AlexNY

issue is not loudness tho, best way i can describe is that on bluetooth my audio sounds like a non-hd fm radio station. and then via usb it sounds much richer, as if HD was turned on FM station

NdYAG

You asked us to do the comparison test for you and we did. Now I ask you to check the Bluetooth volume setting. How about you just do it rather than hypothesize why it should not matter?

AlexNY

ok, had to wait to finish work before testing this.

so, i brought both bluetooth and usb to same levels of volume, for the sake of this test i did volume level 40.
Surround is on and off, i tried both ways.
Then same volume on my iphone XR, about middle for both blue tooth and usb.

there's still a significant difference in how the audio plays, bluedtooth audio just feels like itt's missing something. i'm not an audiophile, so i can't correctly describe it. my best description is when you first turn on fm radio before the HD signal is captured, that's how my audio over bluetooth sounds. Then you know how when your radio catches the HD signal for the station and it suddenly sounds a lot better? that's the difference between my bluetooth audio and audio connected to iphone via usb

Mike728

What NdYAG meant, is make sure the Bluetooth volume on your PHONE is set to max. The easiest way to do this is by start streaming and hold the "up" volume until it's maxed. You can also do this through the phone's sound settings.

12jimmyjam

AlexNY

and i did mention i set same volume level on the PHONE for both bluetooth and usb:

" Then same volume on my iphone XR, about middle for both blue tooth and usb. "

strange issue really, but usb works fine so i'll leave it at that

nsaldanh

If I am not mistaken when you output via USB the phone's volume setting doesn't make any difference. You are essentially sending a digital signal to the car's head unit bypassing the audio circuitry in the iPhone. When you output via Bluetooth on the iPhone the volume level on the phone does come into play. It takes the phone's amplified signal, converts to bluetooth and sends that on to the car where it's converted back to an analog signal and amplified by the head unit.

AlexNY

i thought this might have been the issue, so like previous posters mentioned, i did try to fiddle with volume on the phone itself via bluetooth. it does get considerably louder, but the music sounds shallower than when connected via usb.

my other guess is that maybe the audio over bluetooth gets compressed and thus it looses some of the clarity from the source. but this is me talking out of my A$$ as i'm not an expert in this field

NdYAG

Not sure why is it hard to understand but let's try again. Set Bluetooth volume on the phone to MAX. Set the volume on the car to be the same - e. g. to 40 on BOTH Bluetooth and USB sources (each source has it own adjustment and it remembers it). Set the automatic volume leveling to off on both sources.

Also you may want to check settings in the app that plays music on your phone to make sure it does not do any additional processing of volume leveling.

Littleguy

FWIW, on the ES, the volume is independent based on input, for example if I have the usb on 20 and switch to Bluetooth and put it on 30, when I go back to usb it is on 20 again. If you are raising the volume on usb and then switching to Bluetooth, make sure to adjust that volume as well.

Mike728

If you set the Bluetooth sound on your phone to "MAX" and it sounds noticeably different than when connected via USB, you should take it in and have it fixed. Are you still under warranty?

OBLexus

NdYAG

All DSP settings the same?

Isn't volume value 18 kinda low?

AlexNY

volume 18 in car is pretty high when the volume is set to MAX on the phone.

so, i did try your suggestion yesterday night. MAX volume on iphone via bluetooth and usb as well.

Same issue, audio over bluetooth sounds kind of shallow vs usb. And yes DSP settings exactly the same on both usb and bluetooth.

i did some searching on google, this is what i could find:

audio over usb in the case of iphones = iphone internal processor converts digital to analog, then analog gets converted back to digital by signal processing in car headunit. NO LOSS OF SIGNAL/DATA during this process.

Audio over bluetooth = gets compressed one more time (i'm assuming this for mp3s, since they are compressed already). This might be the reason i notice sound quality difference between the 2.

NdYAG

I will try it with iPhone later today. I think it works differently on android.