Audiophiles - Amazon Music Ultra HD?

[drtimhill]

Regardless of the proc/cons and opinions here, I do think one thing is stupid. That Tesla clearly worked hard at putting in a sound system that is capable of pretty decent quality sound, and then more or less sabotaging their own work my making it as hard as possible to utilize it.

 

[Zacster]

How about streaming Amazon HD audio via the Echo Auto?

This has the same problem all of the other methods do. By the time it gets to your car audio it has lost the HD quality.

 

[Zacster]

Regardless of the proc/cons and opinions here, I do think one thing is stupid. That Tesla clearly worked hard at putting in a sound system that is capable of pretty decent quality sound, and then more or less sabotaging their own work my making it as hard as possible to utilize it.

Exactly. I just don't get it. And it is beyond as hard as possible, it is impossible.

Try this, sign up for a Qobuz trial subscription, I think it lasts for a week, then use the browser player to play some music in true hi-res in the car. It will play at least 24/96 resolution and maybe 24/192 but that won't matter as long as it is hi-res. You won't be able to drive and listen but you can experience what it COULD sound like, but for whatever reason they've blocked. Then try playing that same track over bluetooth. It'll sound OK but something is lost in the conversion.

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone..." If you never hear hi-res you won't know what you're missing from the compression.

 

[drtimhill]

Exactly. I just don't get it. And it is beyond as hard as possible, it is impossible.

Well it's not totally impossible. I have all my music as FLAC (converted from ALAC, ripped from CD/HD sources) on a flash drive and play it from there. Impossible for streaming though.

And I already have Qobuz (dropped Tidal though as Qobuz better aligns with my musical tastes). And yes, I know what the car is capable of, and how it's compromised by the restricted sources (BT etc).

This next is going to sound horribly elitist .. it's not meant to be: I love music, and the sound of music when well recorded and played, regardless of genre. To enjoy that, I do have a reasonably high-end home system (not absurd, but yes you could buy a nice car for the same price). I enjoy it immensely. But it has one down-side .. other systems sound poor by comparison, including the Tesla. However, I don't look down at them in some condescending fashion (and I hate people who do that kind of thing), but it means that on such systems I listen in a different way. I listen to songs as music, but not for the sound. And I can still enjoy the music (though perhaps not as intensely as with my home system).

It's the same as bad (or just very old) recordings of great music .. you can still appreciate and enjoy the music even through the sound is poor. That's how I approach listening in environments like the car (especially when driving).

Now, that's just how it is for me, and is why the car thing is less important to me than others. But as I've said, I still think it totally dumb of Tesla to create a "premium" sound system and then more-or-less cripple it for a lack of input options. I'm pretty sure the people who built the car sound system are not audiophiles.

 

[Zacster]

Clearly they were not audiophiles, but people that have never cared about sound quality. The vast majority of listeners out there don't care and I would venture to say that almost nobody under 50 cares. Have you ever been to an audiophile event or show? It is always a bunch of old geezers.

I also have a reasonably high-end system at home, except I built almost everything myself because I think audiophile prices are just ridiculous. But the cheapest part of my home system? The Raspberry Pi that serves as my streamer. That is significant because that is the part that Tesla left out, the cheapest part. The RPi takes the audio from any device over wifi in my case but also wired and feeds it to the next cheapest part of my system, the Topping E30 DAC that I use. I spent all of a half an hour setting it up and it just worked in giving me 24/384 DxD sound, or DSD 512 or PCM 24/192.

So why is it that my high tech car can't play the latest high tech sources but is stuck in a feature that is 15-20 years old? It only makes sense when you consider the people that designed it.