listening to music in the car

I am glad I found this thread because I do not feel fully an oddball anymore. I accepted that car environment and, probably, lesser quality electronics will degrade sound from what I am used at home. Still, when looking for a new car, I went around checking sound systems specifically. Huh, that was an experience. I brought an iPod Touch and one USB jump drive with different types of files (DSD, FLAC multiple resolutions, WAV, AIFF, nothing under 16/44.1) and puzzled each and every car salesman along the way. All the listening was done in stationary, non-running cars and some also during driving.

After all, I was disappointed with some that I had expected to be top-notch. Burmester in S coupe, for example. Not bad compared to others, but not as stunning as pedigree would make me think. For some reason, Jaguar XJ with Meridian system was the most pleasing to me. Another revelation was inconsistency of what a certain system could play. Pretty much nothing I tried could play AIFF, unless played from iPod, and pretty much everything could play FLAC, but resolutions varied. Tesla would play from iPod (or your iPhone) only via Bluetooth despite having an USB port which serves for...charging. Nothing I tried played DSD at that time. BMW was charging $1200 for Harman/Kardon upgrade, but deep at the end of instructions that most would never read, says that it would not play anything over, I believe, 320 Kbps. I had no mp3s, but it had no problem with AIFFs, for whatever it is worth. Volkswagen with Fender system was the most convenient by far with SD card slot (works even with 512 GB card) and USB port that actually connects. Unfortunately, Fender made sure that your opera will sound like a garage band. Everything else, too. It was basically unlistenable on most of the material/genres. So, these days we got to the point that sound is just a half of the problem.

glupson,

Your experience is much like my own.   I had a BMW X5 that had iPod connection in glove box.  It played all the files I had on the iPod but I admit most were ripped from CD rather than high res downloads.

Then I lost my mind and bought a C7 Stingray.  Terrible car but I'll skip that conversation and just say that listening at almost any speed was impossible due to noise and quality of the factory Bose system.

That car lasted about year, it was driving me crazy for many reasons but now addicted to performance and handling but needed a SUV I had a time finding something that would do both.

A friend suggested Porsche Macan, I drove one and it was instant love affair.  Ordered the Turbo (highest performance version) but skipped the Burmester in favor of other options.

Noise level is about 66 DB for my model with special glass.  Making it  quieter than Cadillac, Jag and Mercedes. 

Even with nice quiet levels the Bose is not great,  and like you I find it hard to play AIFF other than iPod.   Mine has option for SD cards and it recognizes the card but won't play unless it's FLAC or MP4.   I find that strange since Car Play is supposedly backed by Apple and AIFF is an Apple format.

I need more space in my iPod but currently the new iPod touch is available with maximum 128GB.   These days with memory so cheap I don't understand why Apple does not offer a premium model with 512 or even higher memory.  

Sync music to iPod is simple and reliable and plugged into the USB on car with Car Play it displays everything about what's being played and can be controlled a number of ways including voice command.

I've looked at other high end portable players but none seem to be compatible with USB much less Car Play.   I guess could buy a used iPhone and turn off the SIM which essentially converts it to an iPod but what a hassle and waste of money just to get some additional music space. 

My home system has a server with 12TB of music.   512 GB does not seem to me an unreasonable requirement for a portable player. 

My Sienna van has a pretty crappy system with it's ear piercing  pillar mounted tweeters and door speakers that rattle.    It makes coming home and turning on my system much more enjoyable. 

albertporter,

with my experience, if I were you, I would do what I already did. I waved the white flag, bought 512 GB SD card (that is how I know it works despite instructions saying it is only up to, if I remember correctly, 64GB), and bought dBpoweramp program to transfer whatever to whatever. Basically, I converted all the AIFFs to FLACs and put it on that SD card. Then the card went to the slot, conveniently out of sight and out of way, and it is all there. There is still some space left on the card, but not much. As AIFF it was not even close to 12 TB so you may not be too happy, but it fits some thousand or more albums. Granted, those are albums and not 80-minute CDs so some are barely 30 minutes, but most are 1960s-1970s-1980s so think more like 45 minutes. The downside of dBpoweramp is that, for all I know, it does not convert DSD, if that is what you need, but I have heard that it is the best one to transfer album art without glitches. I would have to agree, although I was surprised that some things I did have to smoothen out to make it all really perfect. That is another topic and feel free to ask if you ever go down that route. I, eventually, settled for Volkswagen and this sound system convenience was one of the three or four important factors. It is just that I am now looking for a new car because I cannot stand the sound. I mean, I am not trying to be snobbish or pretend that my ears are descedants from some royal dynasty, but it hurts. I was hoping that new (2018) batch of VWs along with the new screen accidentaly got something in amplifier changed. I went to the dealership last weekend and I believe it might have happened, but will check a few more times before I give money away. I feel your pain with having to juggle needs/wants of the car as a vehicle and some decent sound system that would play what you would expect it to play in 2017-2018. I end up with VW because I do fit in it comfortably (6'3"), they do come with manual transmissions, if you pick carefully, and they still have some sort of spare tire or at least space to put a temporary one without taking away the whole trunk.

I think that sound system quality is sort of an afterthought in most cars. They simply do not expect a driver with an iPhone to connect any other way but Bluetooth or care about files it can play. In fact, the young man who was showing me Tesla (Model S, I went just for curiosity and completness sake) was surprised with my discovery of "only Bluetooth from your phone". It turns out that he, the person representing allegedly very technologically advanced company, had never thought of any other way but Bluetooth, nor had anyone who ever walked in that store in over a year that he had been there. However, in his sales pitch he did talk about wonderful sound system with so many speakers and Watts, and what not. Accept it, we are a minority that is easier to ignore than to do small tweaks for.

Oddiofyl,

I feel for you.  I've not owned a Sienna but there is no shortage of bad car audio and tweeters do seem to bring out the worst. 

glupson,

VW is a great car, but I have not heard their sound system.   I believe you when you say it hurts.   That's the same problem had with the C7 Stingray but a great deal of that problem was ambient noise and listening too loud to overcome same.

I will look into your suggestion on  dbpoweramp.   I don't think I've used their software but memory cards are cheap so it's worth a shot. I currently have two SD cards and no where near full. In fact just a few dozen albums on each since I kept hoping for a higher capacity iPod.

My experiments with SD card was frustrating and how I learned about FLAC, MP4 and AIFF and compatibility (or lack there of)  with Car Play.  

My iPod music is on my personal computer so it would be easy to sync up all the existing music to larger iPod in a matter of minutes.   I have more music on my computer than current iPod will hold.   To me it's easier than loading SD cards.

I enjoyed your story about the Tesla salesman, it's true most people don't care that much about sound, in the car or at home. We are the minority and as you implied, we have to live with it.