Sound quality through Apple Carplay is Terrible!

Have a one month old 2020 and spent the last couple of days doing the speaker upgrade. After I got finished doing everything (noico, ensolite, speaker swap, etc) -- went to test it out. I first tried FM -- not bad. Then I thought OK let's use a better source, let's try bluetooth from my phone. nice. good sound.

Then I thought, hey perhaps using a cable through apple carplay would be even better.... wow (and not in a good way), I can't say how bad it was. First when using apple carplay, there is ZERO sound through the back speakers. For whatever reason apple carplay on the toyota entune headunit turns off the rear speaker completely. Secondly, the sound adjustment (treble, mid, bass) gets bypassed as well.

In fact, I'd say that music through apple carplay sounds WORSE than FM! and when you connect apple carplay it automatically disables bluetooth. In other words, you can't use carplay for maps and bluetooth for audio. sucks, on long distance drives if you want to display map on the big screen, your audio will suffer.

 

I use a 64GB memory key for my “MP3” audio.

 

I've heard people having problems with android auto and apple car play because of the cable. I guess certain cables done have enough bandwidth. Not sure if that's your problem but it's worth a shot

 

I like to listen to streaming audio on long drives (pandora, apple music, Amazon music, etc).

 

carplay through my pioneer sounds awesome. does your phone have any EQ set to it or anything? Settings > Music > EQ

 

ok I tried it with an official apple lightning cable (the one that comes with the phone). no difference. I also attempted to use the phone EQ -- makes a slight difference but still overall sounds bad. It feels like using carplay completely removes the highs and lows, and more importantly kills the rear speakers which means there is no fill. Soundstage collapses.

I have the toyota dynamic nav so I guess I'll give that a shot (instead of waze) and use my iphone via bluetooth (turn off carplay so that i can continue to charge my phone via the USB port)

disappointing.....

 

Something isn’t right, somewhere. Carplay is the highest quality way to play audio from your phone so if it sounds worse than bluetooth, something is wrong

 

Music from Carplay on my 2020 OR sounds fine to me - I do notice I don't get nearly as much bass when I fade all music to the rear speakers as I do when I fade all to front, but I still get sound. It is noticeably thinner, but not necessarily in a way that sounds terrible.

Might want to get it checked out if you can get the original speakers back in - I had the stock amp fry on me 5 days after I drove it off the lot. It was covered under warranty of course. Good luck!

 

I'm listening to wireless carplay using a

$900 Pioneer avh-w4500nex 7" Capacitive Touchscreen, Double Din – Wireless & Wired Apple CarPlay & Android Auto, Bluetooth, CD/DVD, SD Card, USB, Backup Camera, HD Radio, SiriusXM, FLAC, Hi-Volt RCA

Pioneer avh-w4500nex driving kicker speakers and sub and the sound is pretty damn good. It sounds like you have something seriously wrong.

 

I have the exact same issue with the CarPlay audio being considerably worse than when streaming from Bluetooth. I came from a 16 with the JBL package and liked it enough to get it in the 2020 I picked up; I thought they detuned or just went with cheaper components and the audio was just bad. Finally I try and stream audio cause my cables outta reach, and lo and behold, the quality is back to what I expect. Ran through all the settings (head unit and phone side) and nothing makes any improvement. Glad there’s at least 2 of us..

 

FYI, Apple came out with an update a few days ago that claims to address the issues you guys are having. Give it a run and see what happens.

 

It’s too much compression. Bluetooth only carries the audio, likely better. FM HD will be best if you live in a city.

 

I have an SD with over 50 CDs saved on it as FLACs in my Pioneer. Spotify on Carplay is close in quality to the FLACs. Something sounds wrong.

 

Only think I see is this

• Addresses a CarPlay issue that could cause distorted sound when making phone calls in certain vehicles

 

Bluetooth is compressed. Wifi is not. Wifi is superior to bluetooth. WI-FI VS BLUETOOTH: IS THERE AN IMPACT ON SOUND QUALITY?

 

I’d give it a run even though it doesn’t specifically say music, audio is audio.

 

CarPlay is a wired connection sharing with the rest of the visuals. It is very slow so the audio is highly compressed and can sound like shit.
Bluetooth is a local low bandwidth protocol, but the frequency is not shared, however it too is compressed a lot. Wi-Fi is a high frequency protocol that allows for greater bandwidth, however it to is compressed and as the streaming source may be cellular your screwed anyway. Download high bandwidth sampling on a wire can be comparable to FM HD but is inconvenient. CDs are pretty good at twice the sampling of the ear for high frequency. Satellite should be avoided.

 

I have no idea what wired CarPlay sounds like. I stupidly assumed wireless CarPlay was being discussed. That is what I have experience with and it is near CD quality. A Wifi link between the phone and HU is established and I am unaware of any compression taking place. The article I linked to is talking about music over Wifi in general not specific to CarPlay and states there is no compression.

 

I have a few thoughts on things to check for you guys having problems. Try changing the volume on your phone. That will change the signal sent to the HU and you could be over/under driving the HU input circuit. Also check for any EQ settings on the phone. Look at settings in Spotify (if using). It has a Normalization setting that compresses the dynamic range.

 

Does anyone else notice that the Apple Carplay only gets so loud when Siri is speaking? For example, when reading back text messages or giving navigation instructions? If I have music playing somewhat loud it totally drowns out Siri. Or if I even have the moonroof open, I can't hear when Siri reads back text messages. Has anyone else noticed this? I've even tried cranking up the volume knob mid text message readback. It has zero effect.