CarPlay is great for listening to music on the go, but a few tweaks will help it sound even better in your car. R. Aleksandravicius/Shutterstock Apple CarPlay offers you a simple solution to play your favorite music from Spotify or Apple Music in your vehicle. However, it is not guaranteed to give you the best sound your car can produce. Your iPhone may be sending a lower-quality stream than expected to the stereo, with settings that sound great through your headphones but terrible through your car speakers. There is no magic solution for this, given the huge variation that exists between car speakers. The quality of the original music will obviously play a role, but the way your iPhone connects to your car also has an impact. Instead of upgrading your speaker system right away, you can try a few simple changes to improve audio quality when using Apple CarPlay. Wired CarPlay gives you lossless audio Harry Howitt/Shutterstock Wireless CarPlay is the most convenient option for most people. You don’t even have to take your iPhone out of your pocket to connect your car and start playing your favorite songs. Unfortunately, it is not the best option for those who demand the best musical quality. Believe it from Apple: the best for your music is cable. Apple’s guidelines for Apple Music via CarPlay confirm that only a wired USB connection will allow you to play lossless audio. Lossless audio is compressed without discarding any of the original audio data, meaning no details are lost. A wired connection means you can switch to lossless streaming, as long as you have an active Apple Music subscription and have enabled this option. Technically, it all depends on the codec. Apple uses LPCM for audio on wired CarPlay connections, but switches to AAC-LC when using wireless CarPlay. LPCM transports uncompressed digital audio, so a lossless ALAC track from Apple Music can be passed to your car without lossy compression. Wireless CarPlay first has to encode the audio in AAC-LC, using lossy compression to reduce the bitrate and discarding some of the original audio data in the process. The end result is lower quality audio, but that doesn’t mean wireless CarPlay automatically sounds bad. Whether you hear the difference will depend on your car’s sound system and your ears. The speakers and amplifier (if your car has one) have a big influence here. Additionally, other distractions, such as road noise, will never provide the perfect environment for listening to music. Download high-quality music before driving Hadrian/Shutterstock A wired connection can only preserve the quality you receive in the first place. When you stream from Apple Music or Spotify while driving, your mobile connection won’t be perfect. You are regularly switching between cell towers and moving in and out of cell coverage. Drops in connection mean drops in quality – CarPlay can’t counter that, even over USB. This problem is easily solved by downloading your regular playlists to your iPhone before you leave. Apple Music lets you choose your preferred quality settings for downloads, including lossless at 24-bit/48kHz. This, while using wired CarPlay, will give you the best possible sound quality on the platform. If you’ve downloaded your music at a lower quality before, Apple recommends deleting it from your phone and downloading it again to get the lossless version. You can also listen to lossless audio on other platforms, including Spotify, which allows Premium subscribers to download 24-bit/44.1kHz lossless audio using FLAC. Otherwise, Spotify will automatically adjust the quality of your stream based on your connection; Downloading your playlists will prevent this from happening. Because lossless audio files will take up much more storage space than their compressed counterparts, make sure you have enough space available. Another benefit of downloading music is preserving your data plan, since lossless streaming uses a lot of data. Check the equalizer and volume settings on your Zalfar/Shutterstock iPhone The audio settings for your chosen streaming app is another area to check. The volume control and equalizer settings can help if your music sounds tinny, strangely thin, or bass-heavy. Apple Music has its own equalizer settings, which you can access via Settings > Apps > Music > EQ. You may have already chosen a preset; If so, turn off the equalizer and listen again to see how it compares. A preset that works well with headphones probably won’t sound the same while listening to music through a car speaker system. Apple Music also has a sound test mode, which is a normalization feature that automatically adjusts playback volume. If a song is too quiet or too loud, Sound Check will attempt to equalize the volume based on its own measure of perceived loudness. You can set this by tapping Settings > Apps > Music and turning Sound test on or off. Other music apps may have their own equalizer or volume normalization settings that you’ll also need to check. After every change you make, it’s best to check the impact immediately by listening to your music again. You don’t want to compare after changing several different options, as you won’t be able to accurately compare them to the original settings you used and, if necessary, change them back as easily. Beware of this unusual CarPlay bug Harry Howitt/Shutterstock If CarPlay normally sounds fine but suddenly loses bass, volume or clarity, then a strange audio reduction bug could be the cause. CarPlay has to lower the volume every time Siri or your maps app is talking, and people have reported that sometimes the music can get stuck in this state afterwards. A common workaround, mentioned in this long-running Reddit thread over the last few years, suggests a workaround. Try activating Siri using the steering wheel control and then immediately press the button again to dismiss it. The thread includes reports from Mazda, Porsche, Subaru, Ford, Toyota and other owners suggesting this restored their music to normal. Other errors may also arise; In these cases, it is worth removing the device and pairing it again if Apple CarPlay is not working properly. A new connection will often reset any conflicting settings and restore normal operation. You can do this by going to Settings > General > CarPlay, selecting your car, and then tapping Forget this car. Give CarPlay the best source you can Igor Alecsander/Getty Images If you want the best quality audio in your car, you’ll need the highest quality audio source. A wired CarPlay connection works best, but you’ll still need to switch to lossless playback on Apple Music or Spotify to eliminate quality-reducing compression. Avoid streaming variability by downloading files in lossless format before you go. It’s worth checking any audio settings you have configured, especially custom equalizers in streaming apps. However, there is a limit to what you can achieve with just a few adjustments to your settings. The configuration of your speakers, including your amplifier, will have a big impact on the quality. The acoustics of the car while driving also have an important effect. Experimentation is your best option here: make one change at a time and listen carefully to see if it makes a big enough difference.
