Tesla Forcing Slacker to Stream in Low Quality?

[1NJ85D]

Since early November a number of people are having problems with Slacker streaming (buffering and connection errors).

Tesla has acknowledged the problem and informed us that a firmware update is forthcoming.

For a couple of days now, I noticed that the problem has gone away (without a firmware update) AND that the sound quality of Slacker has deteriorated materially (the most obvious change is the loss of bass).

I logged to my Slacker account on a PC (I have a personal, premium subscription) and, long and behold, the "max audio quality" switch was turned off. In the last 12 hours, I have turned it back on again three times, only to find out a while later that it has reverted back to off.

It makes me wonder if Tesla is forcing low quality streaming to "tactically" fix the buffering and connection errors until they roll out the real fix.

 

[wayner]

I am pretty sure that Slacker streaming to Teslas has always been at low quality or 128kbps. I have set mine to high quality and the quantity of data transferred, about 1MB per minute, would indicate that it only uses 128 kbps. And in the past some has sniffed out the meta information going back and forth to Slacker and has found that the car only requests 128 kbps files.

 

[kvandivo]

I had heard at one point that if you had the premium audio package you got a higher bitrate with Slacker

 

[wayner]

Not true. There are a few things on this, some folks seemed convinced that they were getting higher bitrates but it was never proved.

I tested with my LTE wifi hotspot where I can see how much data is being downloaded in realtime. You may also be able to use your router when you are at home and the car is attached to your LAN via Wifi to see the bitrate. As far as I have been able to determine Slacker has bitrates of 128 kbps and 320 kbps. 128 translates to 0.96 Mega Bytes per minute. 320 translates to 2.4 Mega Bytes per minute. If you start a 3 minute song in your car and you see it download and you have downloaded 3 MB of data then there is no way that you are on high quality.

Here is a thread on this from 2015. It is two years old and some folks swear that it sounds WAY better when they switch to high quality but, IMHO, that appears to be the placebo effect. Check out in particular pages 3 and 4 including the sniffing of the packets which include the following:
GET /transcodings/v1308afd6138/wmg/2011/06/batch_20110613_01/20110628_0611_24/898199002055/mp3_128/898199002062_00011_LL.mp3?e=1434586181&rnd=PUDojgvEsZ&cl=tesla&h=a0e3faaab8f2e915c1c0b6ab41b37332 HTTP/1.1

The conclusion of that thread was this: 320 is not possible at the current time in the Model S

Maybe things have changed, but I would want to see definitive proof.

Slacker Radio (US) Streaming - 320 Kbps Bitrate Support

 

[CUBldr97]

how do you log into your tesla slacker account? I dont have a slacker account on my own.

 

[mknox]

how do you log into your tesla slacker account? I dont have a slacker account on my own.

You used to have to ask Tesla for the credentials. Now there is a button on or near the sign-in screen to "restore" the Tesla account.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Changing settings by logging into your Tesla Slacker account will only change the bitrate if you listen through the web. The bitrate setting is unique to each device. Since Model S cannot be set anymore, it will default to whatever Tesla has coded into the app. There is no way for you to change this unless you can change Tesla's coded bits.

 

[farbster]

Why is it that Tesla doesn't seem to be able to provide SiriusXM outside of the package. Has it always been that way? Seems to me that they're saying that if you want SiriusXM, you have to pay through the nose for the sunroof etc.

Is it a money thing? I can't imagine that it would be a technology thing.

 

[Skysurfer]

There used to be an option for "Use High Bitrate" under the login field in the car interface but that was removed ~6 months ago or so and everyone has been forced to the regular, low quality, bitrate.

Why is it that Tesla doesn't seem to be able to provide SiriusXM outside of the package. Has it always been that way? Seems to me that they're saying that if you want SiriusXM, you have to pay through the nose for the sunroof etc.

Is it a money thing? I can't imagine that it would be a technology thing.

From my understanding it is, at least partially, a technical thing with the placement of the XM antenna, as it is under the glass portion of the sunroof to get a signal. Seems like the rear hatch would be a simple solution, but maybe there were other factors as well.

 

[Teetoogrn]

I don't know when they plan to correct the problem, but I call up various songs a lot and it's been broken for quite a while. It does play save artists music though... Any word on when the fix is coming?

 

[ahkahn]

Yeah, very odd. I DID set my Slacker to the high bit rate streaming on the Slacker website (using my Tesla credentials) and after reading this thread, logged in to double check. Low and behold it had been SET BACK to LOW bit rate at some point. I just changed it back to HIGH bit rate. Let's see what happens....

 

[jelly]

I posted this in the model 3 forums since this is what I have, but this was Slacker's response to my email:

Tesla currently sets the bitrate of Slacker to 64kbps. Bitrate can only be increased to 128kbps if you have the High Quality Audio Package purchased from Tesla and have enabled high-quality audio in your car.

I havent seen anyone report default streaming at 64kbps...

 

[ahkahn]

I was always under the impression that it was 128kbps for the standard and 320kbps for the high quality. I guess I was wrong... 64kbps seems rather low quality and would sound worse than FM, I would think.

 

[ucmndd]

That sounds like BS. The Slacker quality is "fine" in my estimation, definitely superior to a 64kbps stream unless they have some amazing compression algorithm that nobody else knows about. I think 128k is more realistic.

 

[cytranic]

Its been confirmed a few times with wireshark that Tesla always requests the lowest bitrate 128kbps regardless of your slacker settings. Unfortunately if you want max bitrate you need to stream slacker from your phone's bluetooth.

 

[thegruf]

Its been confirmed a few times with wireshark that Tesla always requests the lowest bitrate 128kbps regardless of your slacker settings. Unfortunately if you want max bitrate you need to stream slacker from your phone's bluetooth.

and then we need APTX to get decent Bluetooth quality.
Until that unlikely time, USB is your best bet.

with V9 software being trailled by Elon, and Tesla adopting a charge model for mobile connection at last, we can only be hopeful that there are some worthwhile upgrades coming.

 

[Snow Drift]

What if you pay for Slacker Plus or Premium, log in on the car and elect Use High Bitrate? It still doesn't stream at a higher quality?

 

[thegruf]

afaik, the device can send a token to determine the bitrate irrespective of the max quality your account allows.
In this case Tesla are hobbling the quality. Possibilities for this, 1) reduced data - reduced cost 2) reduced data gives better abaility to buffer dropouts as the vehicle moves through reception not-spots. 3)It also reduces the processing power.
The latter I suspect is the culprit

 

[jelly]

The email is from Slacker that Tesla sets it default at 64kbps... And 128kbps for upgraded audio.

To be fair I think XM is 64 kbps.

 

[jelly]

What if you pay for Slacker Plus or Premium, log in on the car and elect Use High Bitrate? It still doesn't stream at a higher quality?

The higher quality is 128 kbps according to Slacker. Default is 64 kbps.