Honda E sound system, what brand?

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bogga
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Post by bogga »

Sure give me the high quality music! What's the best quality the Honda sound system can accept?

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rickwookie
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Post by rickwookie »

bogga wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:10 pm Sure give me the high quality music! What's the best quality the Honda sound system can accept?
That'll be interesting to find out. Pages 363-365 of the manual give information about playing files from USB storage, but while pages 364-365 list some specifics about video file containers, there's not much about audio codecs supported, maximum bitrate or maximum sample rate. It does mention on page 363 "Some versions of MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, WAV, PCM/WAVE, MP4, AVI, MKV, or ASF/WMV formats may be unsupported".

That would suggest there's implied support for all of those formats in some form or another. Playback of FLAC would be ideal, particularly if higher sample rates are supported such as 24-bit (does any other car do this?!). The Honda e being able to playback 24/192 FLAC would be the icing on the cake! :D
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keithr
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Post by keithr »

eread wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:54 am I just knew what the most highest quality file was
"Most highest"? Do you mean 'highest'? :?
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eread
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Post by eread »

bogga wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:10 pm Sure give me the high quality music! What's the best quality the Honda sound system can accept?
I asked my friend to provide me with a good selection of test files. Let me know how you get on!
keithr wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 9:39 am
eread wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 9:54 am I just knew what the most highest quality file was
"Most highest"? Do you mean 'highest'? :?
Oopsie that's bad :shock:
rickwookie wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 6:10 pm
bogga wrote: Thu Jul 09, 2020 3:10 pm Sure give me the high quality music! What's the best quality the Honda sound system can accept?
That'll be interesting to find out. Pages 363-365 of the manual give information about playing files from USB storage, but while pages 364-365 list some specifics about video file containers, there's not much about audio codecs supported, maximum bitrate or maximum sample rate. It does mention on page 363 "Some versions of MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, WAV, PCM/WAVE, MP4, AVI, MKV, or ASF/WMV formats may be unsupported".

That would suggest there's implied support for all of those formats in some form or another. Playback of FLAC would be ideal, particularly if higher sample rates are supported such as 24-bit (does any other car do this?!). The Honda e being able to playback 24/192 FLAC would be the icing on the cake! :D
Got my friend to send me which I sent to bogga some test songs to try of varying formats and codecs. I don't think there's any that are as high as 24/192 sadly but the highest one is 24/96 FLAC. If anyone else wants the .ZIP to test just let me know!

Test.png

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rickwookie
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Post by rickwookie »

eread wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:36 pm Got my friend to send me which I sent to bogga some test songs to try of varying formats and codecs. I don't think there's any that are as high as 24/192 sadly but the highest one is 24/96 FLAC. If anyone else wants the .ZIP to test just let me know!
Test.png
To be fair I don't think there's ever been a case for anything above 24/96 anyway, just that some hi-res music is delivered in that format. It can always be downsampled to 96 kHz sample rate anyway.

I finally got to sit in (and see, touch, etc.) an e at my dealers this morning for the first time ever. Threw some music at it from the Amazon app on my phone (that was buggy as hell, but that's another story). Was far from blown away at the audio system, but then I couldn't really audition it properly due to the death stares from my wife whenever I tried to turn it up past about 1 on the dial. :lol:

I did have a bit of a play with the tone settings (there's just bass, mid and trebble, which is fine, and a separate subwoofer level - all -/+ 6 - 6 what exactly I couldn't say). The sound certainly picked up with a bit more midrange, but of course that's so subjective.

I did like the fact that even the Apple Carplay apps seemed to be able to occupy both screens. I suspect that may be unique to audio apps, whereby the other screen is just presenting the remote playback controls and coverart from the app that's actually running on carplay on the primary screen.

I tried to take some video, but even taking photos on the same phone you're Carplaying from, upsets it massively (kills playback). I suppose that's understandable since the whole point of Carplay is you then only interact with your device via the car's UI.

Anyway, here's the dual-screen playback thingy, using Amazon Music via Carplay:

Image

And here are my post tweaking audio settings... which of course you can't hear! :lol: :

Image

This is what happens when I try to browse music directly on the car's screen though :( :

Image

I had to find and play the music using the App directly on my phone. I suspect that's an issue with Amazon/Apple though rather than Honda's specific implementation of Carplay, but I've never used Carplay before so I couldn't say for sure.
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bogga
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Post by bogga »

I was going to play The Chain as one of my test tracks too, in addition to the lossless tracks...
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rickwookie
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Post by rickwookie »

Listening to the sound of Mick Fleetwood stomping on that bass drum In the intro Is as good a test of the sub as any as far as I’m concerned.
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eread
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Post by eread »

rickwookie wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2020 3:42 pm
eread wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:36 pm Got my friend to send me which I sent to bogga some test songs to try of varying formats and codecs. I don't think there's any that are as high as 24/192 sadly but the highest one is 24/96 FLAC. If anyone else wants the .ZIP to test just let me know!
Test.png
To be fair I don't think there's ever been a case for anything above 24/96 anyway, just that some hi-res music is delivered in that format. It can always be downsampled to 96 kHz sample rate anyway.

I finally got to sit in (and see, touch, etc.) an e at my dealers this morning for the first time ever. Threw some music at it from the Amazon app on my phone (that was buggy as hell, but that's another story). Was far from blown away at the audio system, but then I couldn't really audition it properly due to the death stares from my wife whenever I tried to turn it up past about 1 on the dial. :lol:

I did have a bit of a play with the tone settings (there's just bass, mid and trebble, which is fine, and a separate subwoofer level - all -/+ 6 - 6 what exactly I couldn't say). The sound certainly picked up with a bit more midrange, but of course that's so subjective.
Yeah in all honesty I for one can't notice much difference past even 16/44 - although having a 24 bit song does make a slight difference. I'm pretty sure Amazon/Apple music uses compressed MP3's at 256kbps and if you have spotify premium (and change the quality in settings to max) they have 320kbps MP3.

If you also want the .ZIP folder I sent to bogga to test just drop me a PM, just make sure to use a USB for best results :D
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rickwookie
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Post by rickwookie »

eread wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:24 am Yeah in all honesty I for one can't notice much difference past even 16/44 - although having a 24 bit song does make a slight difference. I'm pretty sure Amazon/Apple music uses compressed MP3's at 256kbps and if you have spotify premium (and change the quality in settings to max) they have 320kbps MP3.

If you also want the .ZIP folder I sent to bogga to test just drop me a PM, just make sure to use a USB for best results :D
Amazon Music standard (SD) is up to 320 kbps, but they also offer "HD" which is lossless CD-audio quality (16-bit/44.1 kHz up to 850 kbps) and even "Ultra HD" which is lossless 24/192.

Whether or not any of that gets transferred unmolested via Apple Carplay is anyone's guess. One suggestion I found online is that everything gets converted to 16-bit 48 kHz :?

I'll try some 24/192 FLAC on a USB flash device next time I get in one, to see if it plays.
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bogga
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Post by bogga »

Well good news, it does play FLAC files... not so good news, I wouldn't say it's premium audio, I mean it's alright, but after much messing with the settings, it was a 'Meh'. God knows that the standard audio sounds like... ;) Thanks for eread for the music files!
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