Amazon music, Sirius Xm, Spotify bitrates, Bluetooth vs USB connection, does it really matter in our stock audio systems?

[MSDelta]

Just looking for insight and analytical information relating to ways we can stream or listen to music in our Rams. I have always loved playing and listening to music my whole life. Music is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I have abused my 60 year old ears unintentionally by attending many concerts and shooting firearms(with and without ear protection).

I have subscribed to just about all of the streaming services except Tidal (which is supposed to offer the highest quality). I am doubtful that at this point in my life I could really discern audio quality between bitrates, Bluetooth 5.0 vs 5.3, direct connection vs. Bluetooth, etc… I am dating myself, but I can remember when s/n ratio, thd, and frequency response were drivers when determining audio quality.

Just curious if anyone else ever considers or has given much thought to this?

 

[tron67j]

Well, records from original masters offer the most detail, so if you have a record player in the truck...

I have Sirius that I flip around, usually find a decent song and I can play it on my phone. I just don't have time to build a playlist. My sister gave me Spotify for Christmas with a speaker, but I haven't used it. I used to listen to Pandora but grew tired of it.

In a Ram, you are never going to be able to tell the difference in sound quality. I wouldn't worry about that. I was a club DJ in a different life, cousin an opera singer, another designs home recording studios and spend a fair amount of time with them. Can pretty much say unless you build a home room with correct soundproofing, proper and matched speakers, amps, preamps, etc., you aren't going to notice much difference. Just get the best bang for your streaming buck in one service and rock on!

 

[Brandon-w]

Honestly Spotify in my truck is junk. It just doesn't seem to have to detailed bass and highs as I'd like. Ironically if I download the music straight off of my Spotify with my Spotify ripper and put it on the phone and use aimp music player the highs and lows will shake the truck. I've even messed with the Spotify eq settings and it just lacks serious luster in my opinion. I have 13000 songs to choose from now so I cancelled Spotify for the poor sound and the fact it constantly wanted to confirm my downloads even when I'm out of service and can't confirm.

 

[canadiankodiak700]

All your streaming services consist of compressed battery with the exception of Amazon who does offer some higher bit rate music. Obviously if you have music on a usb depending on what bit rate you downloaded at, it's going to sound better even in the crappy systems in these trucks. You'll definitely notice a difference. Music over Sirius XM is definitely much more compressed than anything. I play over USB or HD radio. Even my Spotify sounds better than the satellite radio. If you're an audiophile at all, you'll definitely pick up the differences. Even listening in our trucks. Now go to an aftermarket stereo system in your truck and the differences will really blow you away.

 

[BossHogg]

Just curious if anyone else ever considers or has given much thought to this?

Here is how I see it. I subscribe to satellite radio and listen to only a few channels or I'll play an MP3 off of my phone. In a vehicle with all of the ambient noise, you couldn't hear the loss of detail or the artifacts of compression, even with 12-year-old ears.

When I travel, fly, or even work out at the gym, I wear my Bose noise-canceling headphones which completely ***** out the sounds of an aircraft cabin or gym, and stream my MP3s (VBR). It sounds fantastic to me, I have my entire CD collection ripped. Keep in mind, music recorded back in the '60s and '70s wasn't always recorded on the best equipment or in the best studios. I believe the process of converting music to MP3 exceeds those recording methods.

I remember back to the days of vinyl, needles, pick-up cartridges, turntable quality, etc. I remember how difficult it was to keep an LP clean and free of dust and static electricity, it was impossible. Every time you played the LP, it lost some of its sound quality. People can preach sound purity of vinal but after the first few plays, the sound purity ship starts sailing away.

 

[platoon2063]

I have always loved playing and listening to music my whole life. Music is one of the greatest pleasures in my life. I have abused my 60 year old ears unintentionally by attending many concerts and shooting firearms(with and without ear protection).

This is me to a T. Except your ears have about 6 yrs on mine.

Music is overly compressed nowadays.....probably more than in the past. It depends on the type of music as well. Rock music especially from the 80's is mixed mostly with bass/drums lower in the mix.

Terrestrial radio - stinks
XM - not a whole lot better
bluetooth - somewhat better than XM
USB - Pretty darn good (mostly what I use)
*if you are going to use a phone for music, it's better to connect it with a usb cable than use bluetooth

 

[Docwagon1776]

I notice a difference in my truck with the H/K system. In my work-mobile with a base level stereo and no sub, much less so.

 

[CanRebel]

I use my iPhone with usb via amazon download music. I have HK system in my rebel. It's fine. I find the volume to be low compared other car/trucks, I've owned.
I guess it also depends on type of music you listen too.

I prefer usb over bluetooth though.

 

[Docwagon1776]

I use my iPhone with usb via amazon download music. I have HK system in my rebel. It's fine. I find the volume to be low compared other car/trucks, I've owned.
I guess it also depends on type of music you listen too.

I prefer usb over bluetooth though.

I don't know about iphone, but with android you can control the volume of the device as well. I have to have my output turned up pretty high across all my vehicles (GM, until recently Ford, and Chrysler/Ram products) or it will be really low out of the vehicle's system.

My Camaro has a nice feature where it resets the volume back when you shut it off. This is really nice since if you forget to turn the volume down while listening to streaming before you shut it off, when it auto starts FM radio on the next start up it blows you back out of the vehicle on other makes...

 

[MSDelta]

Well, I’ve only had my new Ram a couple of weeks and after everyone’s input I connected via usb and used Apple CarPlay to listen to some of my Amazon music playlists. It was a very significant improvement in audio quality. I am very pleased!

I couldn’t believe the difference between the Sirius XM feed from my trial subscription playing direct from the radio compared to using the CarPlay feature. I didn’t think to try playing Sirius XM via the iPhone app through CarPlay as I was so overwhelmed by how much better Amazon music was sounding. It could be related to the higher bitrate from Amazon. I hope Sirius XM will show an improvement running direct via USB through CarPlay as well. If not, I’m going to ditch it and just use Amazon music.

Thanks to all who responded!

 

[Wild one]

I'm old,all i worry about is if i can hear the radio at 60 mph with the window down,and my elbow hanging out the window