Getting The Best Sound from The Sound System
11-25-2016, 04:19 PM
#1
Getting The Best Sound from The Sound System
I finally took the time to try out different ways to listen to my music in my A7.
I used an iPhone, bluetooth and a lightning cable to stream music from Spotify, iTunes Music, and Amazon Music. I also played files stored in SD Cards and USB Drives. I tried files in different formats including mp3, m4a, wav, flac, and high resolution 96/24 files. I did not expect the Audi to play high-resolution files but it did.
My finding was that the higher the resolution of the source, the better the sound. While this sounds intuitive, many car stereo systems cannot reproduce music that way.
Since streaming files have lower resolution, you will not get great sound from them. Instead you should be playing higher resolution tracks stored in USB drives or SD cards.
Another advantage of keeping your files in SD cards and USB drives is that you can organize your folders in a way that makes your music easily accesible. For example, I use folders with the name of the artist in the root directory, then I create Subfolders for each album. Since the Audi MMI system can view the organization tree, you can find your music easily.
Even if don't have a "tree organization", the MMI can also read the metadata in the file so you can browse by artist, album, etc. using the metadata.
By the way, I noticed that when a high resolution file is transferred from a USB drive/SD Card to the jukebox, the quality of the music played from the jukebox is not as good. I presume that files transferred to the jukebox are stored using a lower resolution. This makes sense since the storage is limited and a smaller file uses less space.
I have decided to use SD cards to store my music. Not only can I get the best sound but I can get thousands of tracks in a single card.
I used an iPhone, bluetooth and a lightning cable to stream music from Spotify, iTunes Music, and Amazon Music. I also played files stored in SD Cards and USB Drives. I tried files in different formats including mp3, m4a, wav, flac, and high resolution 96/24 files. I did not expect the Audi to play high-resolution files but it did.
My finding was that the higher the resolution of the source, the better the sound. While this sounds intuitive, many car stereo systems cannot reproduce music that way.
Since streaming files have lower resolution, you will not get great sound from them. Instead you should be playing higher resolution tracks stored in USB drives or SD cards.
Another advantage of keeping your files in SD cards and USB drives is that you can organize your folders in a way that makes your music easily accesible. For example, I use folders with the name of the artist in the root directory, then I create Subfolders for each album. Since the Audi MMI system can view the organization tree, you can find your music easily.
Even if don't have a "tree organization", the MMI can also read the metadata in the file so you can browse by artist, album, etc. using the metadata.
By the way, I noticed that when a high resolution file is transferred from a USB drive/SD Card to the jukebox, the quality of the music played from the jukebox is not as good. I presume that files transferred to the jukebox are stored using a lower resolution. This makes sense since the storage is limited and a smaller file uses less space.
I have decided to use SD cards to store my music. Not only can I get the best sound but I can get thousands of tracks in a single card.
11-27-2016, 02:09 PM
#2
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Just bought a 2017 Q7. Sound is terrible for a luxury SUV. I have had many cars with Bose systems on the Acura and they sounded pretty good. On the 4 Acura TL & new TLX I own the system was designed by Gordon (Schrabner?). The guy that mixed music for the Eagles. They play DVD Audio, Sacd as well. I am a big XM radio fan and this is pretty bad. I bought a new REL sub not long ago and a great CD to check out the system with is Sneakers. It has a lot of good Bass is is well produced. I played it and tweaked up the system a bit. Sounds better. If I would have listened to this system before I bought it, I would have saved 20K and bought Acura MDX.
11-27-2016, 03:36 PM
#3
AudiWorld Senior Member
I posted this over in the Q7 MKII forum:
Also source material makes a big difference in sound quality. If you can use a SD card or USB drive with the the recordings in FLAC at native resolution you will get the best sound. The good news is I was able to play 192/24 FLAC recordings with no issues in my Q7. If you have to use MP3 or MP4 encode at variable rate 320Kbps. Anything less results in a loss of bass.
One thing I have found that is an easy fix for improving the sound in any Audi is turn the surround setting off. I find it's accenting the highs to give the false sense of surround at the expense of the mids and bass. I've also found that depending on which system you have that setting the sound focus to the front also helps and then adjusting the front to read fader in some cases. I've tested this on a 2013 Q5 with B&O, 2014 A7 with Bose and a 2017 Q7 with B&O. I've found by doing this the Blose does blow as bad as it did before tweaking.
11-28-2016, 06:51 PM
#4
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I'll be trying this. Although I like the sound from bluetooth streaming, I've noticed it isn't as great as when I use an actual CD. I'll see about moving my iTunes music to an SD Card to play.
11-29-2016, 02:05 PM
#5
A few comments:
1. Streaming from XM or Bluetooth is NOT the best way to get the best sound from your system. That's because they both play at less than CD quality!
2. As noted above, you must try loading CD resolution files or higher into a USB drive or a SD Card. Note: I can play high resolution files (96/24) stored in a SD card!
3. Play around with the sound settings. Someone else recommended that as well.
Please share your opinion thereafter.
1. Streaming from XM or Bluetooth is NOT the best way to get the best sound from your system. That's because they both play at less than CD quality!
2. As noted above, you must try loading CD resolution files or higher into a USB drive or a SD Card. Note: I can play high resolution files (96/24) stored in a SD card!
3. Play around with the sound settings. Someone else recommended that as well.
Please share your opinion thereafter.
11-29-2016, 02:42 PM
#6
Just bought a 2017 Q7. Sound is terrible for a luxury SUV. I have had many cars with Bose systems on the Acura and they sounded pretty good. On the 4 Acura TL & new TLX I own the system was designed by Gordon (Schrabner?). The guy that mixed music for the Eagles. They play DVD Audio, Sacd as well. I am a big XM radio fan and this is pretty bad. I bought a new REL sub not long ago and a great CD to check out the system with is Sneakers. It has a lot of good Bass is is well produced. I played it and tweaked up the system a bit. Sounds better. If I would have listened to this system before I bought it, I would have saved 20K and bought Acura MDX.
XM radio or Spotify are NOT known for having great sound quality. In fact, their sound quality is well below CD quality. So before you decide that the problem is the stereo system in your Q7, copy high resolution files in a USB or SD Card (flac files work very well for this) and give the Q7 system another try. You may be pleasantly surprised of what you find out.
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