There have been a variety of disturbing trends beginning to emerge at BMW lately. The automaker that once prided itself on building some of the best driving machines around has gone soft, and if that isn't evident in the outgoing F10 M5, then maybe the company's threats to electrify its legendary M lineup will convince you. Aside from lag-laden turbocharged engines, there is new electric steering that numbs a driver's connection between the front tires and the road.

Unfortunately, according to enthusiast blog Bimmer Post, that won't be all. A fan on the enthusiast's site has uncovered that the new G30 BMW (which looks great by the way) will use BMW's infamous Active Sound Design. The feature serves to pipe fake engine noise into the cabin so that drivers can feel as if they have a burlier engine. It's no that BMW's motors are unimpressive by any means, it's that despite the horsepower and torque that turbocharging adds, it kills the engine's voice. BMW has previously used it on small engines like the twin-turbo inline-six that lives under the hood of the M2, but now it appears to be bringing it up range.

Bimmer Post user Marius16 was looking through a brochure for the G30 M550i and found that the 5 Series uses special software to pump in engine noise through the Harmon Kardon sound system. In our eyes, there has never been much of a reason to buy an M550i in the first place given that most customers who care about performance would opt for the M5 and the rest wouldn't care to spend the extra dough on a partial sports car. However, the inclusion of the Active Sound Design feature makes us want the M550i even less. Still worse is fact that if the M550i's has the feature, it will likely migrate to the next generation of M5. We can at least be happy that the current M5 is gas-powered.