Streaming audio bluetooth quality?

[Meadowdale]

The Bluetooth audio streaming sound quality on my 15 S5 isn't great.
I am familiar with the limitations of the technology and compression. But the audio just doesn't sound very good and compared to other cars it is noticeable worse.
I found some similar posts..
Is there a solution to this?

[TLstylin]

I hear you. You have options.

1)Load a lot of files onto an SD card or use jukebox

2)use iPod or iPhone with mni connection in glove

3)get aftermarket audio interface such as grom audio. This will allow you to have a USB input

4)get the mni aux adapter. It's only a few bucks on Amazon and add a male to female aux cable. I think this gives slightly better quality than Bluetooth audio.

Kind of ridiculous audi doesn't offer a USB input for the s5 at this price point.

[Meadowdale]

Since I use services like Pandora 3 or 4 would be my only option. Don't like the glove box option, also want to have access to my phone when needed.

I do realize that streaming audio and BT both will degrade Audi quality. However, I use both technologies otherwise and the sound quality is acceptable. For example Pandora with a AV receiver sounds ok.
Also, any rental I get when I travel sounds better with BT and Pandora or BT and loaded music...
It just seems Audi has a strange decoding or no enhancers on the stream. I was hoping that Audi would have some sort of firmware upgrade...

[TLstylin]

1 and 2 work if you install Pandora on an iPhone or iPod.

You can have access to your phone with an auxiliary cable. You just need the male to female extension I mentioned and probably need to drill a hole or indentation in the glove so you can close the glove box door and not ruin the cable.

[HazeMyth]

Did they change from 13 to 15 that would reduce quality? The BT streaming quality in my 2013 is amazing. I do not advise running the BT volume at max though, because the sound quality drops. If you run around 60 to 70% max BT volume on the device it sounds really good.

[superswiss]

What sound system does your S5 have? B&O or standard? I'm with HazeMyth, I think it actually sounds pretty good when listening to Pandora for example. I have the B&O system and an iPhone 6S running iOS 10.1.1. I do recall that with my old Windows Phone it sounded pretty bad. I don't know if Audi added additional codec support in later firmware updates or if it's just the phone, but my current setup actually sounds really good as far as I'm concerned. I just had another firmware update done about 3 weeks ago and I'm now on version 0942_3.

I'm assuming you are streaming over the phone's faster data connection and not the car's wifi network, otherwise it's most likely Pandora scaling back due to the lower 3G bandwidth.

[Meadowdale]

Yes, my 15 S5 has the B&O premium sound option. Using the cell phone network connection. BTW. Mine sounds the same doing streaming or simply playing stored music on the iPhone. The phones I used to test are 6s up-to-date.

Do I have to do firmware updates at the dealer?

[superswiss]

Yes, firmware updates are done by the dealer. Free under warranty if you have a valid complaint, or if you have a good dealer, they just make something up. For this last update, my SA just wrote down that my MMI keeps freezing, which apparently is one of the things the latest update fixes. It never froze on me, though, but the tech then also wrote down that he could repro the issue and they updated the firmware.

[phroenips]

By default, I believe the Pandora app switches to lower quality bitrates when connected via cellular, in order to preserve data.

In iOS, you can change it by going to Pandora -> Settings -> Advanced -> "Cell Network Audio Quality"