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no0nefamous

macrumors 6502
Original poster
My car is from 2018 and supports CarPlay over USB only. It has a USB 2.0 port. With my previous iPhone 13 Pro, using Apple's official USB A to Lightning cable, the sound quality for Apple Music was fantastic.

This might sound weird, but there is a noticeable dip in sound quality with my new iPhone 17 Pro on Apple Music. As if the audio is being compressed. I checked the Apple Music audio quality settings and they are set to High Quality. I have tried several different USB A to USB C cables to see if there's any kind of improvement but there wasn't. I am aware that since it is a digital signal, a loss in audio quality would be due to data transfer speeds and not in the way a cheap analog audio cable could distort audio.

So my assumption is that it has something to do with the down conversion from the 17 Pro's USB C at USB 3.0 speeds to USB A at USB 2.0 speeds? Is there any highly suggested USB A to USB C cable to negate this? Apple does not sell an official one.
 
My car is from 2018 and supports CarPlay over USB only. It has a USB 2.0 port. With my previous iPhone 13 Pro, using Apple's official USB A to Lightning cable, the sound quality for Apple Music was fantastic.

This might sound weird, but there is a noticeable dip in sound quality with my new iPhone 17 Pro on Apple Music. As if the audio is being compressed. I checked the Apple Music audio quality settings and they are set to High Quality. I have tried several different USB A to USB C cables to see if there's any kind of improvement but there wasn't. I am aware that since it is a digital signal, a loss in audio quality would be due to data transfer speeds and not in the way a cheap analog audio cable could distort audio.

So my assumption is that it has something to do with the down conversion from the 17 Pro's USB C at USB 3.0 speeds to USB A at USB 2.0 speeds? Is there any highly suggested USB A to USB C cable to negate this? Apple does not sell an official one.
If it is cable related, I'll bet it's the specific cable you're using, not the brand.

That said, I'm using this one with my 16PM and 2016 Hyundai. It works great, and the retractable cable keeps it tidy.

If that's not your cup of tea, I'd recommend an Anker cable, like this one.
 
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