[Crazy One]

Hi,
On my Harman Kardon I had a very poor sound quality using Spotify in Android Auto and the subwoofers in the seats where not noticible. I took it the service as I thought they might not be connected at all.
The first thing they told me was that if I listen to the FM radio the sound will be bad because of bad sound input and lack of codecs information.
At this point I realized what was wrong with AA and found this quick fix.
In developer options you have to enable (force) highest codecs.
Hope it will help someone - my screenshots are below.
This really improved my sound quality.

[AWcoupe]

Nice info here, I just enabled that setting! Will be testing shortly.

[MPR]

I'm not seeing that option on my pixel 6, but I do not have any quality issues either.

[Crazy One]

Originally Posted by MPR

I'm not seeing that option on my pixel 6, but I do not have any quality issues either.

You can always check it - maybe the sound will be better.
This opinion is in developer settings.

[MPR]

Originally Posted by Crazy One

You can always check it - maybe the sound will be better.
This opinion is in developer settings.

I'm aware, but the pixel 6 doesn't have the option in dev settings, I'm not seeing it at least.

[ryo-]

have you isolated the problem to Android Auto? I have the same issue randomly, however, it is with everything like XM, radio, Spotify, etc. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes on startup the subwoofers just do not power on and it won't fix until the car goes to sleep again (can't force it to sleep with long-pressing HU power button). it's not that big of an issue for me to bring it to the dealership and lose my car for a few days to have them fix it tho.

[Crazy One]

Originally Posted by ryo-

have you isolated the problem to Android Auto? I have the same issue randomly, however, it is with everything like XM, radio, Spotify, etc. I don't know what causes it, but sometimes on startup the subwoofers just do not power on and it won't fix until the car goes to sleep again (can't force it to sleep with long-pressing HU power button). it's not that big of an issue for me to bring it to the dealership and lose my car for a few days to have them fix it tho.

We don't have XM here, but on the standard FM the quality is also bad.
It looks like everything is nice until the source is digital, with the latest codecs and all the informations per chanal are there. If you have analog signal or digital without codecs it can't send "average" signal to all the speakers - it simply turns off the subwoofers.

[AngryMonkey]

Originally Posted by MPR

I'm aware, but the pixel 6 doesn't have the option in dev settings, I'm not seeing it at least.

Make sure you're looking for the above developer settings within the Android Auto app, not the Android OS developer settings.

Also it's possible that your Android Auto app may not be up-to-date.

I'm able to see these settings on my 6.

[MPR]

Originally Posted by AngryMonkey

Make sure you're looking for the above developer settings within the Android Auto app, not the Android OS developer settings.

Also it's possible that your Android Auto app may not be up-to-date.

I'm able to see these settings on my 6.

Figured it out, thanks!

[DriftKing860]

Is there a noticeable difference?

[MPR]

Originally Posted by DriftKing860

Is there a noticeable difference?

No, the quality wasn't bad to begin with for me.

[stanleytbc]

The above audio codec doesn't makes any difference for my case. Disabling "Normalize Volume" in Spotify setting resolved my sound quality issue!

[VegasG42]

I had very flat and terrible sound.

I enabled this in Android Auto.

And also started using the equalizer on the music player app i use.

Much better now.

[abrandonment]

Great tip