them out to be. I've tried NFS:MW 2 with the sound bar, and it just sounds like a complete racket. Without it the cars have the pop and growl etc that people say (still unrealistically in my opinion), but with it just makes a mess. Maybe that is why GT5 partly sounds quite vaccuum like?