2009 Audi A4 Avant

[Mike]

Prestige package (every option minus S-Line, which is sporty looking bits)
53k miles at purchase with CPO remaining for 16 months and many miles.



More to come. Maybe.

[Apoc]

That thing looks absolutely massive.

That's what she said.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day you'd own an Audi.

[Mike]

It is a good bit bigger than the GTI (20 inches longer) and probably a touch bigger than we really need, but fuel consumption is really close to the same and it has cameras and automatic mirrors for easy parking so why not? Was truly amazeballs for our Home Depot trip.

[Mike]

Despite having a baller bluetooth phone system, Audis apparently didn't come with bluetooth that supports music until 2013. Interestingly, the 2010 GTI has the bluetooth music, but a terrible phone interface. I would have assumed the systems would be identical or close, but they're opposites. Odd. So I've ordered this thing, which is apparently the cheapest and cleanest way to add bluetooth music: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B52LLJ6">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B52LLJ6</a><!-- m -->. Plugs into the iPod interface in the glovebox and doesn't interfere with the phone connection.



Only problem is that leaves me without a great way to charge the phone while driving so I'll likely put a USB charger permanently inside the driver' armrest (there's a 12V plug and I already have a 2xUSB plug).

I'm wondering if running an iPhone cord from the glovebox to the center console isn't a bad, cheaper, and cleaner idea than my current plan? Probably not and sounds like more effort so I'll give this a go for now.

[Jake]

Despite having a baller bluetooth phone system, Audis apparently didn't come with bluetooth that supports music until 2013.

Funny, BMWs of that era are the same way. I was very surprised by that with the 128. The little Tune2air dongle is a popular add-on and apparently works well, and will stream the song/artist/album from both iOS and Android.

[WRXtranceformed]

My car didn't support streaming music until 2012 either. I bought a 32gb micro usb drive on Amazon for $18 and loaded my entire music collection onto it. There are bluetooth options but I don't stream music unless I'm connected to wifi so it was a cheap and easy option. I also use an aux cable as well which is fine if for some reason I need to play something from my phone.

Something you could consider.

[Mike]

I'm a Spotify guy, otherwise I'd just throw one of my many old iPods in the glovebox. I suppose I could hotspot one of them, but I don't think I'd be able to control the music with the car.

I've never been impressed with the audio quality of aux inputs.

[SlimKlim]

I tried a cheapo version of one of those dongles and it didn't work in the car. I run the cable out of the center console and just plug in to play music. It works out because my new phone battery is so good I pretty much only charge it when I'm in the car.

[Evan]

I've never been impressed with the audio quality of aux inputs.

Better than bluetooth,. Bluetooth has a bandwidth limitation that really kills audio quality.

Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk

[Apoc]

Despite having a baller bluetooth phone system, Audis apparently didn't come with bluetooth that supports music until 2013. Interestingly, the 2010 GTI has the bluetooth music, but a terrible phone interface.

That's what you get for making fun of our 2011 Mini not having one.

We use a cigarette lighter USB and an aux cable. There is a USB port right next to the aux input, but it's only 500ma so we use an adapter that supplies 1000ma. I think we could use our phones as a hard drive via USB... that seems way more complicated than just streaming music over aux.

[WRXtranceformed]

I've never been impressed with the audio quality of aux inputs.

Better than bluetooth,. Bluetooth has a bandwidth limitation that really kills audio quality.

Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk

Beat me to it. Aux is definitely higher quality than BT

[Mike]

I've never been impressed with the audio quality of aux inputs.

Better than bluetooth,. Bluetooth has a bandwidth limitation that really kills audio quality.

Sent from my LG-V500 using Tapatalk

I understand what you're saying from a technology standpoint, but that hasn't been my experience. Maybe I've only dealt with broken/shit aux inputs? The BT in the GTI is crystal clear. The aux is not.

[JPolen01]

Bluetooth audio in my civic sounds just as good as an aux input.

[Mike]

VAG went BT 3.0 in 2009. 3MB/s. I don't listen to anything near that quality. Usually 192kbps. So unless you're in an old car with old BT, a lack of bandwidth for audio throughput shouldn't be a thing. Am I missing something?

[ViPER1313]

High quality audio in a car is a joke. I doubt you could differentiate a 160kbps MP3 and the lossless file 95% of the time on even the best car systems. There is so much ambient noise and the acoustics are so poor it's pretty pointless to worry about the quality of the BT transmission.

[Mike]

Audiophile quality? Agreed. I'm not going for that, but the difference between satellite, radio, and Spotify streamed over BT is night and day to me. So much so that I can't stand listening to the former two. It also doesn't help that radio in Portland sucks ass. For such a "hip" city, the radio offerings are absolutely miserable. Think: 107.3s with terrible personalities and nothing else.

[ViPER1313]

Satellite radio is something around 48kbps on average, I'm with you on that one. What I was getting at was that the quality of the aux input should be no different than BT for all practical purposes (unless you are in a really old car that doesn't use a more recent BT revision.) I would think connecting via the analog input would actually provide higher quality than BT because there isn't another lossy compression happening in the connection chain - check your phone's EQ settings and make sure they are off.

[davej]

Wait, you're in Oregon right? what's with the worries on BT and audio quality? Just build a mount in the wagon for your always present turntable.

[Jake]

I installed a different head unit in my E34 that had an early version of A2DP Bluetooth streaming. The quality of music was total shit. Any bass would distort, etc. The FoST had Bluetooth 3.x and it sounded really, really good.

[SlimKlim]

In my purely anecdotal experience I've found a USB connection usually gives the best sound quality from a smartphone, that's another reason I'm not itching to install bluetooth streaming in the VW. That being said, there's no noticeable difference in quality between the USB and BT inputs in Lauren's 2012 Kia so I guess the new cars are getting better at it. I've never liked using a straight Aux connection, you have to fiddle with the volume levels on the device and HU to get it to sound half right.