Why is my S6's bluetooth audio so bad?

[AC Question]

Hi everyone,

I just switched from my aging Lumia 920 to the S6 today and up until I set it up for my car, I was pretty happy with it.

Got everything paired easy enough, opened Pandora and....some of the worst streamed audio I've heard since the dark days of RealPlayer in the 90s.

Double checked that the app detected I was a subscriber, that it was using the high quality stream, triple checked anything I could think of in the phone settings. No change. The volume is super low to the point I have to crank both the phone AND car volume to near max to be anything like I was used to on my 920, which turns the notifications into an ear shattering disaster, and even at low volumes there's a high amount of popping with the highs.

Please tell me there's a fix or some carrier crapware interfering with this. :/

 

[itguyjax8430]

Hi everyone,

I just switched from my aging Lumia 920 to the S6 today and up until I set it up for my car, I was pretty happy with it.

Got everything paired easy enough, opened Pandora and....some of the worst streamed audio I've heard since the dark days of RealPlayer in the 90s.

Double checked that the app detected I was a subscriber, that it was using the high quality stream, triple checked anything I could think of in the phone settings. No change. The volume is super low to the point I have to crank both the phone AND car volume to near max to be anything like I was used to on my 920, which turns the notifications into an ear shattering disaster, and even at low volumes there's a high amount of popping with the highs.

Please tell me there's a fix or some carrier crapware interfering with this. :/

Welcome to Android Central!

Have you tried unpairing your phone and then repairing it?

 

[Zyr]

I have, multiple times. I also paired it to a portable bluetooth speaker but the issue is also present. After some experimenting it seems the popping on highs is exacerbated when notifications come in. Even the notification from the phone being plugged into a charger will make it even worse.

I can do a straight comparison of the same song between the 920 and S6 and the difference is night and day.