Guide: Disable/Turn down the Soundaktor with VCDS (Fake engine sound)

You may or may not know about the Soundaktor in our cars.

Originally back with the MK5, they used a pipe to bring some of the sounds into the cabin of the turbo system. This brought a subtle sound into the cabin but it wasn’t much a had the tenancy to cause a small amount of boost leak. Many people just ended up plugging it, if they knew about it at all.

Starting with the MK6 they installed a speaker in the engine bay that played sounds based on what the engine was currently doing. When people find out about this they typically feel slighted that their car doesn’t make the sounds naturally that they are hearing.

Disabling or turning down the Soundaktor reduces the engine sound especially in sport mode. This is probably the easiest VCDS tweak you can do. So if you are new to VCDS this is a great place to start.

• From the VCDS main screen click the button “Select”
• Click the button “A9 Structure Borne Sound”
• Click the button “Adaption 10”
• Use the Channel drop down and select “Volume of structure borne noise actuator” For me it was the only one.
• Enter a value. Default value is 100, setting 50 would reduce the sound by 50%. 0 would turn it off completely.
• Click “do it”

That’s it! Now go give your car a test run and see how it sounds. Sport mode is the bigger difference.