[SpartanGA]

There is a dramatic difference in audio quality from streaming CarPlay vs Sirius satellite. CarPlay I have to increase volume tremendously and it doesn’t have the dynamic range. CarPlay sounds like a blanket on the speakers

Thought to upgrade speakers but why if they sound so much better with different source.

Has this been discussed with any solutions?

I am going to use BimmerCode to adjust EQ but again. Sirius sounds great as in. CarPlay not.

[ried]

Interesting observation, because Sirius is streaming data from 20 year old pipes with low bitrates. It's objectively lower quality audio than anything else in the car, except AM.

CarPlay should sound worlds better, but you also need to play high quality source material. If you're streaming 32 or 64 kbps audio through CarPlay, of course it's going to sound terrible. If you're playing 320 kbps AAC audio stored on the device, it's going to sound better.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Want to blow your mind? Try HD radio. Or a CD.

[SpartanGA]

I’m playing a streaming service. I’ll try local music on my device.

Maybe I’ll pull out my old CD car case as I just found my box of CDs from storage !!!

[David1]

I rip my CDs to the cars hard drive. One of the last cars made that has this capability. HD radio in BMWs is awesome. The HD radio in my Volvo doesn't sound nearly as good. Much depends on implementation of the audio systems from the manufacturers .

[SpartanGA]

I also just read some use old iPhone or usb drive/stick in center console.

[KevinC]

SiriusXM on iPhone has 3 separate bitrate settings - by default I'm pretty sure it's at the low setting. If you're on an unlimited (or high limit) data plan, switch it to the highest bitrate setting, which is allegedly 320kbps - sound quality is DRAMATICALLY better than the default, which is either 64 or 128kbps. When on long road trips in my Golf R I always stream via CarPlay and it sounds as good as CDs (to the naked ear in a noisy car, anyways).

[CannibalOx]

Could be the bluetooth codec. I'm not sure if you're using wireless CarPlay. I'm also not sure if this applicable to as I don't know what codecs Apple uses, or BMW for that matter. There are several higher quality bluetooth codecs (eg ldac, aptx hd) but if your phone and the devices you're connecting to don't use the same higher codec then it will default to a lower quality one.

[nioh_lbbm2]

Originally Posted by CannibalOx

Could be the bluetooth codec. I'm not sure if you're using wireless CarPlay. I'm also not sure if this applicable to as I don't know what codecs Apple uses, or BMW for that matter. There are several higher quality bluetooth codecs (eg ldac, aptx hd) but if your phone and the devices you're connecting to don't use the same higher codec then it will default to a lower quality one.

CarPlay doesn't use Bluetooth for streaming to the car. It uses WiFi and is not compressed, it is lossless.

It depends on the service op is using for music and the quality of the music files.

[CannibalOx]

Thanks, as an Android user I just have never set that up and haven't done much reading into how the system works.