wolla

Just took delivery of a C220d estate with the Burmester system.


My iPhone 6 is loaded with Apple Lossless (ALAC) music, which plays fine when I hook up the iPhone via the USB port. The "problem" is that I do a lot of short drives every day and that I thus need to connect and disconnect the phone (and stove it away in the center console) many times each day (I know; a "luxury" problem).


I do not wish to use the BT function due to the loss of audio quality and lack of album art etc.


I have tried copying the ALAC files to a USB drive, which could then be connected permanently. However, it seems that the Burmester system cannot play/decode ALAC files directly from a USB drive.


Therefore, I have considered converting the ALAC files to MP3 (320 bit) and then loadning them on to the USB drive - the Burmester system should be able to play those files.


However, this leads to the following two questions:


1. When playing the ALAC files using the iPhone via USB (which works fine), I assume that the iPhone either (i) decodes the ALAC files and "downsamples" them, or (ii) re-encodes them to a format which the Burmest system can decode?


2. In theory, which solution provides the best sound quality; (a) playing the ALAC files from the iPhone over USB (which are then downsampled or re-encoded - see above), or (b) converting the ALAC files to MP3 (320 bit) and playing them from the USB drive?


Thanks in advance!

arnold0523

It will be the same. Bluetooth transmission is lossless nowadays.

I prefer USB. It charges my phone and it can show album pictures on the display.

Nardoswiss

There is a very noticeable difference in sound quality in BT vs. USB cable.

Mike5215

Your IOS device can handle lossless files encoded at a bit depth of 16 and a sampling rate of 44,100 htz. Since this is also the bit depth limit and sampling rate of CD, lossless CD rips are decoded by the IOS device's internal DAC and the output to COMAND is just standard line level 2 channel audio. (You use the DAC but skip the IOS devices internal headphone amp when you connect via Lightning or 30 Pin)

When you use the USB/SD slot for files, then decoding is by necessity handled by the car's DAC, and subject to the car's file format limitations. The car can handle both AAC and MP3 but not ALAC or FLAC. Rips from CD to the Music Register are not lossless.

So connecting your iPhone via Lightning/30 Pin) is your best bet for playing your ALAC files at full res. No downsampling is necessary since the IOS device itself is handling the decoding.

I use a ProClips tool-less IPhone drop-in cradle and custom W205 mount, with a built in Lightning cable hard-wired into the console USB port.

BT Audio does use a compression system (SBC at a minimum) but the equivalent bit rate (357kbs) is quite high. So your typical 256k AAC or 320kb MP3s would not sound degraded in any perceptible way . Your FLAC/ALAC CD rips might, since they have an equivalent bitrate of around 1100kbs.

Obviously a wired connection is preferable to wireless when available. BT is convenient when you want to leave your phone in your pocket.

I'd recommend picking up a cradle.

topsider

how do you switch your music over to apple lossless?

Mike5215

You can't upconvert digital audio files, so the only way to get lossless versions of tracks is to rip them from CD in ALAC or FLAC format. For an IOS device you'd use ALAC.

ravneetg

Would Android phones work with the USB? (If my phone had any music on it!)

I always stream through BT (I barely have any music on the phone, I stream mostly with Spotify and couple of others).

wolla

Although the Burmester system is not high-end (but its okay), it clearly reveals the difference between BT and a wired USB connection. So, as mentioned in my post, BT is not really an option.

wolla

Great explanation, thanks! I would also assume that the DAC in the iPhone 6 (which according to various hifi forums should be rather decent for a portable device) is of a better quality than that installed in the car?

Mike5215

If your Android has a USB charging/sync cable it may. It's not dependent on whether or not your files are local. You can play streaming sources through a wired connection. All I listen to on my IPhone is Apple Music (streaming).

Mike5215

Theoretically there should be no quality difference, since they're both capable of the same resolution. If there is a difference it's subtle. I think it's more a matter of a decision by MB to limit the number of file formats they wanted to support.

ravneetg

Great. Yeah I connect my Android to the USB on the car to charge, via the micro USB on the phone. But then I connect the BT to stream music. Are you saying that I should move from BT to one of the USB interfaces and still listen to music streaming on the phone, via the USB? That would be SUPER if that worked. Let me try it.

Thanks!

Mike5215

Yeah. The USB audio ports are set to find music files. On an IPhone it just does it. Streaming music stations show up as Playlists, and I get artist/title and cover art whether playing local files or streaming stations.

ravneetg

Didn't work. I switched the phone to MTP also for the USB connection. Media Interface 1&2 both show no device connected. This is a MotoX phone. I am gonna try a different cable coz I know some cheapo USB cables only have Power pins.

ravneetg

Some progress. Changed from cheapo cable to original Moto cable and now the Media Interface is stuck at "Activating Device. Please wait". Been 5 mins.

ravneetg

More progress. Looks like the car was trying to index all available audio files on the Android. It stopped and started playing some audio notes I had on the device.
Then I started playing Spotify on phone. But I couldn't get it to play Spotify via car. It's still playing my system audio files (it found some system audio files, notification sounds etc!)

I am on Android 5.1.

