Hey folks,

I think the sound quality is lossless when I connect my iPhone 5S to the USB port. How about aux bluetooth? Is it compressed? I always play my music with Spotify at 320kbits. I am sure most of us can't tell the difference. How about the audiophiles on this forum?

Thanks for any inputs.

 

yes!

 

You also have to set the sound parameters for the channel. Your sound, bass, treble, surround all have to be set the first time you use the channels, Sat, Aux, am, FM, etc. Try setting the sound, it's still not great but better.
Hope you didn't buy the car for the sound system.

 

So, if you listen to sound at 320kbps it is not lossless. The iphone will play lossless thru USB though if you have lossless files on the iphone. A-BT is certainly not lossless even if you have lossless files on the iphone and you are streaming them. However A-BT can sound fine depending on the type of music, something like books on "tape", the background noise in the car, etc. Find what works for you convenience and quality wise and roll with that.

 

1) The content itself if an MP3 already has loss in it by nature of the file compression format..

2) The AUX BT connection is lossless.. And does not further degrade whatever you are playing on your phone/ipod etc..

3) The individual input has tone/bass surround settings


To answer the original question about 320Kbps MP3, I use 320Kbps as well, but an audiophile can easily hear a difference from the original and a 320Kbps MP3.. Unfortunately, I'm finding it hard to find a download source that even encodes at 320Kbps, a lot of the stuff you buy at amazon for instance is 225 or less. Back to ripping CD's...

 

I think you are confusing the idea that an A-BT connection does not drop bits with the idea of lossless audio. Lossless audio by definition may compress bits but does not throw any of the bits away. When an ipod or android device takes a lossless file and transmits it over A-BT it must throw bits away. The profile does not allow transmission at the bitrates lossless (either compressed or uncompressed) requires. The device has to down sample/transcode a lossless file to transmit it. Even the optional codecs are lossy (e.g., mpeg 1 & 2):

"mandatory audio codec SBC for BT A2DP profile is not bad at all. In “High Quality” mode (@328kbit/s) it is on a par with ATRAC SP (Type-R, @292kbit/s) compression algorithm which is used in Minidisc recorders/players. In “Middle Quality” mode (@229kbit/s) it is roughly comparable with mp3@128kbit/s or aac@96kbit/s. At max possible bitrate 372kbit/s SBC codec is comparable with aac@192kbit/s and most artifacts it produces are beyond human perception."

Hope this helps...

 

Hi jster,

So let's say, If I play an exact same song on my iPhone 5s with 320kbits. Hook it up directly to USB or via wireless aux bluetooth. I assume bluetooth will looses a bit of sound quality?

Thanks

 

europeankar-- if the files are 320kbps MP3 files the audio should be pretty close and any difference at all may not be noticeable to you. Both Apple and Porsche support AAC-LC which, if the devices negotiate to that instead of SBC (which they should do but we can't test it), will provide sound that is pretty good given the efficiency of the codec at given bitrates. If your ears are pretty good and in-car noise is low USB is still likely to give you better sound. If you use lossless files instead USB IS the way to go. If you have Burmester AND you can set your 5s to be a media device (i.e., equivalent to USB flash drive instead of iTunes streaming) that is the best way to go with either MP3 or lossless files. My preference is always USB for music. For background music, convenience and on-the-go stuff Aux-BT is pretty handy.

 

The reason for this is that even though SBC is max 328kbps in stereo mode and AAC-LC is 264.6kbps you are dealing with already compressed 320kbps material. What might be thrown out going from MP3 to AAC may not be noticeable to you. However, going from 1.4mbps to 264kbps (to me) is very noticeable AND I find the Burmester DAC to be better than my ipod DAC.

 

Jster: nice detail- yes, I do get my 5S connected via USB and listen to lossless files via burmester - I can tell a difference vs BT streaming hence my initial comment.