Hello people! I just picked up my R58 with mini connected Saturday. Today I picked up the overpriced official Y cable for the Lightning adapter.

Anyway so it sounds really bad. The sound is really muffled sounding and the bass is very boom-y. The highs also have some crackling.

Alternatively if I use Bluetooth audio streaming it sounds better.

I have an iPhone 6. Could this be my phone or do you think the Y Cable or perhaps adapter is bad? Anyone else have this issue?

 

I used the old Y cable with the 30 pin Apple adapter and didn't notice a huge sound quality decline. I did switch to just leaving a USB drive in the port because I had to lean over to my cup holders to use my phone :/

 

Ok did some more experimenting today. I found that when the phone is connected to the stereo with bluetooth it's great as stated before. The line level out of the iphone seems to be too high which is causing some distortion. I'm not sure if it's the cable or the iphone 6 / ios 8 is outputting a level that's way higher than the previous line level of other versions of the phone or operating system..

So far I haven't found a way to change the level. I'm going to head back to the dealer to try another cable to see if I got a bad one. It's also possible the interface in my car could be bad. I may try and test that by connecting to the aux port from the headphone jack on the iphone to see if the sound is better that way.

As an added bonus I just noticed spotify is supported in mini connected. I think that changed today?? I was surprised.

 

I too purchased the music Y cable to lightning and find the sound is not as goo as the 30 pin, I have to lower the bass to -5/6 for it to sound decent. Some have said it will sound better after break in but so far after a few weeks I am a bit disappointed.

 

Hmm that is my other theory. So maybe the 30 pin + converter would sound better?

 

I run the 30-pin Y-cable with a 20cm 30-pin to Lightning adapter in my '11 Countryman S ALL4 (which has HK) and it works fine both with my previous iPhone 5s and my current iPhone 6.

The volume IS lower than if you use Bluetooth streaming, but that is true for any source going thru that cable setup. Quality sounds the same however, after you turn the volume up.

 

Yeah my main problem is the Lightning cable volume is distorted as if the source is too high.

 

Ok talked to the tech that worked on my car. Naturally the tech says the stereo is working fine. She tried with her iPhone 6 and my Y cable said it sounds ok.

I tried my wife's iPhone 6 to make sure my phone is not the issue. Guess what sound still is terrible with distorted Highs and blown out / muddy lows.

I am going to have to take the car back again. Anyone else having this problem with the R58 Harmon Kardon? It just sounds so bad I am really shocked.

 

Weird because the 30 pin cable using my old iPhone 4s sound very good, I can only imagine there might be a design change on the iPhone 5 & up.


I figure my next car I will make sure to have the Mini Connect and just stream over BT.

 

OK! I did some google sleuthing today, and it seems that the BMW dudes have figured this out already:

http://www.1addicts.com/forums/showthread.php?t=892116

So... I have ordered my BMW W cable for 100 bucks lol (out 180 bucks when all is said and done for overpriced cables)

What I *think* the problem is that my car specifically has the cradle. The cradle is likely powered, and wired properly to interface with the system properly. Other threads I've seen say docked phones sound fine.

The problem here is that I have an iphone 6, no cradle exists for that phone yet.

The dealer unfortunately is not educated on how everything is supposed to work so they drop the ball, in the end it's likely MINI to blame here if they're not communicating the stereo situation properly.

Anyhow, I've ordered that stupid cable from amazon:
We'll see if that works.

 

Didn't fix the problem. So this car's stereo is either defective or it's the worst car stereo I have ever had. I need to go back to the dealer and persist.

 

Hello

I just got my PM coded.

In the Modul "MEDIA" you just need to code the value under USB1_IPOD_AUDIO fron "analog" to "digital" and you are able to use your Lightning Cable for audio also. So no need an Y-Cable anymore.

 

Did you get around to testing this? The aux port is a limiting factor. If audio directly into the aux port sounds bad, a Y-connector cannot possibly sound good either.

 

Not sure if this will help, I had issue with Bluetooth with iPhone 5s, the volume is too soft, you can adjust the volume on the side of the iPhone while linked with Bluetooth.

 

So the aux in with mini stereo cable sounds fantastic. Using the Y cable the sound is distorted and muddy. It has to be either software or the circuit board in the y cable itself with the problem.

To summarize:
-Mini stereo / aux with iPhone 6 sounds good
-Bluetooth is good
-y cable - terrible

So in my mind it has to be either the design of the y cable or software. I had the y cable swapped for a new one and the sound is still terrible. My guess is that the current y cable design will be changed for the iphone6 or we will see a software update. Until then I will continue using the aux in.

 

Wait here so do you mean there is a software way to eliminate the y cable for good? How do I get this coding done?

Does the iPod integration and sound work? Is the sound good? Tell me more.

 

Fjork, I too recently dropped the money on the dumb lightning Y cable from MINI (mainly because they added spotify support) and I too have SH** sounding audio through cable and beautiful sound through Bluetooth(HK premium system). I have not had a chance to return the cable because I'm pretty convinced it's just crap, but rest assured it is not specific to you, it's specific to the connected system and their dumb Y cable sucking!

Bereic would LOVE to know who did you coding, it's my understanding that one touch sunroof open and close can be added as well. I think there was a guy that was on the MINI takes the states trip that was doing it for people. Share the love because that is the ultimate fix!

 

Please complain to the dealer! Also miniusa

 

Yeah I am in the process of making a MINI connected sucks FB page, maybe some bad press on social media will help! I mean I waited a long time to find just the right car with the right options and connected was one of them and it is borderline useless, the app sucks, it is CRAZY SLOW, the cable price is outrageous.... Major fail IMO especially compared to the BMW system which is running the same technology!

 

Got a new iPhone 6 from iPhone 4. Bought a new lighting cable for my 2013 MCS with connected. It would work sometimes and not other including sound problems. Discovered that the AUX plug was not fulling in and this caused major problems. I could get it to work after making sure the AUX was plugged in correctly.

 

I had this problem with an aux cable. There was a little bit of extra rubber from the injection molding process and once I pulled it off it worked much better.

 

Just picked up our Coupe last week. Came with "Y" cable.

HK sound system is fine, except, streaming music from either iphone, ipod, or through Miniconnected web radio. Then I get a high-pitched whine that increases in frequency as the RPM of the engine goes up.

Has anybody experienced this? Does it sound related?

 

Any updates from anyone?

 

Yeah my stereo still sucks. I gave up. I just use Bluetooth now.

 

I'm glad I found this thread as I too am having the problem with lots of bass and crackly highs with the MINI lightning cable. I have a 2015 Countryman with Connected/Nav. I would agree that it is almost like the adapter is pushing too high a level to the car. I tried it with 2 different lightning y cables and devices. Everything works great with the original 30 pin that came with car with the apple adapter. Once I go to the lighting cable I get the extra bass and crackly highs. The two devices I am testing with is an iPhone 6 and an iPod nano (latest edition).

In my experimentation I did find a work around that helps. If you go into your music setting on the iPhone and enable any one of the equalizer presets it helps a ton. I am still playing around with finding the right one.

I don't use the cable a ton anyway but this was annoying me. Right now I use it mainly for charging and occasional web radio and connected use. Most of my music comes from the iPod nano using its built-in bluetooth capabilities.

Tonight I just discovered an update (1008) to the connected system from Dec 2014. Have not tried this out to see if it helps as the MINI website is wonky at the moment and won't let me download.