Jukebox/SD Card vs Ipod Sound Quality?

[BingBangBoom]

Do any of the audiophiles out there have an opinion or knowledge on whether you get better sound from the SD/jukebox or from a plugged in iPod? Themusic files would be the same mp3's with anywhere from 128 -256 bitrates. Right now I'm using my iPod plugged in, but I'm just wondering will the sound quality be better with SD or directly from the Jukebox.

Thanks for any imput.

[Stubek]

I find that SD/Jikebox and iPod are all about the same on my car/system, but when my wife or I plug in our iPhones and play from those, the quality drops quite a bit.

[phillips2024]

sounds pretty similar to me

[helix139]

SD/Jukebox will be higher quality that iPod unless you have a 2013 with nav (or transplanted MMI 3G+) and are using the iPod cable with the red grommet. With an SD card or the jukebox, you are keeping your music digital all the way to the amp and converting it using the higher quality B&O or symphony DAC. If you are using an iPod, the music is converted using the iPod's fairly bad DAC to analog, sent to the head unit as an analog signal, then converted back to digital and sent to the amp, then converted back to analog. If you have MMI 3G+ and use the cable with the red grommet, the iPod DAC is bypassed.

[BingBangBoom]

SD/Jukebox will be higher quality that iPod unless you have a 2013 with nav (or transplanted MMI 3G+) and are using the iPod cable with the red grommet. With an SD card or the jukebox, you are keeping your music digital all the way to the amp and converting it using the higher quality B&O or symphony DAC. If you are using an iPod, the music is converted using the iPod's fairly bad DAC to analog, sent to the head unit as an analog signal, then converted back to digital and sent to the amp, then converted back to analog. If you have MMI 3G+ and use the cable with the red grommet, the iPod DAC is bypassed.

I do have 2013 with Nav, and I'm using the ipod cable that came plugged into the glovebox (I havent looked to see the colour of the grommet) but I'll check it out. So it sounds like should be the same for me. Thanks. I dont really want to make the effort to buy a SD and move stuff over unless there is an uptick in quality.

cheers

[Pworld]

Not an Audiophile but take my music serous. With that said i can tell a difference from SD to ipod. When played at loud levels (which i always bump my music at) SD is way more clear and detailed. The ipod lacks the same clarity on the hign end. This is with the B&O system at least.

[S4morris]

I'm no audiophile, but I found the SD card quicker and better quality. I picked up two 32gb cards rather cheap and hawked my iPod on eBay.

[Jones2012s4]

If you put a 48kbps Audio file on the SD card yah it will sound worse. iTunes are generally 320kbps. They sound the exact same to me with same quality audio files.

That said the SD slot is way faster when browsing and changing songs, especially when seeking or rewinding in a song.

[Pootz]

So, with the 2013s that have Nav, do they all automatically come with this different cable (with red grommet) or is this something you have to specially ask for?

[gerryv]

My (US) 2013 S4 came with blue grommet iPod cable which I exchanged for red grommet iPod cable at the dealer (they made me pay the difference though). I did not know that the red version keeps the signal digital which is good. Red also enables album artwork and video playback, but iPod as source does not give you browse by album cover, and the video stays in 4:3 format, so widescreen videos have black bars on top, bottom, and both sides. Jukebox has album cover browsing, but no real playlists. iPod has playlists. You can make playlists for SD card but not as easily as setting up your iPod.

[Stereodude]

SD/Jukebox will be higher quality that iPod unless you have a 2013 with nav (or transplanted MMI 3G+) and are using the iPod cable with the red grommet. With an SD card or the jukebox, you are keeping your music digital all the way to the amp and converting it using the higher quality B&O or symphony DAC. If you are using an iPod, the music is converted using the iPod's fairly bad DAC to analog, sent to the head unit as an analog signal, then converted back to digital and sent to the amp, then converted back to analog. If you have MMI 3G+ and use the cable with the red grommet, the iPod DAC is bypassed.

Aren't only some iPods compatible with the red grommet cable? Specifically, the latest generation 160GB iPod classic won't work with it?

[helix139]

Aren't only some iPods compatible with the red grommet cable? Specifically, the latest generation 160GB iPod classic won't work with it?

Right, you'll need a touch or an iPhone.

[BingBangBoom]

So, with the 2013s that have Nav, do they all automatically come with this different cable (with red grommet) or is this something you have to specially ask for?

Mine came with a black one, not blue or red. And I'm using an old iPod classic (like second gen I think), from the posts above I guess mine wouldn't work with a red one because I dont have the touch or iPhone. Anyway, for me playlists is king, so I think I'm going to stick with the iPod. Sound may not be quite as good but the ease of loading new songs and podcasts, and having access to my playlists I think outweights the small differnce. My Macbook is a 2009 and it doesnt even have an SD slot on it so to get my music on a SD would be a nightmare anyway lol.

