ANS-810 / ANS-510 (PROPER RNS-510 alternative)

[wai]

I am expecting my delivery soon too! Do share where's the best place to place the GPS antenna.

Find a surface under the dash that is preferably not under metal. Also, you need to avoid the various mechanisms for the ventilation system.

There is a fair amount of excess cable you will have to coil up. The best way to avoid any antenna effect (undesirable) from this coil is to wind it in a figure of 8 and cable tie it so it does not unravel. Again, this has to be tucked out of the way of the various mechanisms.

[whiskywallah]

does anyone here feel like the bt music quality isnt the best? i work for a dealer and ive used cadillac, nissan, buick, gmc and a few other off brands used cars bt just to test it out and the quality of the bt in my car isnt the best. there is like a feint ticking noise. the only car that ive duplicated it in using the same phone is a 2012 mistubishi lancer gt. its not the phone quality"""" its the music quality coming from pandora only in BT mode. the same pandora playing from the ipod cord through the radio is fine.
is there a update for that or a module update?
its installed in a 2009 vw cc 2.0t model.
i would just continue to use the ipod cord but its not long enough so i rather my phone be wireless.

I agree with you. I've tried 3 or 4 different phones, linked BT to 2 different ANS and the quality is definitely not the best, and compared to hard wired is definitely worse. It's hard to describe the problem; there is a 'ticking' as you describe, but it also sounds like it's crushing the HF signal and maybe also something liketoo much gain (and no, turning down the phone does not help.)

I've tried iPhone4 and HTC phones so maybe someone who is happy with BT audio can tell us what phones they use?

[whiskywallah]

Find a surface under the dash that is preferably not under metal. Also, you need to avoid the various mechanisms for the ventilation system.

There is a fair amount of excess cable you will have to coil up. The best way to avoid any antenna effect (undesirable) from this coil is to wind it in a figure of 8 and cable tie it so it does not unravel. Again, this has to be tucked out of the way of the various mechanisms.

I ended up popping mine on top of the dash. Come out from underneath the drivers side and then carefully slide the cable towards the windscreen. It's not that hard and works perfectly. Yes there's a small black blob on top of the dash but it's very discrete. And +1 for coiling the cable in a figure of 8; very important. Before I did this it would take 5 mins to get a GPS signal, now its almost instant.

[whiskywallah]

This looks a great unit - just wondering if anyone with any SQ background/experience can comment on it?

How is the sound quality and customisation? How do the RCA outs perform? Obviously there are some more advanced things lacking like time alignment etc., but does the unit stack up against aftermarket stuff as far as general SQ and EQ adjustments?

And for anyone running amp(s) has everything been to your satisfaction?

For the price, it's perfectly adequate. The RCA outs are above average and fed into a reasonable amp sound fine.
The EQ itself is good; you can adjust the centre freq and Q of Bass, Middle and Treble, and there's a seperate Sub out level.
Theres no timing adjustment, nor auto EQ.

My main gripe is with the method of control. There are 4 sliders, in the wrong order! Each slider has +/-7 unscaled increments which is almost enough fine control but setting them is nigh on impossible with my sausage fingers. There really needs to be nudge up and down buttons rather than soft sliders.
There are maybe 6 or 8 EQ presets plus custom, but you can't store you're own presets that i can find.

The control of fade and balance is OK, but again, is hard for my sausage fingers to get where I want it; you grab a cross hair and move it where you want it. Nudge buttons would be preferable.

Most of the probelms I describe above are trivial, since you set them once and pretty much forget. My external amp has a remote sub control which is very useful. I have that attached to the steering column and given my eclectic music taste I adjust that quite often.

Overall I would give it a B+ for sound and sound control; and for the money is perfectly adequate.

[jessv3]

I agree with you. I've tried 3 or 4 different phones, linked BT to 2 different ANS and the quality is definitely not the best, and compared to hard wired is definitely worse. It's hard to describe the problem; there is a 'ticking' as you describe, but it also sounds like it's crushing the HF signal and maybe also something liketoo much gain (and no, turning down the phone does not help.)

I've tried iPhone4 and HTC phones so maybe someone who is happy with BT audio can tell us what phones they use?

I don't mind the BT quality, I stream live Internet radio on an iPhone 4S via BT, and haven't noticed any ticking, it's a little quiet so I adjust the volume on the ANS.

[Slinz]

Thanks whiskywallah, much appreciated.

