AbbadonTD

After a long conversation about how to get 6x9s into a Wrangler, I sent my pal away to go get speakers. He calls me a week or so later, complaining that he needs an Amp and sub.

Its a 2 door wrangler with a plastic roof, he has no space nor need for this. Its an aftermarket deck, and the fronts are aftermarket (4x6), as are the rears in a floor box (6x9).

Finally he swings by and i sit down. It sounds terrible, and cant get loud enough, or hit at all. A cell phone plugged into the aux jack.

I plug in a USB drive with a 320kbp mp3. It kicks so hard the car shakes.

The Moral of the story? The Aux jack of a cellphone is a very poor connection.

Better sources. CD, Good ripped MP3s, directly connecting your cellphone via some form of USB, HD radio, these are good sources.

At least make sure you TRY one before you run off and buy amps and subs.

investinwaffles

To clarify - there are a few things coming into play here

Firstly is source audio quality (of the actual file or digital source). Youtube is going to be heavily compressed and will sound like crap, but a true FLAC file should sound much better with its increased dynamic range.

Secondly, is going to be source output voltage. Phones barely have enough voltage/power to drive the crappy earbuds they come with, let alone something as sensitive as a "power amp". If the head unit has values for input sensitivity, increasing that could help counter the problem


To get around that issue in my friend's Rav4 (which has a proprietary head unit design), my friend purchased a USB DAC (digital-to-analog converter) which bumped the voltage up high enough to make his factory sound system sound really good with a smartphone source


Just my .02

I personally prefer APTx Bluetooth to hard-wired connections anyways, and with a good quality bluetooth receiver with a LINE OUT connection (NOT the same as a "headphone jack", as it will output at full voltage and use the head-unit as volume control)

Something like this;

AbbadonTD

All you say is 100%, and adds on. Its really about "headphone" jacks.

Even a good file out the headphone jack is useless. Usually the problem with bluetooth is that it compresses the file too. I find its fine for Baseball games off my phone, but for music it looses something.

Although, 10 years ago, most mp3 devices had very good headphone jacks. Early gen Ipods, the Zune, that era - had a few watts to give you.

toasterknight

That hasn't really been a problem for a while. Yes in the very early versions of Bluetooth, but that was fixed as early as version 3.0 in 2009. Any compression artifacts you think you hear is likely caused by something else in the chain.

Jeep Driver

Samsung Active 6S and Sony head..........Bluetooth is the ****.

Not a problem and sound is better than terrestrial radio.

Also, reception problems are now a thing of the past.

toasterknight

I'm still running a 3 year old head unit and nearly as old a phone. It sounds wonderful.

BlueRidgeMark

More likely a poor quality cable. The phone's audio jack output is usually just fine.

94zj318

Yeah with an aux cord you get a "humming" noise if you listen very closely, and interference.... being an analogue audio source that's typical. I prefer USB or Bluetooth because they're digital and have little to no interference at all. That and you have to adjust the volume accordingly on BOTH the aux device AND the radio, whereas with USB or Bluetooth, the radio volume controls the device volume as well.

Turbo X_J

If you are running a phone mini out to an aged HU with no USB capability this will get you by until you can make the jump to 2016. You can charge on the fly via a 5v transformer to the micro USB port on the amp. Then after losing the "Caveman" status you can use the amp separate with your phone for much improved sound whilst running, cutting grass, blah, blah, blah.