CarPlay voice audio quality when connected via USB is poor vs. Bluetooth on Pioneer AVH-4200NEX

Hello Servie,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

I understand that when you use the USB cable for your iPhone in your car with CarPlay the audio is poor. I know how important it is for you to hear your calls clearly. In a situation like this I recommend the steps in the following article to help resolve the issue.

Set up CarPlay to use with your iPhone

Specifically the Get Help section:

Get help

If CarPlay doesn't work like you expect, here’s what you can check. After each step, try using CarPlay again.

1. Make sure that Siri is turned on.
2. Restart your iPhone and your car. Depending on your car, you might see the CarPlay Home screen when you turn it on. If you don't, look for the CarPlay logo on your car’s display.
3. If possible, connect your iPhone to a different USB port in your car.
4. Try a different Lightning to USB cable. Make sure the cable is certified.
5. Update to the latest version of iOS.
6. Check your car’s manual for help. You might need to install firmware updates for your stereo.

Cheers

I've just discovered the same problem here. Got a nice Alpine ILX007e unit and tried my first voice call. Sounded tinny/poor bitrate - pretty pathetic! Music/maps/siri/everything else is perfectly fine, yet voice quality coming through the speakers is quite frankly terrible and robotic sounding. Had a bit of a read on the net but couldn't find anything of any relevance at all apart from this thread. What's going on!? I find it hard to believe that USB2 can do what, 480Mbit/s of data and there's mention that the USB can't handle the voice calls. Hope Apple can investigate and fix this for the other aspects of CarPlay are great and yet a trivial thing such as voice calls is extremely terrible.

I have the same problem with poor call quality when using CarPlay on my 2017 BMW 430xi. If, on the phone, I switch the audio source from CarPlay to iPhone then immediately back to CarPlay it fixes the staticky noise. Anyone have a solution? Not too impressed with CarPlay so far. Seems super buggy.

Adding to the list of disappointed customers. Just installed a Pioneer SPH-DA120 AppRadio 4 and the audio quality over the lightning cable with Carplay is horrendous, even with my rather elaborate sound system (external 5-channel amp, 8" sub, aftermarket components). I feel bad because I first blamed the installer, figuring he must have screwed something up or pinched a cable or something. Connected to BT and the sound was superb.

I could give up the carplay and connect via BT but problem is, the head unit I got doesn't have its own stand-alone GPS. I didn't think this would have been a problem because I figured I'd use carplay for GPS...what another royal screw up by Apple for this to be an issue.

Yep, I too have this problem.

I purchased a Kenwood DDX-9017-DABS (particularly for its CarPlay capability) but am disappointed to find that the telephone call quality when plugged-in via USB and CarPlay is significantly poorer than via Bluetooth. In my case it seems that outgoing audio is particularly affected, with incoming less so. I had originally assumed there were problems with the supplied microphone or its placement!

I have now been back to the retailer three times and he has advised that he is now aware that this is an issue known to Kenwood. There is no known fix as they are uncertain as to whether it is a Kenwood or Apple problem. From what I've now read here on Apple Communities I suspect that it's an Apple one.

The retailer also suggested that the forthcoming iOS 11 update (which does include a number of changes in CarPlay) may help. It's not too far away so I'm happy to wait at this stage. I'll try some new cables etc. too but don't hold out any great hope that they will solve it all.

I'm having the exact same issue. I just upgraded to iOS 11 (IPhone 7), and I have a brand new 2018 Audi A3 and the carplay sounds horrible with the USB cable. This is a high quality cable provided by Audi, but it sounds amazing on bluetooth, and horrible on the cable. Can you guys please fix this issue?

I am in the same boat!

BRAND NEW Hyundai iLoad MY18 model... Apple CarPlay in factory head unit!

Phone calls through the USB cable running CarPlay is UNUSABLE!!!

It is quiet... static... and just BAD!!!

One of the reasons I upgraded to the new model iLoad (already had a 2013 model) is to have the CarPlay features...

And well it is CRAP!!!

Apple is losing its quality in EVERYTHING!!!

COME ON APPLE!! RESPOND PLEASE!!!

FIX YOUR S#*T!

I received an interesting piece of information from the Genius Bar tonight and I think it may be the root of all of our problem here. Under Cellular | Cellular Data Options | Enable LTE, there is the choice of Off | Voice & Data | Data Only. My phone was set to Voice & Data and was advised to change that to Data Only should I experience any robot like phone quality. She said it hits iphone 7 and 8's (I assume X as well) especially hard.

So try turning that setting to Data Only and see if the phone quality improves. My initial tests didn't show any robot-ing but I haven't tested it long enough to tell for sure if it solves the issue.

Kenwood DNX-994S with an iPhone 8+

I have a 2016 Honda Accord with CarPlay and have the exact same problem. Everything including music sounds great, but audio quality on phone calls is terrible compared to Bluetooth. I had thought it was a problem with my unit on my car, but it looks like it is an Apple issue. Hopefully it will improve with ios 10. it makes CarPlay unusable to me, which I otherwise like.

I Have the very same problem here. I got a brand new Pioneer AVIC F88 DAB especially for the Carplay capability. Unfortunately the call quality is so poor I had to disable Carplay and I'm now quite frustrated. I hope Apple can fix this glitch or tell us how to fix it.

I was using an official Apple cable from my iPhone. I changed it to a shorter (50cm) MiFi certified cable and this seems to have fixed the issue. The audio quality is now even better than the Pioneer Bluetooth. I'm not sure how long this will last but I'm glad it worked! Even though the official cable was almost new it might have been worn off enough so that the newer one worked better. Or a shorter cable allows for better communication between the devices...

hope this helps! (The cable I got is the delayCON and I got it from Amazon)

Recently installed Kenwood DDX6702S in vehicle. I am having quite a different experience with carplay. The audio quality via usb cable is poor. I get much better quality and clarity via bluetooth connection. Using usb lightning cable that came with phone and shorter cable from Anker. Neither have worked well as far as music quality. Apple Carplay works fine as far as making calls, receiving and replying to text msgs, etc. Seems odd that a bluetooth connection would out perform a direct cable connection for music data transfer. Any input?

Thanks for the input. I have bought a few cables now, all certified, with shortest length being a 1 foot cord. Unfortunately none of them have helped. Hopefully it will improve for me with iOS 10 and perhaps with getting the newest iPhone coming out next month (I'm currently using iPhone Plus S). Frustrating. Whenever I am going to place a call I now just disconnect my lightning cord and use Bluetooth, then plug it in when I am done with the call. Bluetooth call quality is vastly superior.

I have a 2016 Honda Accord and have this same problem as well. I had it with my iPhone 6s running IOS 9, and unfortunately this problem still exists with my new iPhone 7 running IOS 10. The sound quality for music and Siri is great, but phone call quality is still terrible with iPhone 7 and IOS 10. It's very tinny and under-sampled sounding as previously described.

Along with another problem I have where calling contacts with a pause and extension number included don't connect to the extension, I've been forced to having to disconnect the Lighting cable, wait for the phone to connect to the car's Bluetooth, then make the call on Bluetooth. Then the sound quality is excellent and the phone dials and connects to extensions properly.

Hopefully Apple will address these issues soon. Disconnecting the phone to use Bluetooth to make phone calls defeats the whole purpose of having CarPlay in the first place.