One of my cars came with a really awful Chinese touchscreen unit, which has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for these kinds of thing. This one looks like it's in another league though. Also that unit had similar controls for the fade/balance, which was pretty annoying haha.

Anyway, thanks for the solid description.

[starionx]

And +1 for coiling the cable in a figure of 8; very important. Before I did this it would take 5 mins to get a GPS signal, now its almost instant.

That's interesting. I'll have to try this figure 8 for the cable as mine is also taking about 5 minutes for the gps to get a signal.

[jitwei]

Find a surface under the dash that is preferably not under metal. Also, you need to avoid the various mechanisms for the ventilation system.

There is a fair amount of excess cable you will have to coil up. The best way to avoid any antenna effect (undesirable) from this coil is to wind it in a figure of 8 and cable tie it so it does not unravel. Again, this has to be tucked out of the way of the various mechanisms.

thanks. Is it me or the unit's screen is very prone to glare? I removed a plastic protector (smaller than the screen size) but it seems like there's still a layer of very glossy film on the unit. Is this how it's supposed to be?

[wai]

thanks. Is it me or the unit's screen is very prone to glare? I removed a plastic protector (smaller than the screen size) but it seems like there's still a layer of very glossy film on the unit. Is this how it's supposed to be?

The screen can be a touch reflective. Thankfully for my Caddy, it is mounted below the AC controls and vents and sodoes not get much from directly above.

[jitwei]

is there any other way to get my hands on the latest firmware aside from waiting for DKN to return and subscribe to him? I don't mind paying him but the wait is killing me.. hahaha

[R36VW]

I agree with you. I've tried 3 or 4 different phones, linked BT to 2 different ANS and the quality is definitely not the best, and compared to hard wired is definitely worse. It's hard to describe the problem; there is a 'ticking' as you describe, but it also sounds like it's crushing the HF signal and maybe also something liketoo much gain (and no, turning down the phone does not help.)

I've tried iPhone4 and HTC phones so maybe someone who is happy with BT audio can tell us what phones they use?

The problem with BT audio is that most factory fitted BT systems and even a lot of upgraded BT systems like Kufatec, Parrot and others dont have Hi-Fi Audio as an intended function so they lack the necessary profile to use high quality BT Audio. Most cant be upgraded either as there are differing hardware processing requirements and different DAC's required as you increase the sampling frequency.

The BT A2DP profile sampling rate is specified as between 44.1KHz and 48Khz. (see updated post below for further specs)

Compared to my Manhattan dedicated BT Audio box I installed for my Aux in which has freq res 20hz to 22Khz (says 48K sample rate).
The same iPhone 4S sounds wonderful with the Manhattan and absolute crap with the Kufatec. (which is fine for voice! Just not Audio)
See my Macgyver thread below for info on the Manhattan BT box if your interested. The newer VW 9W7 F spec BT kit uses a higher sampling rate and high quality SBC profile for good audio quality as well as AVRCP for BT control/music navigation and Text support on the display.

[whiskywallah]

Thanks R36VW, that all makes sense. So presumably the phone can deal with high sampling frequencies, 40KHz or more, but the ANS can't? Perhaps DkN can confirm?
is the profile software setable?
is it just a case of AudioSources needing to change programming or is it a limitation of the chipset used?

[jitwei]

-edited- updated firmware..woohoo! I hope the browser and network settings can work soon!

[chillybone]

The problem with BT audio is that most factory fitted BT systems and even a lot of upgraded BT systems like Kufatec, Parrot and others dont have Hi-Fi Audio as an intended function so they lack the necessary profile to use high quality BT Audio. Most cant be upgraded either as there are differing hardware processing requirements and different DAC's required as you increase the sampling frequency.

The BT A2DP profile sampling rate is specified as between 8000Hz and 96Khz with most electing to go with 16K or 22K which doesnt give enough sampling rate to have a frequency response above 8K or 11K (respectively). So most are really only spec'd for voice or low quality Audio and they cant be upgraded.

By way of example, I have a Kufatec Basic-Plus kit installed in my R36 and it supports A2DP but only with voice quality, there is absolutely no bass and the treble is distorted because it only has a sample rate of about 22K (11Hz frq resp).