Mike5215

Yeah, I was afraid of that. I don't have a lot of experience with Android as far as a work around. I guess the car is looking either for an IPod or a USB drive on those ports.

hpilot

I use an iPod Touch connected to the USB port. All my music is 320 kbps mp3 (I would never buy incompatible Apple music files). It works fine, but the only reason I use the iPod is to have my playlists available. I have never been able to figure out how to transfer them to a USB or SD device. It's not ideal because the iPod is very slow. I put all my HD video on an SD card. Overall everything works pretty well, and I am happy with this infotainment system. It's especially nice to have all my music videos play while I am driving. I care about sound quality, and although the Burmester is not the best on the market, I think it is very good when playing a high quality mp3 song file.

Mike5215

If your music is in an ITunes library on a PC or laptop, your MP3 files are in the Library>My Music folder>ITunes>Media>Music

They can then be copied and pasted onto a USB card or SD card plugged into the PC. I believe the car wants the drive/card formatted in FAT32 in 16 GB partitions.

Apple files haven't been DRM protected for awhile. You can transfer both AAC files and MP3 files, and within ITunes you can convert one format to the other or vice versa.

hpilot

Thanks, but I think you are confusing song files with playlist files. A playlist is a text file (such as an M3U file) that points to the location of a subset of song files. I know how to transfer mp3 files to media (I never use the iTunes library file location for my music). What I want to do is transfer my iTunes playlists. There is software I use to transfer them to my phone (iSyncr), but I don't know how to do that to an SD card so that Comand can read it.

Mike5215

^ Yeah, I misread that. I know in ITunes under File>Library>Export Playlists you can generate and export the M3U text files but I'm not sure where you'd put them on the USB file system so the car picks them up. Has to be a way though.

First you need to open the exported playlist with a text editor and use Find & Replace All to change the file path in each entry to \Music
presuming all of your tracks on the USB are on the root in a folder named Music. Then put the edited playlist in a folder named Playlist, also on the root.

I'll try it tomorrow and let you know if it works.

hans007

BT is defnitely not lossless , it isn't even CD quality

a2dp profile supports SBC which is default and everything supports.

apple only transmits using SBC or AAC. AAC profiles are not supported on most BT devices, so i'm highly doubting the benz supports it.

most android phones can support the apt-x a2dp profile but the reciever has to support it too or it will fall down to SBC. i'm doubting the benz supports apt-x either , though it might (a lot of $30 dongles do , and home speakers so maybe)

basically its likely if you use your iphone with a car it will do it with SBC codec which is the default . even the best SBC only devices are probably roughly equivalent to like a 256-320kpbs mp3.

apt-x alone is probably good enough for most people, but apple refuses to support it on iphones/ipod and i'd guess most cars don't support it. so yes BT is probably not going to truly take aadvantage of the burmester.

As to the original poster...

USB or SD card is probably your best bet. i don't have an iphone but i i'm pretty sure connecting an iphone to usb via lightning uses the car's DAC and the car works like that (same way lightning or USB headphones work .... and that the audio is already decoded, just the dac is in the car...) the audio is decoded already and sent to the car's dac which converts it to analog for the speakers. from my understanding of how this works, if your phone say decoded ALAC / FLAC files, it would turn them into PCM which goes to a DAC (phone's DAC for headphone out, or car's dac through usb) and then goes to speakers.

hpilot

Thanks for that. There must be some software out there that does this. It's funny how the MB manual says that it supports playlists, but then it gives no information on how to do that...

wolla

Thanks. Do you by any chance know the quality of the PCM output from the iPhone?

Mike5215

I'm not sure the number, or even if an IOS device puts out PCM in the first place, but I do know that as far as sources for the car, 256 kb AAC files on an IPhone 6 sound really good. 320kb MP3 on a USB sound almost as good, mainly because you can apply some EQ on the IPhone whereas with the USB files you get what you get.

I like Apple for a couple of reasons. iTunes Match and ITunes Radio. iTunes Match takes your library, including MP3s you've pirated, and replaces them with cloud versions at 256kb AAC. So you can have a relatively small capacity phone like a 16GB, but have an enormous library that far exceeds that capacity.

iTunes Radio is a subscription streaming service based on Apple's huge library, and the stream is 256kb AAC as well. In the car, COMAND sees your custom radio stations as playlists so without touching the phone or switching sources you have a virtually unlimited source of high quality streaming music.

Lastly, 2016 up C Class support Siri Eyes Free. If you long-press the Talk button on the steering wheel you can give Siri commands thru the car's cabin microphone. Like "Play "The Eagles"" and it will create and play an Eagles playlist. She'll read you your email and send texts verbally plus a bunch of other stuff. All good reasons to get an IPhone when you're due for an upgrade.

Bluetooth audio sounds good too. The main reason I don't use it is because I like seeing the cover art, but the quality is fine. Some device's BT circuits sound better than others.

I don't have the stock "Burmester" system in the W205. I started out with one and then put about $4k in upgrades in it to get it where I wanted it. (The stock system is pretty meager. It's actually impressive how okay it sounds given how cheap the hardware is).

For the OP, since you need a wired connection for ALAC, maybe pick up one of these bad boys from ProClips:

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