Any way to improve sound quality over Bluetooth?

[tulsamal]

I have a 2011 CX-9 with the Bose sound. Great car. No mechanical issues ever.

My house is littered with iOS devices, 2 iP 5's, a 5s, a 6+, and an iPad Air. All of which end up in the Mazda at one time or another. I really like the sound of the Bose system but Mazda was sort of behind the curve in 2011 on car audio... no direct input or USB stick? I've used our iOS devices in the Mazda with Bluetooth many times. Works fine for phone calls. And quality is fine for something like an audio book. But if you put on some actual high quality music and turn up the volume, the quality just isn't there. I know Bluetooth in general can "do it" since I have a Bose bluetooth speaker in the house and you can crank that baby up and it sounds great.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this... I'm just hoping there is an actual fix. Besides buying and installing more equipment! Seems like the car hardware needs a software update or something! I haven't even bothered mentioning it to the Mazda techs.

Thanks,

Gregg

 

[Scotch3]

It going to be a function of compression used by whatever bluetooth versions your devices (including the car) are running. I have no idea what the cars are running. I'm sure you can do a little investigating and find out... probably visible in the "settings" or system info menu on the radio. If not, a dealer can probably tell you what it is and if it might be upgradable. As for your devices, different versions of BT may support different compressions / codecs. So you might look them up too and see which offers the best codec.... assuming your car also supports it.

Here is a little reading...

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=audio+quality+over+bluetooth&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

 

[MSke390]

I'm guessing a better micro phone would be best option, mine is terrible with my iPhone 5S and my wife's iPhone 4. If you ever find out please post!

 

[tulsamal]

Where is there a microphone in that chain. The music is on the iPhone. It sends it by Bluetooth to the car audio. Which plays it. The music quality is what I'm interested in.

If you use the iPhone through the car audio with Bluetooth to make a phone call, then it will use the microphone in the steering wheel. Which seems "good enough" on my car. Just wish I could either plug in a USB stick with music or use an AUX cable. Something hard wired to get the sound into the Bose. The system is capable of some decent sound but the Bluetooth implementation can't do it. You listen to an MP3 on the phone over Bluetooth. Then plug in some ear buds and listen to the same song on the same iPhone. No comparison at high volume. Low volume you probably won't notice.

 

[Thesuffering]

I agree with you here. Have a iPhone 6 in our 2015 Sport, and it sounds so bad compared to other sources. I really want to use it as I like to just have the phone in my pocket and not have to use usb/aux, but pandora and just music over bluetooth period sounds like a very low bit rate MP3 with all dynamic range stripped out.

If I give up on bluetooth, I lose pandora, steering wheel control, and track information on the display right?

 

[911jason]

Surprised to hear you're having quality issues with your 2015. My '14 sounds surprisingly good. I did have to turn the treble all the way up to get the highs to my taste, but overall I'm happy. I'm using Android, and I also have customized DSP software (Viper4Android) that allows me to make tons of audio tweaks. The funny thing is, I had never expected to use Bluetooth, but was forced to find an alternative to the crappy USB implementation on our audio systems.

 

[tex2670]

Did you try connecting thru the headphone jack and the AUX input jack in the center armrest storage compartment, instead of using BT?

 

[mxer]

I think it sounds bad in my 13. Burn them to CD if you want better quality.

 

[tex2670]

I think it sounds bad in my 13. Burn them to CD if you want better quality.

That's a heck of a lot more work than just plugging into the AUX jack...

 

[mxer]

That's a heck of a lot more work than just plugging into the AUX jack...

According to him, he doesn't have one or he wants to be able to control the Ipod through the stereo w/o messing with the ipod itself.

 

[tex2670]

According to him, he doesn't have one or he wants to be able to control the Ipod through the stereo w/o messing with the ipod itself.

I have '12, and I have an AUX jack; there weren't significant changes '11 - '12, so I'm sure the OP has an AUX jack too. Personally, I don't see the upside to burning CDs and taking the effort to decide which song goes on which disk. Plus, with nav, there's only 1 CD slot. I understand the OP is looking for the ideal situation, but he's going to have to choose which aspect matters most--sound, controls or convenience.