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Why does music in the car sound so much worse through phone than CD’s?
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:34 am
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:34 am
I used to play uncompressed flac files burned on CD’s in my car and it sounded amazing.
The same music through my iPhone playing through my car speakers sounds terrible. Zero low end. Just poor sound quality.
Is there some setting or something I’m not using that I should be?
Because with vehicle manufacturers phasing out CD players, is this how other people listen to music in their cars? This terrible quality? Or am I missing something?
The same music through my iPhone playing through my car speakers sounds terrible. Zero low end. Just poor sound quality.
Is there some setting or something I’m not using that I should be?
Because with vehicle manufacturers phasing out CD players, is this how other people listen to music in their cars? This terrible quality? Or am I missing something?
4
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:36 am to PrimeTime Money
Is it Bluetooth or is it plugged in (car play/aux)?
Also is downloaded music or is it being streamed ?
Also is downloaded music or is it being streamed ?
This post was edited on 4/4/23 at 10:37 am
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:42 am to deltadon
I’ve done both Bluetooth car and aux. and both streaming and downloaded.
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:46 am to PrimeTime Money
not sure now days but Bluetooth used to have some poor audio bitrate limitations. It was also very noticeable to me but I found that using a hardwire connection (3.5mm headphone type jack) to my car's headunit would sound as good as CD if the content was the same quality level.
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:46 am to PrimeTime Money
I'm considering switching to Tidal for this reason.
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:52 am to notsince98
quote:I used to do this in my old car with an iPod. I would use the 3.5mm cord from my iPod to my head unit, and I remember it sounding just as good as a CD.
It was also very noticeable to me but I found that using a hardwire connection (3.5mm headphone type jack) to my car's headunit would sound as good as CD if the content was the same quality level.
Now, iPhones don’t have a headphone jack anymore, and I’m actually not sure if my current vehicle even has a 3.5mm port. Everything is USB now.
Posted on 4/4/23 at 10:53 am to PrimeTime Money
quote:
I used to do this in my old car with an iPod. I would use the 3.5mm cord from my iPod to my head unit, and I remember it sounding just as good as a CD.
Now, iPhones don’t have a headphone jack anymore, and I’m actually not sure if my current vehicle even has a 3.5mm port. Everything is USB now.
One of the huge reasons I ended up with a Pixel 4a was because it had a headphone jack, haha. I'm holding on!
They do have USB-C to headphone adapters, though, if you need one.
This post was edited on 4/4/23 at 10:54 am
Posted on 4/4/23 at 11:04 am to notsince98
quote:That’s good to know. I haven’t really had a need for it so I never looked into it, but I wondered why they would get rid of the headphone jack. I was like do they expect everyone to have wireless headphones?
They do have USB-C to headphone adapters, though, if you need one.
Posted on 4/4/23 at 11:21 am to PrimeTime Money
I think I paid $7 for an Apple Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Adapter
Posted on 4/4/23 at 11:22 am to PrimeTime Money
There are settings in the music apps that compress the bandwidth of the size of the songs to save on mobile data. You can usually change this.
Posted on 4/6/23 at 11:15 am to weadjust
quote:
I think I paid $7 for an Apple Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Adapter
Back when the iPhone first ditched the headphone jack , i used this adapter about could immediately tell a quality difference on a high end system for work. The difference was slightly noticeable in car too.
Posted on 4/10/23 at 11:05 pm to deltadon
quote:
Back when the iPhone first ditched the headphone jack , i used this adapter about could immediately tell a quality difference on a high end system for work. The difference was slightly noticeable in car too.
I’ve noticed the same. Not sure if it’s the quality of the adapter or if something changed with the D/A conversion when they got rid of the dedicated jack but it’s not the same.
I would think you’re probably better off going USB and letting your head unit handle the D/A conversion honestly.
As for OP’s question: if you’re comparing uncompressed CDs to compressed audio on your phone, played through Bluetooth.. then yeah, there’s going to be a difference. Compression isn’t as lossy as it was 20 years ago, but it’s still not the same as truly lossless uncompressed audio.
ETA: There are a couple of settings you can check though.
Go to Settings -> Music. Scroll down to EQ and make sure it is set to “Off.” It could be on a funky setting for some reason.
In the same Music settings go to Audio Quality -> Cellular Streaming. Make sure this is set to “High Quality,” not “High Efficiency.”
I would also generally recommend turning Sound Check off, but it might be a personal preference thing. Sound Check is supposed to normalize the loudness of your music. So loud/highly compressed tracks get reduced in level to match more dynamic tracks. Since this makes songs quieter, in theory that means you’re wasting dynamic range in your D/A conversion. Probably doesn’t make much difference though if I had to guess. I mainly don’t like it because (last time I tried it, which has admittedly been quite a while) it just didn’t work very well.
This post was edited on 4/10/23 at 11:21 pm
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