usccharles

anyone use the SD card slot to store music and play in the car? i'm curious if the music quality is same or different than playing it on iphone hardwire connected to car.

for instance, iphone music is far superior hard wired than via bluetooth.

thanks in advance

koven

you may be able to distinguish different digital sources in a proper stereo setup at home but placebo aside the minutiae of this is negligible in cars honestly.. car audiophile is kind of an oxymoron i mean unless you're listening to music engine off windows up in a garage for some reason it's impossible to realize such granular differences w/ road noise and cabin acoustics

_RS_

I have to agree that in a car when driving, forget any audiophile tendencies. SD cards are arguably the best choice. I stream Pandora too and that's fine for driving.

usccharles

i ask because the quality between hardwired iphone and bluetooth connection music is not negligible. It is quite easily noticeable. just curious about SD Card connection music as I've never tried it. I'm guessing it is not much different to the hard wire connection

OliverK68

Hard to say. If you’re using a high quality lossy CODEC such as MP3 at 320 kB/S and the BT receiver in the PCM isn’t demanding further compression, you probably won’t be able to tell.

T3X4S

I use SD card with regular MP3 files, and music is definitely louder and clearer than using BT which seem to have volume issues, at least for me. iPhone/Carplay vs SD card sound similar to my ears.

GKGEIGER

The best sound I get is when hardwired and using CarPlay.

MDelaney

The difference in sound between Bluetooth and Apple Carplay with a USB/Lightning connector, will be significant, because the car itself uses the SBC generic bluetooth codec. When you connect with a lightning cable, the playback is the same as the source on your phone. (it doesn't get compressed further getting from your phone to the car). Assuming the source material is the same on your phone as it is on the SD card, there would not be any difference in quality. (whether the car handles volume levels any differently, might be a different question)

Your iPhone music is compressed using the AAC codec. Since the SBC codec is a different (and worse sounding) way to compress files, running an already compressed AAC file through the SBC codec is like scanning a document (CD) into a lower resolution (AAC), and then making a bad photocopy of that scanned copy (SBC codec bluetooth). The sound degrades even further. Beats, Airpods and most high-quality headphones support the AAC codec, so that the sound data doesn't degrade further as they are using the same AAC compression.

If you want to use the SD slot to improve upon the sound quality of your lightning to usb carplay connection - you'll need better quality source material - and need to save some uncompressed files onto an SD card - I believe the FLAC (free lossless audio codec) format is compatible with the PCM. I am uncertain that the car will read ALAC (apple lossless) files. I have yet to try - I've been happy with the Apple Carplay sound quality. Though, I have been very curious about this in the past. Also using a higher quality source on the phone might produce better results as well, the easiest one that comes to mind is Tidal HD - but it's a hefty subscription.

BLAM

Try recording your music in WAV in iTunes. No compression.

MDelaney

Have you tried this? The documentation does not show .wav as a supported extension

FYI -

http://www.porscheownersmanuals.com/...d-file-formats