Audio quality MUCH better on bluetooth vs Android Auto

I've had my 2021 TRD Off-Road with Premium Package for a few weeks now. I've been thoroughly disappointed with the premium audio system and thought I needed to upgrade the system. After reading about how difficult it was to upgrade the JBL system, I started poking around with settings/other options.

What I've found is that my audio quality is EXCELLENT (at least, what I would expect from 'premium' audio in a truck) via bluetooth. However when I plug in my phone and connect to AA the sound is good for a few seconds, and then some other audio profile kicks in and the sound goes back to flat and terrible.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution yet. I've tried a number of things, but nothing has stuck yet. If anyone has a solution it'd be greatly appreciated. In any case, I hope this provides some answers for others in the 'how the hell is my premium audio so bad' boat. It may be software related, and not the system itself that's bothering you.

 

'flat and terrible' sounds like some sort of duplex headset mode for phone calls. Any option to disable phone call support or osmething?

 

Check the equalizer settings on the different sources. If you change the equalizer setting on Bluetooth it won't change on the other sources, just the one. You have to manually do it for all. Maybe that could be it? I don't know

 

I had the same issue. Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.

But, when doing a search on Google, it's apparently a well known problem.

 

So I had found this https://support.google.com/androida...o/nCX0IhMoNYc/nZEu0SHoDQAJ&msgid=nZEu0SHoDQAJ but I can't find that option on my phone.

I think you guys are on the right track with my equalizer settings/audio profile not applying to AA, but through all of my efforts I can't find a way to make it work.

My equalizer settings still show as expected when connected to the truck via AA, and nothing else in the settings menus is standing out to me as to why this is happening. It's really unfortunate as I love AA for Google Maps and music control, but the audio is SO BAD compared to bluetooth it's a tough to use it for playback.

 

Is it possible you’re double EQ-ing? Sometimes if you have an EQ set in your listening app and on your head unit, it messes with the sound.

In other words, try setting one or the other to a flat EQ across the board and see if that fixes it.

 

If you disable bluetooth completely does it still have bad quality when plugged in for AA? My AA would skip and drop audio a lot until I turned off some settings in the bluetooth menu. If you go to the setting for your connection to your Tacoma, there is a setting to turn off audio bluetooth when connected to your truck.

Mine is a Samsung GalaxyS21 and I listen to music through Spotify. My situation was different when I first got my truck though, my bluetooth volume was low no matter what I did with the phone. I had to crank the knob up into the 60s to be able to listen to music via bluetooth, and if you switched to a different source, you're ears would be destroyed.

This thread has other options to try and get AA to work better.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/android-auto-skipping-audio.716960/#post-25515671

It could also be you're cable.

 

I had low volume as well. Turned out to be the Alexa for Toyota app. Uninstalled it and didn't have that low volume any more.

But AA still lacks, even on my old S10+ and current S21 Ultra.