uConnect 5.0 RA2, 2013 iPhone Bluetooth DISTORTION

[mesaboogie]

2013 Reg cab, RA2

So aside from any other issues I have with this uConnect system, the Bluetooth streaming from my iPhone 5s sounds like there is high frequency distortion going on....almost like Nintendo bit-crushing on the high end...especially cymbals. I have noticed it once in a while with sirius, but its terrible with Bluetooth. USB MP3s and WAVs sound just fine.
Anyone else experience this?

 

[O.R.T.]

Play around with your EQ on the iPhone and also adjust the phone's audio volume. For some reason I get it but not with all my albums, just one or two and this fixed it.

I wish there was a way to only pair the bluetooth for calls, then I'd just use the usb for line-level output to the stereo.

 

[mesaboogie]

Play around with your EQ on the iPhone and also adjust the phone's audio volume. For some reason I get it but not with all my albums, just one or two and this fixed it.

I wish there was a way to only pair the bluetooth for calls, then I'd just use the usb for line-level output to the stereo.

That isn't it. It's not EQ and Bluetooth doesn't have volume. The volume control is a fake volume. When it's at "max" it transmits the original file. If you adjust and lower the volume, then the phone is taking and recoding the file....which if anything will lower the quality more. The file is just a file and there is no amplification on bluetooth.
The same MP3 on a stick plays just fine. But everything over bluetooth sounds like crap. Mostly noticeable in the cymbals. I just streamed music to my friends car and it is perfect. This is an issue with the head unit.

 

[mesaboogie]

https://rsur.extra.chrysler.com/rsur/Uconnect.do

Not sure if this is know about yet, and not sure what it does, but there is an update I found that came out yesterday.

2013 UCONNECT® 5.0-RA2 (13.44.33 -2.3.21)
Release Date : 01/23/2014

I cannot get the Akamai NetSession installer to download the actual update and uconnect says its a known issue and to contact the dealer until they resolve it, but there appears to be a brand new update out for the RA 5.0 radio.

 

[jbr]

I did see the update on the uConnect website. I just wonder what it does because my 5.0 is working fine as of now. When updates come out for anything I seem to wait it out because they seem very glichy.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

[O.R.T.]

That isn't it. It's not EQ and Bluetooth doesn't have volume. The volume control is a fake volume...

Umm, believe whatever you so desire but most of us here who have experienced this issue and sat there and grabbed our iPhone, turned the volume up and down with the phone's volume buttons and at the same time hear the stereo output rise or lower will smile at your reply.

I did see the update on the uConnect website. I just wonder what it does because my 5.0 is working fine as of now. When updates come out for anything I seem to wait it out because they seem very glichy.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

Someone tried it last week and it didn't resolve it. Part of why we're waiting for the 2nd Quarter Update instead.

It's ok, I don't need to drain my phone anyhow. Pulled the files onto a flash card and it works fine. It is a pain though, bluetooth just makes it easier to go wireless and cook my brain with all these signals floating around the driver's cabin.

 

[jbr]

Umm, believe whatever you so desire but most of us here who have experienced this issue and sat there and grabbed our iPhone, turned the volume up and down with the phone's volume buttons and at the same time hear the stereo output rise or lower will smile at your reply.



Someone tried it last week and it didn't resolve it. Part of why we're waiting for the 2nd Quarter Update instead.

It's ok, I don't need to drain my phone anyhow. Pulled the files onto a flash card and it works fine. It is a pain though, bluetooth just makes it easier to go wireless and cook my brain with all these signals floating around the driver's cabin.

What is the "2nd quarter update"?

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

 

[O.R.T.]

What is the "2nd quarter update"?

Asked that same thing myself, all I was told is "..since the '13 and '14 are affected it will include likely this issue and a couple interface error solutions.".

All I could do is laugh. Gotta wait like the rest of you. When I goto that site noted above all I got was...

There are no updates available for your 2014 RAM 1500 ST SUV 4X4 equipped with the Uconnect 5.0 AM/FM/BT radio

 

[mesaboogie]

Umm, believe whatever you so desire but most of us here who have experienced this issue and sat there and grabbed our iPhone, turned the volume up and down with the phone's volume buttons and at the same time hear the stereo output rise or lower will smile at your reply.

Then you need to reread what I said or familiarize yourself with the technical aspects of how this stuff works. Yes your volume on the phone "raises and lowers" but it isn't a volume control. The file is completely re-encoded at any setting except max, which doesn't mean max volume, it means the original file data. It's not like it's overdriving an input as there is no amplification of any sort, and unlike an attenuation, this is the phone recoding the data to assumed levels for your reduction and is heavily prone to adding noise and artifacts.

 

[quietpeen]

no need to get defensive, we are here to help each other - not beat our chest and prove others wrong.

I don't know about iphone, but i can't say that on my droid razr maxx hd there is a dedicated bluetooth volume(it is not the phones main volume control, or the media volume)

I think the real problem here is unconnect. There has always been issues and unhappy owners wit the way it works or lack there of.

 

[O.R.T.]

...I think the real problem here is unconnect. There has always been issues and unhappy owners wit the way it works or lack there of.

Yep, on both points. It comes down to how the data's getting compressed and converted. uConnect knows this, it's pretty obvious when it gets to the point of someone having to make a thread about it on an "Enthusuast's Site" that it needs to be addressed.

