How good is the 2013 Lexus ES300H high end navigation/sound system?

Best way to tell is to take some CD's you really like, especially ones that span a wide range of base and treble, and play them on the system. Middle range is good even on lousy sound systems. If the cd's sound like they are being played on a sansui 9000 receiver and carver speakers, buy it. If it sounds like your entertainment center surround sound, you are probably wasting your money.

Thanks, Mark. That's helpful. Also, do you have any help regarding the navigation system? or the voice-activated controls?

I recently traded my 2012 ES350 for a 2013 ES300h. Overall, I am well pleased with the change. The navigation system and voice commands are much improved and more intuitive. Instead of being limited to a rigid set of short commands, the system seems to recognize longer strings of commands and does a good job of interpreting what you mean. However, I have a peculiar issue with my USB music interface connection. I have a 160 GB I-Pod with a combination of music files and bible sermons. For some reason, the bible sermon files will go into "chipmunk" speed when I turn the car off and back on. The music files don't do this. To get this to stop, I must browse out to a music file and then browse back to the sermon to get back to real speed. This is very irritating. The only clue we have is that these sermon files are MPEG-1, Layer 3 rather than the music files at MPEG-2, Layer 3. I cleared and reloaded the I-Pod with no affect. I went and purchased a brand new I-Pod and the same thing occurred. This did not happen with my ES350 so this appears to be new to the 2013 ES300H. The service manager states that based on their research, several Toyota models are now doing this as well as some BMW models. I now have an open case with Lexus and will try to update you all if and when I get a solution.