Will CarPlay using a USB cable support lossless?

Using wired CarPlay, will audio be pushed to the speakers at lossless quality or is that limited by the head unit?

iPhone 11, iOS 14

Posted on Jun 1, 2021 7:18 AM

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2 replies

Jun 2, 2021 7:10 AM in response to johnbowen

I work as a professional audio engineer, designing and testing vehicle acoustics, digital audio system design and implementation. Lossless audio in a vehicle, unless it’s parked has significant noise challenges. Throw in the reverberations and harmonic distortion due to multiple speakers in an oddly shaped enclosure than that challenge becomes greater. No amount of lossless audio will overcome those challenges. Their is a reason great musical performances are performed in a concert hall or some other venue other than a car.


Throw all the money you want at it and what you get is a compromise full of an approximation of the actual recorded audio. The lossless becomes lost in all the noise and reverberations.

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Will CarPlay using a USB cable support lossless?

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