FYI...I have been struggling with a couple of minor bluetooth issues and I thought I would pass along one simple finding. I have an Iphone 6+ and the volume had to be cranked up to 60 to hear music off the phone. I called Lexus and they were of no help, or the dealership person. By accident I played with the volume control on the phone.....while the music was playing....walla....the volume reset so I can now listen at the same level as the radio.

 

Whenever I stream music from my phone, the volume on my phone (the source) is always at 100%. Then I play with the volume on the head unit to get to the desired level. Most smartphones now have 2 volumes, one for the ringer and one for media, u need to max out the media when playing music, if u max out the ringer volume, u'll still won't hear anything.

 

This is one of the weird things about the GS' blue tooth audio. I have a GX truck and the BT audio in that vehicle is amazing. So the first time I listened to the BT audio in GS, I was sort of underwhelmned. The 2014 GX I have has only 9 speakers and has much bigger volume, yet the BT Audio was way better.
And then I looked at my iPhone 6 plus settings when running in the bluetooth mode on both the vehicles. Voila!
The GX BT Audio integration makes the iPhone volume to the max level and that's transferred to the Head unit.
The GS BT audio on the other hand keeps your default phone settings for the volume. And that causes less than stellar audio output.
When I increased the volume level on my phone, the GS at full volume became way more powerful than the GX!

 

Good tip, this can be annoying for Bluetooth audio.

Everyone, do yourselves a favor and get the little cheapo iPod, fill it up with music, and plug it in via usb in the console arm rest. It will perpetually charge so no dead battery problems, and accessing your stuff via playlists and getting album art just works.

 

+1 to this.

Also if you wanna do this ipod thing but for dirt cheap get a USB Flash drive and load music on it and stick it in the lexus center console and you will get the same thing for less. Not sure if this will give you album art though.

 

That's what I did, got a 64 gb usb flash drive. Still tons of room leftover. No art though.

 

The problem is I'll have another device to carry around. I always build my music playlist at night and sync with my phone and stream it when I get in the car in the morning and it's always up to date.

My music changes every day and it's more convenient that way cause I'm lazy.

 

When my iPhone 6 syncs to Bluetooth it automatically goes full volume. It's weird that op had to manually adjust his.

 

Mine remembers the last settings.

 

My IPhone started out at full volume, but for some reason lost it. Now that I reset it....using the volume button on the phone....it keeps that setting. Sometimes it's the obvious.

 

u know coach, my volume went down a couple times too and I found out that's because my hip is pushing the button inside the case. I have my phone on my belt and sometimes when I bend over to pick up something from the passenger side it pushed the (-) volume button. I guess it's the way they placed it cause the (+) button never get pushed.