Carnello

Hi Team, new to the forum ...first post. Quick question, I have an LS 460 (2007), my phone connects with bluetooth fine, however ....just the phone is operable. I am not able to play the music that is on the phone. Am I doing something wrong, or is that just the way it is?

Nello

rominl

iTrader: (4)

that's the way, there is no BT audio for your generation (07-09). you can get aftermarket unit for that

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

If sound quality means anything to you, you probably don't want bluetooth streaming. Get a 3' aux cable with a 3.5mm jack on each end. Even the DICE (Audiovox) and VAIS units have clunky interfaces and remain somewhat buggy on our earlier model cars.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

you can't possibly be expecting good sound quality through the aux port either right?

not sure which vaistech model you are talking about, but for example the sl3i and mml have been pretty solid, i haven't heard of any problems.

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Aux port will be better than current bluetooth.

The DICE (audiovox) units have a problem with the display flashing song titles on 2005-2009 cars - VERY distracting for the driver. The VAIS units need regular re-setting on these older cars too. And if you can use the interface on either, you're a better man than I!

Nospinzone

Unfortunately Nello we have 7 year old technology.

peteybabes

I have the same predicament.

AUX jack works great for me. . .

cerbum

Aux port seems to work just fine, considering that most music played from a phone/ipod/et al is compressed, sometimes significantly so. What stinks is having to hang two cords off a phone (one aux, one power) when getting in/out of the car.

tyrenfroe

Not so. Degree of compression from heavy to none is chosen by the user. Many people store ripped CD material on their iPods using Apple Lossless format. This allows bit-perfect reproduction of the original CD material which is digitally transmitted to the Lexus sound system for processing. Also, as I understand it, Bluetooth is a robust digital transmission medium with error correction and is therefore similarly capable of high fidelity (CD quality at least) if so chosen by the user.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i would love to see technical data on the sound quality if you can show. early generation of BT was more simplistic and such, but latest BT technology and chipset actually carries pretty significant quality.

i can't comment on DICE, honest not a fan of them. vaistech units with regular resetting is quite bs, at least on all gen5 and above systems, which includes the ls460. i have done more than 50 installs of vaistech across all lexus, i don't have a customer who comes to me about regular resetting. hanging does happen, but it's not on a regular basis at all. actually it did happen on my gs350, but that was because of my ipod. once i changed to new one it never occurred again

and in terms of distractions, inability to control song selections on screen and have to look down to the ipod, i think that's worse.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

i am glad someone is putting out correct information

sktn77a

iTrader: (2)

Well, I guess we agree to disagree. Regardless of the current bluetooth 4.0 and ADP2 streaming transport profiles, data compression is used to reduce the bit rate of the audio signal and the system's codec leaves much to be desired. The newer AptX capable bluetooth systems are designed to improve this but apaprently even those sound inferior to a direct wired aux coonnection:

http://www.cnet.com/news/bluetooth-audio-vs-wires/

At the end of the day each individual has to do their own listening and choose the system that best meets their needs.

clemgrad85

I have the BT system on my 2012 LS, and gotta say, when playing Pandora from my Nokia 1020 via Bluetooth it sounds fantastic. This was a nice upgrade in going from my '08 LS to the '12 LS. On the negative side, I do miss the built in hard drive to store my music....oh well. Anyone know why the eliminated the hard drive from the ML audio system?

Mitty

I have a 2011, and maybe I just don't have highly trained ears, but my Bluetooth played music sounds just as good as FM or XM to me. I play stuff off my phone all the time and I have zero issues. I only use the AUX in the armrest if I need to charge it.

tyrenfroe

No disagreement at all. I was simply unaware that BT systems perform lossy compression of music data prior to digital transmission to audio components. I'm curious as to why lossy codecs would be part of the BT spec instead of a user choice like iTunes storage type, so I'll look into it. Thanks a bunch for the link and lead on Apt-X. (BTW, your last comment privileges subjective bias over objective, scientific analysis. Not a good thing in cancer research, not a good thing in audio.)