Thanks for all the info guys.

[jamesj2k]

SD much better then my ipod/iphone. Huge difference for me

[zulujams]

Mine came with a black one, not blue or red. And I'm using an old iPod classic (like second gen I think), from the posts above I guess mine wouldn't work with a red one because I dont have the touch or iPhone. Anyway, for me playlists is king, so I think I'm going to stick with the iPod. Sound may not be quite as good but the ease of loading new songs and podcasts, and having access to my playlists I think outweights the small differnce. My Macbook is a 2009 and it doesnt even have an SD slot on it so to get my music on a SD would be a nightmare anyway lol.

Thanks for all the info guys.

I have some older PCs without SD cards and just picked up an inexpensive external USB card reader at Best Buy, sorry but I forget the brand but it was probably Belkin or something like that. Seating cards in it has been hit or miss at times, but once connected I was easily able to drag and drop songs onto the SD card and then play off the card or upload to the jukebox. It was nice having options. I had his/hers SD cards for awhile since there were two slots. I was fine with the ipod also though as it has much more music on it along with playlists. All that changes today though as I trade the car in for a truck for the wife. Sigh. Gonna miss this car but it is the right thing to do and was the best of all the scenarios I ran. Can still run an ipod on the truck or in the Jeep, just not as neat with cabling in the cockpit.

[igord]

if you aren't satisfied with ipod sound don't waste your money on the red grommet cable, other than letting you see cover art and play videos it doesn't seem to do anything for the quality. furthermore it doesn't solve the self-enabling sound check issue (which further modifies sound and i believe bares the brunt of responsibility for the cutoffs in frequencies that even a non-audiophile (such as myself) can notice).

even when i manually disable the "sound check" i can still see a difference (eg highs are still being cut off just a bit)

more details on what people have been experiencing for at least 2 yeas:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0
https://discussions.apple.com/thread...art=0&tstart=0

[Wilbur]

I find that SD/Jikebox and iPod are all about the same on my car/system, but when my wife or I plug in our iPhones and play from those, the quality drops quite a bit.

Check the EQ in your iphone. Should sound exactly like ipod.....because it is an ipod. Mine sounds great.

[Stubek]

Check the EQ in your iphone. Should sound exactly like ipod.....because it is an ipod. Mine sounds great.

I thought the iPhones (4s in my case) and iPods (4th Gen old school) did have different playback. My iPod that I use in the car has not even been connected to iTunes in about 4 years. I use media monkey to sync it, so I know that firmware and software is WAY out of date.

[igord]

Check the EQ in your iphone. Should sound exactly like ipod.....because it is an ipod. Mine sounds great.

the problem is not eq, the problem is the "sound check" setting re-enabling itself. yes iphone does sound like ipod, but my problem is that ipod doesn't sound as well as SD with "sound check" enabled, and i cannot turn it off permanently

[dazed1]

Anyone have a part number for the red cable? I have an iPhone 4S permanently docked in the glove box as an iPod player.

[well_armed]

anyone have a part number for the red cable? I have an iphone 4s permanently docked in the glove box as an ipod player.

4f0051510r

http://accessories.accessaudi.com/fi...i%20cables.pdf

[findletron]

SD/Jukebox will be higher quality that iPod unless you have a 2013 with nav (or transplanted MMI 3G+) and are using the iPod cable with the red grommet. With an SD card or the jukebox, you are keeping your music digital all the way to the amp and converting it using the higher quality B&O or symphony DAC. If you are using an iPod, the music is converted using the iPod's fairly bad DAC to analog, sent to the head unit as an analog signal, then converted back to digital and sent to the amp, then converted back to analog. If you have MMI 3G+ and use the cable with the red grommet, the iPod DAC is bypassed.

Hey Guys, been lurking on the forum for a bit (first post!) and also S4 ownership (picked up my '13 estoril S4 a couple of weeks ago and it's been a love affair to say the least ;) )

Im a sound mixer by trade, so I have a fair bit of experience w/ high end A/D conversion, AKA DACs, lossy vs bit for bit compression schemes, and high end audio, although mostly in the context of studios. To say that the iPod's dac is 'fairly bad' is, I feel, misinformation, and in terms of a portable, consumer media player, I'd say it's actually 'quite good!'.

With all processing and EQ settings bypassed, I'd say that even a person with a highly trained ear would have difficulty reliably picking out the two sources in a blind study, in a completely treated space, in a quiet studio environment.. Now imagine what that would be like in a CAR with that sweet sweet engine note and wind and extremely high noise-floor AND un-ideal dimensions (the cabin of a car is about as far away as you can get from ideal listening acoustics) and you have a scenario thats so rediculious that it's not even worth thinking about.

