Car audio?

[Fridolin]

Really no CarHiFi lovers here?

[davidbeinct]

^^^ I personally don't think the noise floor in a car can be brought low enough to make true hi fi worth pursuing. I use the FM radio, either NPR or the local college station, for short trips. For road trips we stream Tidal on a lower setting to the car stereo via Bluetooth. I made the mistake of using the Redbook setting once and that chewed through my data. MP3 is plenty for the car.

[blownsi]

I was heavy into car audio in the early 90s (Eclipse, MB Quart, JL Audio, etc) but I just don't care anymore. These days I use bluetooth from my phone to listen to podcasts or audiobooks thru the factory radio. I figure instead of wasting that time in the car, I might as well learn something.

[wgscott]

What I really should do is get some sort of PDF reader that can read NIH grants or research articles to me while I drive around.

[Blake]

I just spent the last two days (1500 miles) driving. It got me wondering what folks here do for car audio.

 

I don't listen to music while in the car. I don't like any modern car entertainment gizmos. I prefer to "unplug" from the world and to follow the old school concept of simply listening to the sound of my engine.

[maelob]

I use Tidal over iPhone via Bluetooth to my aftermarket head unit. Also have an iPod connected to it. My head unit has HD radio which sound way clearer than regular radio. All that through Focal speakers front and back and a subwoofer in the trunk. I enjoy it a lot.

[17629]

Does anyone use one of those wireless USB things?

 

https://www.sandisk.com/home/...device.../connect-wireless-stick

 

I think you would be better off with something like a Samsung tablet running Android. The music player apps are much better than the ones for ios. Also, you wouldn't need the wireless USB stick. Just get a 64 or 128gb microSD card and put all your music on that. Also, you can use a small usb dac like an AQ Dragonfly for better SQ.

[diw]

Really no CarHiFi lovers here?

 

It does seem strange that car makers took years to recognise that people kept music on ipods or phones...I have a reasonably good car system...VW OEM head unit, Focal amp, Hybrid Audio speakers, JL Sub and am getting good results with iPhone, AQ Dragonfly Red or Pono Player into the Aux input. Tried Bluetooth and found it a major PITA with frequent dropouts and not great quality. TIDAL works fine thru the phone as well and the Dragonfly was the biggest improvement. The Pono player sounds great but the ergonomics not so much, and I havent found a dash bracket for it yet, and I do find the JRiver interface to be hard to use to load music. I have used an iPad mini in the past as a Nav system in a Pro-Clip bracket and am contemplating restoring this. Given that I can get my 2000+ CD collection onto a portable hard drive the size of a cigarette packet, my ideal would be to access that via Roon and control it with the iPad Mini...the size of the screen means that navigation is within acceptable safety and distraction limits, although voice control would be even nicer. I keep looking for head units that enable access to audio files but they are usually FLAC based and the interfaces are not very good

 

If you probe the depths of the InterWeb you can find people who have installed MacMinis in cars so where's the innovation in this space?

 

Contrary to the scepticism of the audiophile world you can get good sound in a car if you treat it like a big pair of headphones, and increasingly audio companies are seeing car audio as the gateway drug to attract new customers for domestic hifi...see Naim, Burmeister. Krell and B+W now working with luxury car companies ......also listening to the car engine nowadays means listening to the audio feed via the stereo or Soundaktor devices ( yes BMW and VW, I mean you....)

[freesteve]

FYI... Bluetooth audio is not for me... when I play music off of my droid it sounds "fuzzy." However I just hooked up the Dragonfly Red vis OTG cable and with USB Proplayer... I am very happy in my Lexus with the ML sound system ... (off course I will tweak over time...)

[Fridolin]

If you probe the depths of the InterWeb you can find people who have installed MacMinis in cars so where's the innovation in this space?

 

I'm one of these crazy guys with a MacMini built into my car.

In combination with JRiver Mediacenter for Mac and JRemote it is the best and most convenient solution i ever had. Connected optically digital to my DSP (you need one if you want to do it right) it sounds exceptionally.

 

Lately i tried to simplify my car stereo setup using an Auralic Aries Mini instead of the Mac Mini. But this is a huge step backwards in terms if usability. The app for the Aries Mini is very crappy if you compare it to JRemote. I think i will go back to my Mac Mini setup soon.

[Sal1950]

 

You want music, you got to get yourself a big America V8, their pulse just syncs with a real mans heartbeat.

[The Computer Audiophile]

I have a full Alpine / Boston Acoustics aftermarket system. I connect my iPhone to the Aux input. I either stream lossless Tidal or stream from my home JRiver library using JRemote.

 

I thought about putting a Linux computer in the car but with unlimited data and a good LTE signal most places I drive, I don't need local storage.

[Blake]

You want music, you got to get yourself a big America V8, their pulse just syncs with a real mans heartbeat.

 

And that is why I could care less about car audio and prefer to listen to my V8.

