Harman Kardon, A story of what you put in...

sars

sars

Awesome
 East Yorkshire
Site Supporter
...is what you get out.

I've been on a little adventure into how to get an improvement out of the HK system in my car, without ripping out all the speakers and starting again, and as the title says what you put in helps in what you get out.

We are already at a disadvantage, we own a two seater sports car with a fabric convertible roof, that has numerous things on the inside that reflect sound, a sound studio it is not. Combined with that it's not the quietest place to listen to music, road and tyre noise are quite intrusive. So at low volume levels, all the mids are lost in the noise of the road.

So what can you do, well, part of the problem is not the Harmon Kardon system itself, it's rather what you put in, that's not helping it perform. For start, there is no wired CarPlay, so it is all Wifi or bluetooth connection only. If you have an iPhone, regardless of what bitrate your recording is, Apple converts it internally to AAC lossy @ 256 kbps, while AAC is better than MP3, it is not CD quality (16 bit/44 kHz or 1,4401 kbps for stereo) If you have an Android phone, it can be slightly better, but it's not going to be significantly better and still not CD Quality. It is also worth noting that, AirPlay 2, your iPhone converts it down to AAC lossy also, the only way to get lossless music out of your iPhone is with a wired connection.

How to make it better, quite a few months ago I treated my self to an ARCAM +A25 amp and A5 streamer and thus joined Qobuz, going with their sublime subscription to fully enjoy the new system. I am now re-purchasing my favourite albums when they are available in Hi-res format and the first two albums I purchased were Dark Side of the Moon and Hotel California, 24 bit/96 kHz and 24 bit/192 kHz respectively. I downloaded them into a format that iDrive 7 can read as FLAC files, fully lossless and compressed onto a flash drive and popped that into the usb port near the charger. And yes there is a difference, low volume is better, but it is at the higher levels that the it is much clearer, and more detailed, yes of course it is subjective, but I played Hotel California back to back, one by iTunes through CarPlay and the other directly from USB and there is a difference. However, don't get to excited, the HK system, will downsample this media to 16 bit/ 48kHz so for the car, you don't need or want Hi-res audio, but again CD quality is better than AAC.

So now the journey continues, I'm ripping my entire CD collection using Exact Audio Copy to FLAC, compressed but no loss of resolution. Getting them into a correct format for iDrive 7 with MusicBrainz Picard whilst embedding artwork into the track, and then using Music Bee to organise creating playlists, syncing them onto a usb flash drive and it all works perfectly. Yes it sounds daunting and it has taken a fair few weeks to get it right, but ChatGPT really has helped in the process.

I bought a 128 GB flash drive, I don't this its going to be big enough :thumbsup:
 
I'm glad it works for you..I tried ALAC no loss tracks and struggled even in the 'lab' less the car to distinguish between those and 256kbit AAC..and similarly between USB and simple aux in..of course that's an E89 but with £4 k worth of upgraded audio ..maybe its an age thing...even with Hotel California
 
@B21 unfortunately as you get older it's the high's that go first ;)

I think this story isn't about if you can tell the difference, it is that by using 16 bit/48 kHz FLAC and the USB interface, it is the best it can be without, as you say, spending a fortune. If I want to really listen to music, the car is an inherently unsuitable place to do it, rather on my sofa 3.0 metres from my floor speakers.
 
So have you tried the internal Spotify player? That gives the best audio from my experience. Much much much better than Apple CarPlay.
 
sars said:
@B21 unfortunately as you get older it's the high's that go first ;)

I think this story isn't about if you can tell the difference, it is that by using 16 bit/48 kHz FLAC and the USB interface, it is the best it can be without, as you say, spending a fortune. If I want to really listen to music, the car is an inherently unsuitable place to do it, rather on my sofa 3.0 metres from my floor speakers.
Click to expand...
Yes very depressing...less than 10k now...I agree the home is the best place techncially to listen..I have all my library stored lossless..however most of the time its on my trips with the roof down that the music constantly plays... as long as we are happy who cares..!
 
ori said:
So have you tried the internal Spotify player? That gives the best audio from my experience. Much much much better than Apple CarPlay.
Click to expand...
Indeed, because the app is a streaming service (well there is no evidence I can find that there are offline downloads onto iDrive, except your phone), and now that they've gone hi-res lossless at, 24 bit/44.1 kHz, it is going to be considerably better than AAC, because you are not going through CarPlay, though as stated previously the HK is most likely limited to 16 bit/44.1-48 kHz.