When you get to the level of A/D conversion in an ipod, or high-ish end car stereo, the law of diminishing returns applies. You get to a 'plateau' in terms of quality that is just not going to change without $$$ specialized equipment, and even then the difference would be so miniscule that it's only worth doing in a professional environment.

The real bottleneck here is LOSSY COMPRESSION FORMATS aka mp3s and m4a's, and the higher end the listening environment is, the more you are going to hear the unpleasant artifacts of compression. I can hear stuff on my B&O that I couldnt hear on the standard stereo on my former A4. Certain music is more succeptable than others to it - i.e. most electronic music or hip hop, sample based stuff you probablly would not be able to tell the difference between a 192k MP3 or a 320k MP3 under most circumstances. Stuff like classic rock you can hear artifacts, even on a 320k mp3 - particularily in the high frequencies - ride cymbals, snare drums, etc. have a squelchy sound for lack of a better term.

My suggestion to you is to rip all your music in lossless formats (apple lossless preferably, as it retains all metadata, or FLAC) from this day forward (storage is so cheap people, 'do it nice or do it twice!') and completely forget about the A/D conversion specs on your ipod.. because its totally fine and it's not worth thinking about.

Here is my list of audio source quality from 'complete and utter shite' to 'very good'

Sattellite Radio - TERRIBLE lossy compression.. not even worth listening to
Bluetooth - Same.. pretty bad, but Im glad it's there
FM Radio
iPod - Very good *depending on the quality of your music files!!!*
SD/Jukebox - excellent but organization of music lacks a bit - also support for lossless formats? not sure...

Ok that was a mouthful.. :) carry on.

/s

[helix139]

Im a sound mixer by trade, so I have a fair bit of experience w/ high end A/D conversion, AKA DACs, lossy vs bit for bit compression schemes, and high end audio, although mostly in the context of studios. To say that the iPod's dac is 'fairly bad' is, I feel, misinformation, and in terms of a portable, consumer media player, I'd say it's actually 'quite good!'.

Well, I guess it depends on what you define as bad for a DAC. The bass roll off on the iPod is bad, or at least it was back on the 2G Touch which is the last one I bought. If you like music with a lot of low end, then yes, the iPod DAC is bad. But you're correct that the quality of the source has a lot to do with it. That said, I still prefer to involve as few DACs in the process as possible, as it's never perfect. And of course, as you point out, the iPod is still a portable consumer media player and is inherently limited in many regards there. The B&O amplifier is much less so. All else equal, with B&O and Nav, you're going to get better sound using the SD card than using an iPod.

And yeah, if only our cars would play FLAC, I'd throw a portable hard drive in the glove box in a heartbeat.

[aaronz]

Thanks Findletron, good info, good post.

[dazed1]

To confirm, i picked up the red cable earlier this morning from Audi. Aside the steep price ($81 + tax), I can confirm that it does sound a bit better (same music tested), and you do get album art to display when playing music.

One question (since my car is relatively new), is album art supposed to be a small thumbnail? or a bigger size like in itunes? :o

[aaronz]

To confirm, i picked up the red cable earlier this morning from Audi. Aside the steep price ($81 + tax), I can confirm that it does sound a bit better (same music tested), and you do get album art to display when playing music.

One question (since my car is relatively new), is album art supposed to be a small thumbnail? or a bigger size like in itunes? :o

Yeah can I see a picture of what this album art looks like?

[dazed1]

Yeah can I see a picture of what this album art looks like?

Tiny thumbnail where track info is. Will snap one next time i'm in the car.

[unit]

i have a 2013 and i think the sd cards sound better, plus it doesnt lag when you are searching through songs. better than an iPod, plus the album artwork is cool, is always surprises my friends when they ride with me

[dazed1]

i have a 2013 and i think the sd cards sound better, plus it doesnt lag when you are searching through songs. better than an iPod, plus the album artwork is cool, is always surprises my friends when they ride with me

I use an iphone4 thats permanently connected, so thats SD card speed.

how big is the artwork that you see? Small thumbnail or full LCD size?

[unit]

I use an iphone4 thats permanently connected, so thats SD card speed.

how big is the artwork that you see? Small thumbnail or full LCD size?

um i dont have the exact size since im on vacation, but its bigger than a thumbnail for sure. but its not nearly as big as the screen. its a good size though, i like it!

[dazed1]

Here's what it looks like on mine

[unit]

Here's what it looks like on mine

yep same size as mine, why did you ask me what size i see haha? its the same on every 13 im pretty sure.

[dazed1]

yep same size as mine, why did you ask me what size i see haha? its the same on every 13 im pretty sure.

My first audi. Barely have had it for about 3 weeks now. Wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I didnt have time to go over things with the dealer when I picked up the car. So he didnt do the usual spend 1+hr going over features etc :p