Burmester - supported audio codecs?
 

Hi,

Does anyone know what audio formats are supported by the Burmester system? Which yields the best quality? AFAICT FLAC is not supported?

Thanks in advance!

It's listed in the owner's manual. FLAC is, unfortunately, not supported on any of the Porsche electronics.

Highest quality audio format possible in that car is DVD Audio.

If you can hook up an iPod, you can rip your CDs to ALAC at 44.1/16. If you download Hi-Res songs from HDTracks or similar, you can convert them to 48/24. You will notice a huge difference in sound quality.

Do you have any evidence to support that? I haven't done any first-hand testing but I'd be skeptical that the PCM either does not support ALAC or down samples the original file.

I do not know what the PCM or Burmester supports. I believe you can play an iPod through your Burmester and an iPod supports ALAC to 48/24. My stereo supports 192/24 but my wife's Infiniti with a Bose stereo only accepts MP3. However, it does support an iPod so I converted all my CDs that I originally converted to FLAC to ALAC at 44.1/16 and all my downloaded Hi-Res files to 48/24 ALAC and they play on my wife's Bose through an iPod Classic 160 GB. The nice thing about using the iPod is that it has an equalizer that you can play with different setting and just set your bass and treble settings to "0" or make slight adjustments. The ALAC files totally transformed my wife's Bose system.

Here is the page out of the 2017 911.2 manual ( shows flac file support, but have not tried it):

Attachment 1035198

Unless the iPod uses a better DAC than the iPhone 6 the device is limited to its 16 bit DAC. It plays 24 bit through software conversion, but the bit stream coming out of the unit is 16 bit. Try connecting it to your home stereo DAC and watch the bit rate and clock when they sync up - you should see 16 bit, 44.1 kHz.

I have an Astell and Kern that I could play from but I really don't care enough because of the poor car cabin acoustics and the engine sound.

All I know is it will "recognize" ALAC files up to 48/24. Whether it is reduced to 44.1/16, I don't know. Even so, that's better than MP3. File size is in the 600-800 kps vs 320 kps. As for what the 991.2 will recognize, I'm not surprised that the new PCM will play FLAC.

I forgot to mention that my system can easily over-power the engine noise. I have no problems with the acoustics since I'm running an aftermarket stereo running 1,200 watts, 600 watts to the speakers & 600 watts to the sub.

Back to the OPs original question, I copied this from the 2014 "Good to Know" downloadable manual. FLAC support is new (darn).

You can connect a USB memory stick or a USB MP3 player containing audio files to the USB interface of the PCM in the center console.

You can use it to:

play audio data from your USB stick
(permitted formats: MP3, WAV, WMA and AAC-LC),
copy audio data to the jukebox,
download data from the Sport display as well as
download data from the PCM logbook.

Thanks, all! One of those rare cases where waiting a year would have helped.

I don't need HiRes audio (I won't hear the difference when driving), but was hoping for at least FLAC (but it didnt work when I tried it). I guess AAC-LC it is. :( (Context: iPod classic died, and iPod touch is too small for my music collection when encoded in lossless AAC / ALAC).

Apple still sells brand new 160 GB iPod Classics.

No, it's been discontinued and the last few are selling for ~$500. I might just get a touch and do more active management of its contents, but that's a serious pain.

Well, that sucks. At least they offer the iTouch. However, even at $500, it might still be better than an iTouch that has 128 GB vs. 160 GB.