snagitseven

Actually, the A6 C7 2.0T was available in North America for MY2012. In MY2013, it became available in Quattro w/8 speed tiptronic vs. the front wheel drive with CVT of the 2012.

The MMI 0715 update fixed the bluetooth music song display (with iOS 7 or later) although some reports indicate the info can disappear until bluetooth is turned off then back on.

finnisher

I test drove a 2015 Audi S3 with B&O sound system and WITHOUT AMI (only AUX IN) on Saturday. Here are my findings about the sound quality in order of preference:

1. Clearly the best sound quality was achieved when streaming lossless CD quality media (Macbook Air and Tidal in this case) and using an external DAC (Audioquest Dragonfly in this case). It shouldn't make a difference if you use e.g. an iPhone with a high-quality external DAC (e.g. iStreamer). Of course you lose the ability to control playback and view artist and song names, but the best audio quality is of course the primary goal, right?

2. Suprisingly, playing the same albums from original CDs sounded worse than in Option 1. Not a huge difference, but you could hear it. The CD player must really suck?

3. Bluetooth offered OK quality, but lacked clearly in dynamics when compared to Option 1 and 2. The bit rate of BT is of course half of CD quality and uses god knows what compression, which explains the loss of audio quality.

As the test drive car didn't have AMI, I wasn't able to test how connecting iPhone directly to AMI via Lightning sounds. I except worse than Options 1 or 2 as it uses the crappy DAC in the AMI adapter cable.

My car will have the AMI and I'm just hoping using the AMI and its AUX IN adapter cable doesn't route the signal through a worse route compared to the standard AUX IN without AMI.

snagitseven

I have also done extensive listening comparisons from the various sources (see my OP in this thread). I don't see that you did a comp test of an SD card with hi bit AAC or MP3 files as you made no mention of that option. With the B&O and digital MOST transport system, I found SD cards (or files imported to the Jukebox) produce an excellent frequency response, wide dynamic range and excellent depth that should closely rival the best source possible source in the car traveling at 60 mph. Not to mention that no additional hardware or cables are needed (besides the SD card) and of course, you don't sacrifice MMI control.

As I understand it, the AUX AMI cable uses digital output (bypassing the DAC in the iDevice) equivalent to an SD card but with no MMI control as you mentioned - the iDevice itself will have to control song selection, etc.

BTW, you're supposition of using a 30 pin or Lightning AMI cable with an iDevice is spot on. I found that the digital to analog in the iDevice and back to digital conversions with the B&O system had a very noticeable degradation in quality compared to the SD card's all-digital path. Even Bluetooth streaming often sounded better to me than the standard MMI cable (depending on the quality of the internet source).

finnisher

No, unfortunately I didn't have the chance to test the SD card setup. My goal is to use Tidal as the primary source, so I focused on those channels that enable it.

The way I understand the AUX IN works, is that the digital signal is converted to analog either by iDevice or an external DAC, then it stays analog until the MMI where it is converted back to digital, sent to B&O DSP from where it returns to the MMI where it is converted back to analog and sent to the amplifier. Sounds complex but the loss in sound quality regardless of the back and forth conversions was quite minimal.

snagitseven

I can't speak to what an external DAC does with the signal but the USB output from an iDevice is digital, same as the Lightning connector (before a Lightning AMI cable's DAC converts to analog for the MMI). Evidence for this is those who use a portable hard drive connected via the AMI USB cable where no external DAC is utilized. Those hard drives do not have DACs that convert the signal to/from analog. Also, Any newer iDevice no longer outputs directly analog except for the phone jack. (Hence the built-in DAC in the AMI Lightning cables).

I believe this is the signal conversion path for the various sources:

AMI 30 pin cable with older iDevices: iDevice DAC> analog to AMI cable> to amps and speakers

AMI Lightning cable with newer iDevices: iDevice digital Lightning DAC in cable to analog > to amps and speakers

USB/SD card/Jukebox: source out out in digital > MMI DAC to analog (either before the standard/Bose system amps or after B&O digital MOST amps> analog to speakers (USB does not pass iDevice MMI control signal)

AMI mini jack cable: headphone jack analog out to AMI cable > to amps and speakers (phone jack does not pass iDevice MMI control signal)

Note that if B&O system, an analog sourced signal is converted back via MMI DAC and digitally transported via the M.O.S.T system to digital amps and converted to analog for speakers. Also, the iDevice control signal is passed and held in digital for the MMI in any AMI 30 pin or Lightning cable as well as SD card and Jukebox.

brian5s

I have a 2014 Q5 with MMI 3g+. I have purchased almost every AMI cable out there ;^) - 30 pins cables, Red grommet, Green, Blue and I have the Yellow AMI lightning cable. None of them play video. Just shows Music folder and associated subfolders in the list. Has ANYONE got this working in newer cars with a newer iPhone using an AMI cable??

Thank you much! It's driving me nuts!

snagitseven

Based on reports, the MMI using the "new" Audi Lightning AMI cable or an Apple 30 pin to Lightning adapter with one of the 30 pin AMI cables from a Lightning equipped iDevice will not pass video. An iPhone 4s or earlier will pass video with the 30 pin red grommet cable (with MMI version 0468 or later).

The MMI can only process analog from an AMI cable and the Lightning AMI cable apparently is not converting the digital video portion of the Lightning output.

- All 30 pin iPhones (4s and earlier) - analog output for audio, video; digital control signals
- All Lightning iPhones (5 and later) - digital output for all signals
- The MMI via AMI cables will only accept analog for audio and video; will accept digital control signals
- An Apple Lightning to 30 pin adapter converts only audio to analog; does not pass video,
- Apparently, the DAC in Audi's Lightning AMI cable only converts the Lighting digital audio to analog and ignores the video.

As an alternative, I have successfully played videos from SDHC cards so long as they have met the MMI format and resolution requirements. (See the first post in this thread).

P.S. There is a small possibility that the video files on the iPhone using a Lightning AMI cable are too large a resolution for the MMI. If that's the case, then some of what I wrote above is incorrect and making the res smaller on the iPhone could work with the Lightning AMI cable. Maybe. But doubtful.

brian5s

Snagitseven, I beg to differ...at least in my testing.
I plugged in the Red grommet cable to a 4s, I get a "Device not supported" message. I plug in the Red grommet cable to a 3GS, and video does not work. Videos saved, or videos streamed. This is on a MY '14 Q5 with MMI 3g+ Software Version HN+_US_AU3G_P0715..

Videos in 360p on an SD card play nicely though!

snagitseven

I've seen this before. A possible solution is to hard reboot the 4s and if it still doesn't recognize it, reboot the MMI while it's connected. (Press Menu+center control ****+upper right function button briefly at the same time).

As for the 3Gs video (and the 4s if you can get it recognized), have you checked the resolution and formats of the videos you're trying to play from the phone? If they are larger than the Audi MMI format spec, they won't play. (I use 480p).
When you say "streamed", are you trying to play internet video from the phone? If so, that's not supported by the MMI either via the AMI or Bluetooth Audio.

Finally, another thought - be sure Bluetooth Audio is deactivated in the MMI while you are using the AMI cable from the same device. The MMI obviously can't access both at the same time and it will affect operation.

Richard Solomon

One quirk I've found is that you must have at least one *AUDIO* file present on the iDevice to get access to the device. So I made "Silence15.m4a" which makes MMI happy enough.