I was hoping OP had a way to skim the compression and possibly refine the bluetooth.

Having so many different signals surrounding us in this day and age doesn't help either. Imagine how many mobile phones in say a metro area's main 5 mile radius there are. Now imagine how many conversations, data connections thru wi-fi and even blue tooth are going on at any given moment and you can see why interference and data quality become issues.

 

[mesaboogie]

Yep, on both points. It comes down to how the data's getting compressed and converted. uConnect knows this, it's pretty obvious when it gets to the point of someone having to make a thread about it on an "Enthusuast's Site" that it needs to be addressed.

I was hoping OP had a way to skim the compression and possibly refine the bluetooth.

Having so many different signals surrounding us in this day and age doesn't help either. Imagine how many mobile phones in say a metro area's main 5 mile radius there are. Now imagine how many conversations, data connections thru wi-fi and even blue tooth are going on at any given moment and you can see why interference and data quality become issues.

Forgive me but to clarify, I cannot imaging this since I can stream just fine inside my house or in a friends car, but move over 10 feet into my sweet new Ram with uConnect and now it's all the other devices in the metro area? It works everywhere but in the Ram. Ram/Chrysler/outsourcers fault.

 

[quietpeen]

i think you missed the point on that one. He was not saying it was all the other devices, he was just saying the sheer number of whats happening at any given time is mind boggling.

Your statement that it works fine everywere else (your house, your friends car) pretty much screams that its a problem with uconnect

 

[cubsflfan]

I have this same issue with my Iphone 5 and the RA2 5.0 Uconnect. I had an older uconnect radio w/ bluetooth in a 11 Challenger and my phone streamed music perfectly. Now in the ram I get a static in the highs. I have tried to adjust the phone eq and the radio with no improvement. I now just plug it in to the aux jack in my fold down armrest and play music through the aux setting on the radio.

 

[cubsflfan]

https://rsur.extra.chrysler.com/rsur/Uconnect.do

Not sure if this is know about yet, and not sure what it does, but there is an update I found that came out yesterday.

2013 UCONNECT® 5.0-RA2 (13.44.33 -2.3.21)
Release Date : 01/23/2014

I cannot get the Akamai NetSession installer to download the actual update and uconnect says its a known issue and to contact the dealer until they resolve it, but there appears to be a brand new update out for the RA 5.0 radio.

Use Firefox and turn off protection on the uconnect update page by clicking on the shield in the web address bar. Then follow the instructions. When it asks to extract make sure to extract to the drive your USB flash drive is in.

 

[mesaboogie]

Use Firefox and turn off protection on the uconnect update page by clicking on the shield in the web address bar. Then follow the instructions. When it asks to extract make sure to extract to the drive your USB flash drive is in.

It downloaded the installer just fine. When I run the installer it gets to the part you click continue but then never pops up the next window which should start the download of the actual update.

 

[cubsflfan]

Completed the update today but it did not improve the sound quality when streaming music w/ Bluetooth from my iphone 5. I also noticed it removed the hill start assist option. Wonder why?

 

[cubsflfan]

Called uconnect about the hill start assist delete and they had no clue what I was talking about. Put me on hold for 5 min then said I have to go to the dealer. Won't they have the same update and no sound quality fix.

 

[O.R.T.]

Called uconnect about the hill start assist delete and they had no clue what I was talking about. Put me on hold for 5 min then said I have to go to the dealer. Won't they have the same update and no sound quality fix.

2nd person I've heard had HillStart option disappear. I'll wait to see who runs the 2014 software for a few months before I install it on my truck. At this point I'm just going wired, screen black-outs have stopped since the last reset. Distortion's still there on the iPhone.

**O/P, try a different phone, like the Samsung. For some reason when I installed the same song batch on my wife's phone it stopped. Maybe time to not just point the finger at uConnect but also Apple. IMHO it might be time for them to own up to some of their 100+ Audio Lawsuits and stop pushing things off on the manufacturers. (This from a diehard Apple guy. Well, technically a guy who's bootcamped his systems.)

 

[mesaboogie]

2nd person I've heard had HillStart option disappear. I'll wait to see who runs the 2014 software for a few months before I install it on my truck. At this point I'm just going wired, screen black-outs have stopped since the last reset. Distortion's still there on the iPhone.

**O/P, try a different phone, like the Samsung. For some reason when I installed the same song batch on my wife's phone it stopped. Maybe time to not just point the finger at uConnect but also Apple. IMHO it might be time for them to own up to some of their 100+ Audio Lawsuits and stop pushing things off on the manufacturers. (This from a diehard Apple guy. Well, technically a guy who's bootcamped his systems.)

That's an interesting take. So I took my old droid Razr Maxx and streamed bluetooth. I wouldn't say it was perfect, but it was noticeably better than the iphone.
The only problem is that there is just less distortion, it's still not as clean as streaming to another vehicle. And there is the issue of why even FM and Sirius distort sometimes in the same manner. It would almost have to be something in the way the head unit processes the signals internally. (And before anyone calls FM an analog signal please realize that goes out the window the second it hits this head unit)
I am starting to wonder if this thing is resembling everything to a lower rate. I doubt we ever get the specs of the inner workings though...