Compared to my Manhattan dedicated BT Audio box I installed for my Aux in which has freq res 20hz to 22Khz (44K sample rate).
The same iPhone 4S sounds wonderful with the Manhattan and absolute crap with the Kufatec. (which is fine for voice! Just not Audio)
See my Macgyver thread below for info on the Manhattan BT box if your interested. The newer VW 9W7 F spec BT kit uses a higher sampling rate for good audio quality as well as AVRCP for BT control/music navigation and Text support on the display.

is it possible to upgrade the unit software wise or is it a module that has to be added in. if so can it be added to a 2009 vw cc? or the ans810 unit? im very interested in a product that will help this because this is my absolute favorite feature in any vehicle! besides the navigation of course =p

where is your mcgyver thread also. i might be just tired or blind but i dont see it!

[R36VW]

Most 2011/2012 phones with latest firmware now have a sufficient bitpool setting that they are no longer the problem. It's the receivers that are the problem. They need to support 512Kb/s up to 748Kb/s A2DP bitrate to get decent quality audio from BT. Most receivers are A2DP 328Kb/s which is the official "high quality" joint stereo SBC profile which is often not enough to reliably get the best quality. The sampling rates I mentioned above are often hardware limited and the DAC's (Digital to Analog converters) also greatly influence the sound quality. Not forgetting that a lot of BT car kits don't support A2DP at all and only the HFP profile (hand free profile) which is limited to 8bit 8Khz mono.

These are the official BT 2.1 standards for A2DP below.
It looks like most BT audio kits are using the middle quality joint stereo bitpool settings or possibly even lower. (there are lower bitrates in use too, called low quality as the settings for middle and high arent mandatory.)

The only mandatory requirement is either a 44.1Khz or 48Khz sample rate with the SBC encoding. Other encoders can be supported such as mp3, ATRAC3 and the new APT-x lossless codec but very few devices support it and certainly no car kits or in car nav/BT units currently support anything other than SBC codec. This codec is similiar to the MP3 codec but not as efficient, you need about double the bit rate with SBC to compare to the same quality in MP3.

This means currently even in High Quality SBC you only get the equivalent of about 192Kbit MP3 best case. (my Manhattan BT kit is an example of this quality, where I would rate my Kufatec A2DP as about 64Kbit MP3 or maybe even worse.)



As you can see on the below sound quality results for the BT SBC middle quality profile, the sound has some quite discernible sound artifacts with a Low of ~3.2, and AVG 4.68 and best of ~6.2. High quality profile scores a low of ~4.2, AVG 5.7 and High of almost 9. This is theoretically about as good as Sony's MD standard for ATRAC1 and not far off ATRAC3 encoding and about the same quality as 192Kbit MP3s from itunes.
This was based on best case usage 2 years ago and real-world usage has since proven quality is significantly less than theoretical controlled tests. (or manufacturers were going the lowest cost lowest risk option with a low bitrate profile which is more reliable)

Audio quality of encoders at 224 kbit/s - SoundExpert (BT SBC Middle Quality Result)
Audio quality of encoders at 320 kbit/s - SoundExpert (BT SBC High Quality Result)
Bluetooth audio quality (A2DP) - News - SoundExpert (commentary on A2DP quality)

Based on their quality scale from the site:
1.0 – you will hear heavily distorted sound
2.0 – you will hear unpleasant sound artifacts
3.0 – you will hear distinctly audible but tolerable sound artifacts
4.0 – you will hear faintly discernible sound artifacts
5.0 – you will not hear any sound artifacts
above 5.0 – all sound artifacts will be beyond threshold of human perception with corresponding perception margin

It appears most older BT receivers are built to this middle quality profile (and some lower) with some less than spectacular DAC's which probably further corrupt the sound quality. Add to this fact that the data speed reliably obtained and other issues such as input gain matching issues which also causes distortion, you can see we are probably a year or 2 away from default factory BT installations being the quality we expect off the bat. The problem is that the higher the bitpool setting and bitrate the more likely you are to get drop outs which is why quality has come 2nd to reliability.

There isn't anything you can do about the receiver quality if its already bad. (there might be some rare cases where a firmware update can be done) The phones and other BT sources though, can have their bitpool settings tweaked with firmware or hacks, but most recent BT phones use bitpool setting 53 now anyway which is as good as its going to get until we start seeing APT-X codec implemented in receivers and phones.

The ANS-810/510 might have an upgradable BT stack, I dont know what the quality is like but from an earlier post in this thread it looks like its a middle or maybe low profile and it might be able to be tweaked by a factory firmware upgrade but its most likely they need to replace the BT module which they are apparently looking at for a future upgrade to the range with BT 3 or 4 with AVRCP 1.4/1.5.