[tranz]

And that is why I could care less about car audio and prefer to listen to my V8.

 

There are certain cars that do sound delish! Makes your hairs stand to attention.

[master]

Smartphones and streaming I can understand.

 

Folks using Mac Mini's... is that still streaming? Or you got a HDD onboard?

 

I tried the mini PC with HDD approach many moons ago, just would skip at every bump and turn. Just wondering if the newer SSDs and M.2 drives have fixed this issue.

[wgscott]

And that is why I could care less about car audio and prefer to listen to my V8.

 

Some of us have junky high-miliage cars where we have to turn up the volume to avoid listening to all of the mechanical problems that are developing.

[wanta911]

I picked the top of the range Harmon Kardon hifi option when I ordered my latest car.....I shouldn't have bothered. The aftermarket Focal/Alpine system with Dynamat installed in every possible cavity in my previous car was significantly better.

 

Some research determined that there were some issues in getting a good setup in my current car, so I did some small mods to my flat 6 engine and exhaust and just listen to that now.

[Sal1950]

Some of us have junky high-miliage cars where we have to turn up the volume to avoid listening to all of the mechanical problems that are developing.

Drain your engine oil and refill with rear end gear lube. The will quiet down the mechanical noise considerably.

[Fridolin]

Smartphones and streaming I can understand.

 

Folks using Mac Mini's... is that still streaming? Or you got a HDD onboard?

 

I tried the mini PC with HDD approach many moons ago, just would skip at every bump and turn. Just wondering if the newer SSDs and M.2 drives have fixed this issue.

I didn't have any issues with the HDDs in my very old sports car.

But for faster startup and overall handling i replaced them with an 1TB SSD.

And you can't hear it rotating anymore :-).

[jackbnimble]

Sony has a new head unit on the market that plays everything even DSD, $1500! Until I can afford that I just use my LG V10 phone and Blue Tooth or an Ipod Touch. The phone actually sounds better and plays more formats and has more storage.

[zerung]

I had 64 GB drive with high Rez file plugged into the Tesla G. The USB screwed up the car control, hence no usb drives for the interim. Nw I use Spotify, which is free from Tesla. Getting Tidal straight into Tesla would be great. The sound is pretty good.....

[AudioDoctor]

I actually prefer listening to the flat 6 engine in the rear of my car, sounds awesome above 4K

 

Ah, I found another one! I enjoy the same thing.

[Miska]

I actually prefer listening to the flat 6 engine in the rear of my car, sounds awesome above 4K

 

Motorcycle with Akrapovič exhaust fills that gap for me, especially when it hits 10K. ;D

 

Unfortunately there's a plenty of winter here, so when temperature falls at -30C and there's plenty of snow, it is nice to have a warm four wheel drive car with good torque and good sound system.

[audiventory]

My car is base place for relaxed music listening. I listen CDs only. CD changer solve long time playback issue.

Changing of original head device (for modern formats, as example) have matter of keepeng of auto's interior design.

[musicfan145]

Good sound in a car is possible, but it is very difficult to achieve, partly because convenience and safety often trump sound quality, and party because cars are such terrible acoustic spaces. Lots of hard, resonant materials and very few choices in speaker and seating placement. And the noise. Even with a quiet engine, quiet tires, and good dampening, noise is still one of the biggest factors when the car is moving. The easiest thing you can do is choose music which makes the noise floor less of an issue (things that sound good loud).

 

If you don't want to start modifying the audio system of your car, my suggestion for audio source would be Tidal > Dragonfly > Aux input. That said, I usually just plug my iPhone directly in to the USB port of my head unit so it works with steering wheel controls and shows track data on my head unit, but the sound quality is better through the Dragonfly Red. Spotify has a far better mobile app interface than Tidal, but it takes forever to open and just doesn't sound as good to me. (I also tried Apple Music, but it had a nasty habit of playing a different version of a song than the one I clicked on.) Of course, you can use an iPod, Pono, or other portable audio player, but the extra hassle of choosing what to sync is something I no longer have time for. (I've also tried using Jremote to stream from my home collection, but even with 4G LTE, I found it unreliable. Maybe I'll try again now that my home outgoing speed has increased to 30Mbps.)

 

If you're wanting to take advantage of the convenience of USB connectivity, I think the iPhone has a distinct advantage over Android for car use: Many, many car stereos (even OEM ones) have a USB iPod interface built in. When you plug in an iPhone, it sees it (quickly) as an iPod and is ready to go. Open Spotify or Tidal, and the phone sends all music, metadata, and transport controls through the USB interface as if it were an iPod. Android phones, in my experience, don't work nearly as quickly, reliably, or transparently through USB. They work great through Bluetooth, but that introduces its own SQ issues. To use Android through a wired connection, you'll need a head unit with Android Auto or MHL (and a phone that supports the same).

 

Of course, if you want REALLY good sound in a car, you'll need to modify it significantly, which is a topic for another forum, like http://www.diymobileaudio.com.