Bluetooth sound quality

Jeffj1964 · April 20, 2016

I have a new 2015 Sierra for work. Just got rid of 2011 Chevy traverse. The Bluetooth sound quality in the Sierra is terrible. In my traverse, no one knew I was in the car, with the newer and " technologically better truck, the voice quality is awful. Why is this newer, super quiet truck sound so bad. I have an I phone 6 with the newest udates

Curtis Vincent · April 20, 2016

I have issues with my iPhone 6 skipping and freezing when I'm using Bluetooth for music. My dealer said that gm was having problems with the iPhone 6s. Something about car companies not being able to keep up with cell phone companies technologically. I don't know if I buy it but that's what they said.

camcamaro1991 · April 20, 2016

Bluetooth is "lossy" as part of its design it has compress the bit rate and send it over air and then must uncompressed via music algorithm, hence why it sounds terrible it looses bits so the sound is muddy, any decent sound system you can tell an immediate difference, so your previous vehicle 2011 Chevy traverse had far less capable sound system, again why you can tell a substantial difference when in your new Sierra

additional info.... no codec up until now has been created that meets both the power consumption and low latency requirements necessary for a quality audio transmission.

hate to tell you this but 3.5mm AUX has better SQ than Bluetooth.

Notice when you directly connect your phone via USB to the Sierra its much improved even over XM and HD radio? Go hook your Iphone up via USB....oh and turn the volume down it will night and day difference.

stop blaming GM and your phone for lousy Bluetooth low SQ, there is endless discussions on this in every forum in every SQ for Bluetooth. sounds to me like you finally got a decent sound system, you should hear high sound systems Bluetooth is like nails on chalk board.

Bluetooth is ok for file transfer and hands free voice.

btw I have a iPhone 6s

Curtis Vincent · April 20, 2016

I will try that thanks. By the way I was not blaming gm or anyone else, just asking for help. Thanks for yours.

camcamaro1991 · April 20, 2016

I will try that thanks. By the way I was not blaming gm or anyone else, just asking for help. Thanks for yours.

Yeah sorry man, I got some keyboard warrior in me today!

I was mostly referring to the OP.

Silverado Steve · April 20, 2016

Another thing is to turn of the EQ qualities on your iPhone, if you have it on, it really muffles the sound quality when playing over your trucks sound system.

morrislee · April 23, 2016

I have custom DSP (not factory) on my phone which I can control for bluetooth output. Sound still better then XM and FM, not compared to wired thoug, I hate wires.

Look up DSP manager for android if you have android phone. You need to be rooted on your phone.

If I recall, bluetooth A2DP uses up to 768Kbps audio, so any 320kbps you have nowadays shouldn't make a difference unless you have garbage DSP processing the audio first hand.

njs2247 · April 25, 2016

I think the OP was talking about voice quality when talking to some one on the phone via bluetooth and I have to agree with him. People always say my voice sounds muffled when talking via bluetooth from my truck. The bluetooth ear pieces people pair with their phones sound a whole lot better than the mic in these trucks. Pretty sad when a company can't make a bluetooth mic in a truck sound better than a 3 inch ear piece.

Deanjo · April 25, 2016

Bluetooth is "lossy" as part of its design it has compress the bit rate and send it over air and then must uncompressed via music algorithm, hence why it sounds terrible it looses bits so the sound is muddy,

Not entirely true. According to AD2P spec, if the SRC (your phone) and SNK (your Mylink) both support the same optional codec (such as MP3, AAC) the stream is NOT recompressed, thus no further loss than what the original source file already had as the file is transmitted in it's raw form. You will only experience further compression if one of the devices has to transcode the audio into another compatible format (say like trying to send a straight PCM or OGG audio file via bluetooth).

Jeffj1964 · April 26, 2016

I actually understand all of the compression ideas. The problem is, why did my Traverse sound great, and a brand new truck with an even quieter cab sounds terrible. Is it the grill covering the mic? is there a software update? is it my phone?

Thanks,

Deanjo · April 27, 2016

I actually understand all of the compression ideas. The problem is, why did my Traverse sound great, and a brand new truck with an even quieter cab sounds terrible. Is it the grill covering the mic? is there a software update? is it my phone?

Thanks,

Since the release of iOS 9.2 there have been several issues with bluetooth. People have found better sound by a variety of tricks like turning off "Hey Siri", Google Voice control to re-pairing the iPhone to the vehicle to disabling the Handoff feature.