Zumo 550 and bad sound quality

[Bury_Dave]

I have a 550. It's not bad and does everything it should quite well EXCEPT play music.

I have a load of tracks on an SD card but the quality is so crap that it isn't worth trying to listen to anything. It sounds like I'm trying to listen to an old 8-track cassette that has been played over 10,000 times in an old Cortina cassette player.

The SatNav instructions are really clear and of good (not high) quality and i use a Scala G4 as my intercom / player and have a quality pair of custom fitted earplugs.

Anyone any idea why the music is soo crap ?

Dave

 

[Norfolk Tiger]

I have a 550 hard wired through autocom and it seems ok to me.As you are just down the road you are welcome to try my 550 on your bike to see if there is a difference.. I shall overlook the fact you are a suffolker..

 

[Greg Masters]

What's the .mp3 bit rate?

 

[Bury_Dave]

Greg, what is an "MP3 bit rate" ? How do i find out what it is ?

The tunes came off iTunes, might that be an issue too ?

And thanks Tiger for the offer. I may well do that if i can get my shots up to date for the crossing into Norfolk

Dave

 

[Greg Masters]

Greg, what is an "MP3 bit rate" ? How do i find out what it is ?

The bit rate specifies how many kilobits the file may use per second of audio. The higher the rate, the better the quality but the bigger the file.

On a bike, I would aim for a bit rate between 128 and 256kbps.

Your conversion software should allow you to select the bit rate of the converted file.

Greg

 

[Bury_Dave]

I see. I'll delete the stuff i have and re-do it and make a note of the bit rate and see what happens. I hadn't realised you could specify it.

Thanks for the guidance and I'll let you know if it all works - or doesn't

Dave

 

[Big Bird]

The 550 works well on intercom but is mono through blue tooth, hence your issue

 

[Big Bird]

I meant autocom

 

[Beemerman59]

It will be the Bluetooth - as said the 550 will only output in dual mono. To test, fit the cable that came with the G4 direct to the Zumo mount - this will be then be in stereo. I just changed my 550 for a 660 for this very reason as I wanted stereo Bluetooth.

 

[Bury_Dave]

Aha, i see. Thanks for that BB.

So, unless the 550 is hardwired to your earphones, you only have crap quality then ? Seems odd as you would think Garmin would have sorted that as lots of folk have bluetooth comms.

Looks like I'll have to go back to using my iPhone for music - also bluetooth but decent quality.

Dave

 

[Bumpkin]

You could get a A2DP Bluetooth transmitter and plug that into the stereo lead running from the Autocom, just do a search on eBay

 

[Bury_Dave]

Thank ee Bumpkin. I'll give that a look too

Dave

 

[siwhite]

I had this issue as well - music output is in poor quality mono but satnav instructions are in high quality stereo.

You need a mini bluetooth transmitter form ebay like this; http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Universal-Bluetooth-A2DP-3-5mm-Stereo-HiFi-Audio-Dongle-Adapter-Transmitter-/370567444702?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item56478a78de

I have one here doing nothing which you can have for a fiver posted - ping me a PM if interested.

Simon

 

[Bury_Dave]

Thanks Si, I'm just about to ping you !

 

[ianm00]

You could get a A2DP Bluetooth transmitter and plug that into the stereo lead running from the Autocom, just do a search on eBay

Or maybe an FM transmitter as using Scala G4 would allow the FM radio to receive the mp3 from 550 via FM transmitter.