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Bluetooth quality and operation - USB audio?

7K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  Sancho 
#1 ·
This is the first car I've tried using Bluetooth in. I quickly noticed that it was difficult to understand the person on the phone. When I use the phone itself or its aux output, the voice sounds fine. When I try Bluetooth, it sounds kind of like a muffled tin can under water. My phone mount is on the vent right above the stereo and the audio might sound a little better when I move the phone away from it a bit - but it's still not good quality.

I eventually noticed that music doesn't sound as good either. There were some symphonic strings in some music that sounded distorted, so I switched back and forth between Bluetooth and aux input. There was no distortion using aux.

1. Is this low-quality of audio common with Bluetooth? The phone voice quality is unusable - I don't see how anyone could use it.

2. I've seen stereos that display the artist/song info via Bluetooth (I think they had an iPhone), but I haven't seen a way to do it with my setup. I have a Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

3. I tried the USB port, but got a message about the device not being ready or something (I can't remember and I'm at work right now). I didn't see much in the manual about what the USB is used for. Did I miss that part?
 
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#2 ·
I have the stock radio that came with the Premium XV, it doesn't have a the 4.7 inch screen and I can hear the peeps over a bluetooth connection, very easy. I had the Casio Commando and now the Motorola Razr Maxx HD and connecting via Bluetooth is easy. Even streaming music. I use Pandora from my phone, making sure the volume for media player is turned up on the phone. The track/artist show up too on the XV radio. You need to change the mode to "BT-A"(I think that's the option), cycle though. You'll see options like: CD, AUX, FM, AM, USB and the BT option.

When talking to peeps via bluetooth you can turn the volumn up on the radio too and your phone.

Hope this helps.
 
#5 ·
I have an iPhone 4. Everything worked great for the first week. Then, I started having blue tooth issues. First, streaming audio from Pandora started to skip or stop - usually for a second or two - and then continue - then stop again 30 seconds later. The phone audio was horrible - I couldn't understand anything anyone was saying. The connection to blue tooth would often times fail, repeatedly. I would have to stop and start the car to make it work. This lasted about two weeks. A call to the dealer resulted in no help. I looked at the usage on my iPhone - and found I had virtually no memory left. I freed up about 3gig of memory by deleting a ton of apps I've never used, a ton of music I don't listen to, etc. Lo and behold - the blue tooth now works perfectly. And the song titles and artists now always display - no skipping - no issues connecting. I'm not sure how much memory is needed when transmitting data via blue tooth - I wouldn't have thought this would matter. But for the past three weeks - my issues have been resolved. So - I'd check how much space you have free on your phone. If you are almost maxed out - try deleting stuff you don't use and see if that works.
 
#6 ·
When I use pandora on my phone and run it through bluetooth, it comes through with 90% static. Then, after about 1 min, it "looses signal", then instantly finds it again, and now the sound is fine. I dont know if the problem lies with my phone, the bluetooth unit in the car, or what. Its mildly annoying.

I cannot get anything to run off of USB, and it frustrates me. My older IPOD shuffle isnt supported, according to subaru, and the car wont see my phone if plugged into usb. My original intent was to buy a cheap used ipod and leave it in the console for USB music, but I worry that it still wont work, so I havent bought anything.
 
#8 ·
AlexAlejan said:
When I use pandora on my phone and run it through bluetooth, it comes through with 90% static. Then, after about 1 min, it "looses signal", then instantly finds it again, and now the sound is fine. I dont know if the problem lies with my phone, the bluetooth unit in the car, or what. Its mildly annoying.

I cannot get anything to run off of USB, and it frustrates me. My older IPOD shuffle isnt supported, according to subaru, and the car wont see my phone if plugged into usb. My original intent was to buy a cheap used ipod and leave it in the console for USB music, but I worry that it still wont work, so I havent bought anything.
I have run my phone(Iphone 4S) and played mp3s on usb flash drive, through the USB just fine. I think you could get a cheap usb flash drive to test it out. Manual says 8G flashdrive is the biggest you can use anyway.
 
#9 ·
My stupid cheap little Nokia works fine for taking inconming calls via the Bluetooth system. Can't work out how to upload the phonenumbers to the radio though...
Sound quality is good, better than in the Fords of my sisters-in-law.

I play all my music from USB stick, never had a problem. What type of files do you have on your stick?
 
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