The difference between FLAC + USB direct and Spotify streamed with app, ultimately will be the master and how good is was to start with, through Qobuz, lots of the material is master quality, where I can get this on my albums I buy them, if not then it's ripped from the CD. to FLAC lossless. Ultimately, the FLAC + USB is best combination for iDrive 7 as there is no potential interference, it is just not as easy as the Spotify app.
 
So this is the problem. I am so invested in Apple Music that switching or adding Spotify doesn’t make sense to me.
I have no idea what Apple car play wireless reduces quality so much. Alternatively, why does bmw not allow a wired connection to overcome this?
Or why not have Apple Music as integration app in idrive 7? It can easily be added.
 
ori said:
So this is the problem. I am so invested in Apple Music that switching or adding Spotify doesn’t make sense to me.
I have no idea what Apple car play wireless reduces quality so much. Alternatively, why does bmw not allow a wired connection to overcome this?
Or why not have Apple Music as integration app in idrive 7? It can easily be added.
Click to expand...
Carplay wireless uses Bluetooth for its audio connection (wi fi for logic) ..Apple consciously did not embrace Bluetooth for music.. so the codec is SBC the most basic. Android supports some much much better Bluetooth codecs ..that's why!
 
B21 said:
Carplay wireless uses Bluetooth for its audio connection (wi fi for logic) ..Apple consciously did not embrace Bluetooth for music.. so the codec is SBC the most basic. Android supports some much much better Bluetooth codecs ..that's why!
Click to expand...
BMW for iDrive 7 with Wifi, only uses bluetooth for initial discovery and pairing, that's it (unless you choose to play via bluetooth, which you can do if you wish). Once paired Wifi becomes the primary route, therefore it does not use the bluetooth audio codec, it is a Wifi connection and thus it is AAC.
 
  • Like
Reactions: B21
ori said:
So this is the problem. I am so invested in Apple Music that switching or adding Spotify doesn’t make sense to me.
I have no idea what Apple car play wireless reduces quality so much. Alternatively, why does bmw not allow a wired connection to overcome this?
Or why not have Apple Music as integration app in idrive 7? It can easily be added.
Click to expand...

I hear you, I've been an iTune user for a long time, then switched to Spotify until I got my first Apple Watch and was then forced back into Apple Music. I have quite a few albums purchased and I do like Apple Music, shuffle play works really well (it isn’t random) and you don’t realise how well until you start using other platforms, Qobuz is nowhere near as good. But, here’s the thing if you buy from iTunes, you are still only getting AAC format, you can download higher formats, both lossless and Hi-res, with subscription, but they are not DRM free, this boils my blood.

My plan is to continue to use both Apple Music and Qobuz, but build my collection of digital DRM free music, so that eventually I can move away from subscription, it’s just an endless drain on your finite resources.
 
I've got the HK system in mine and I use the onboard Spotify app, but I don't think the sound is brilliant except.... it really seems to like 'we close our eyes' by Go West and 'Fire starter' by the Prodigy :unsure:
 
That's two bands with quite different genres, but that's music, you like what you like :thumbsup:
 
sars said:
I hear you, I've been an iTune user for a long time, then switched to Spotify until I got my first Apple Watch and was then forced back into Apple Music. I have quite a few albums purchased and I do like Apple Music, shuffle play works really well (it isn’t random) and you don’t realise how well until you start using other platforms, Qobuz is nowhere near as good. But, here’s the thing if you buy from iTunes, you are still only getting AAC format, you can download higher formats, both lossless and Hi-res, with subscription, but they are not DRM free, this boils my blood.

My plan is to continue to use both Apple Music and Qobuz, but build my collection of digital DRM free music, so that eventually I can move away from subscription, it’s just an endless drain on your finite resources.
Click to expand...
I have the family plan so can get the higher format. Doesn’t help me though! Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and get Spotify subscription for the better quality in car. Not sure.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom