Let’s talk tunes -- How do you listen to music in your Rivian?

[CommodoreAmiga]

I've been an iTunes/Apple Music user for years and am unlikely to change services any time soon, so I just use bluetooth from my phone. Haven't had any problems yet.

I desperately want Rivian to implement an Apple Music app in their UI.

I just can't go back to using bluetooth with zero UI controls for music. At a minimum, give me Siri Eyes Free so I can summon Siri from the steering wheel.

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[Kacey3]

I know most people have their favorite streaming service and probably have no interest in changing, but for those interested in exploring options, I've found soundiiz to be extremely useful in migrating playlists, etc between services.

I've started playing around with Soundiiz... It works fairly well, but it does show the massive gaps in different services. My primary playlists on Apple Music end up being 45-55% complete when synced over to Amazon music.

So while it's a good service and does make for decent migration, be prepared to be missing some music in the new destination.

 

[Kacey3]

I desperately want Rivian to implement an Apple Music app in their UI.

I just can't go back to using bluetooth with zero UI controls for music. At a minimum, give me Siri Eyes Free so I can summon Siri from the steering wheel.

Even on bluetooth, the steering wheel controls work for forward, back, and volume control.

For selecting playlists and other functions, I simply tell Siri on my watch.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Even on bluetooth, the steering wheel controls work for forward, back, and volume control.

For selecting playlists and other functions, I simply tell Siri on my watch.

I'm happy for you. This is not sufficient for my needs.

 

[SamDoe1]

I use YT Music over bluetooth. It doesn't sound amazing but it's fine. I like YT Music because you get YT video ad free for free along with it. Have thought about switching to Spotify but this is working fine for now.

 

[Airbuswillie]

Amazon Music through Alexa is highest bitrate and best sound. Hopefully a full on app is coming in the future.

That's not exactly true. Amazon music is has better sound quality that most other but Tidal has the highest available kpbs, if you want to pay for it.


Amazon Music Tidal

Up to 850 kbps for “HD” Up to 3730 kbps for “Ultra HD”

Up to 1411 kbps for “HiFi” Up to 9216 kbps for “Master”

 

[Airbuswillie]

I tried Spotify but didn't like the interface and trying to get it to just play an album and not some damn "mix" that I didn't ask for was annoying. Maybe the Meridian audio system is just that much better than anything else I've had in a vehicle before but paying the $10 a month or whatever it is for TidalHiFi, I've heard things in songs I've listened to 1000 times that I've never noticed before.

 

[el_scorcho]

Apple Music thru phone/Bluetooth. Here are some very frequent issues:

- Artwork doesn't change when the song does
- Music shows that it's playing, but no audio, click any other music app and click back to Bluetooth to get the audio going again (seems to happen after parking and getting back in)
- really odd Bluetooth connection stuttering when I slow down and park the truck

really hoping for some OTA updates for these.

 

[Crezz]

So somewhat related... Since I got the veichle a few months ago, I have had so much trouble with any music loading on the initial part of the drive. I have had a mobile visit twice about it, and the "engineers say it's working as intended" because it takes more than a few seconds for the Wifi connection in my garage to switch to LTE (different internet receivers apparently) when I shift out of park. Then the time to buffer a station after a connection is established. It's a solid 3+ minutes sometimes to connect and stream audio.

 

[electruck]

I've started playing around with Soundiiz... It works fairly well, but it does show the massive gaps in different services. My primary playlists on Apple Music end up being 45-55% complete when synced over to Amazon music.

So while it's a good service and does make for decent migration, be prepared to be missing some music in the new destination.

Yes, very good point. I am a bit surprised at the rather extreme gap between those 2 services given they both have catalogs north of 100 million songs. I've transferred playlists totaling over 3000 songs and, worst case, had 19 songs not transfer. And a good chunk of that was because of an album titling discrepancy between the use of "&" and "and" on the different services (it seems soundiiz doesn't account for that). But I was actually able to manually add that album to the playlist which brought the gap down to less than 10 songs. Perhaps I just listen to more mainstream music than you do.

 

[DaveA]

That's not exactly true. Amazon music is has better sound quality that most other but Tidal has the highest available kpbs, if you want to pay for it.


Amazon Music Tidal

Up to 850 kbps for “HD” Up to 3730 kbps for “Ultra HD”

Up to 1411 kbps for “HiFi” Up to 9216 kbps for “Master”

Ah, ok. I stand corrected.

 

[Kacey3]

Apple Music thru phone/Bluetooth. Here are some very frequent issues:

- Artwork doesn't change when the song does
- Music shows that it's playing, but no audio, click any other music app and click back to Bluetooth to get the audio going again (seems to happen after parking and getting back in)
- really odd Bluetooth connection stuttering when I slow down and park the truck

really hoping for some OTA updates for these.

1. I've seen that happen, but only very seldomly, and usually when I have a poor network connection or a very odd album. Otherwise it hasn't been much of an issue.
2. I've also experienced this, but only once or twice. I simply turned off Bluetooth on my phone and turned it back on again. To be fair, I've had this issue with CarPlay before (even without using Bluetooth).
3. The only time I see this is when I first start playing music, but it only does this for a few seconds and then streaming is fine afterwards. Not sure what causes it, but it's always just a few seconds during the first track.

 

[DRIVIAN]

It seems odd that they wouldn't include the two most common interfaces, CarPlay and Android Auto. I'm unlikely to change my preferred music source. Super excited to take delivery next Tuesday. I'm guessing that for all the things that "make me go hmmm", other things will "make me go HOLY SMOKES!"

 

[Neo F]

Coming up to a year of ownership and here are my thought.

Overall the audio experience sucks from a music source standpoint. As an Apple Music subscriber my only source is BT. BT audio is un-reliable.
Issue #1: connection is slow and does not automatically play music.

Issue #2:When audio connects and I play music, sometimes no audio comes out. I found that restarting on/off my BT on my phone solves the problem. But frustrating.

Issue#3: I’ve resorted to also using TuneIn - Free Version, which is much more reliable; however, it will at random switch songs in the middle of a song.

Rivian really needs to invest is improving the audio experience for the most popular streaming services.

 

[electruck]

That's not exactly true. Amazon music is has better sound quality that most other but Tidal has the highest available kpbs, if you want to pay for it.


Amazon Music Tidal

Up to 850 kbps for “HD” Up to 3730 kbps for “Ultra HD”

Up to 1411 kbps for “HiFi” Up to 9216 kbps for “Master”

You have to do more than just pay for it, you also have to have a system capable of decoding MQA (and I'm not sure if anyone has ever confirmed whether Rivian does or does not support MQA decoding, I suspect it does not). I'll also note that the advantages of MQA are also heavily debated.

Amazon Music HD advertises 16 bit samples at 44.1kHz so 1411 kpbs. That's CD quality, same as Tidal HiFi. Amazon does refer to an average bitrate of 850 kbps but I suspect that reflects the transmission of the compressed stream (FLAC, lossless compression) and not the fixed 1411 kbps of the uncompressed source.

Also keep in mind that streaming even compressed Ultra HD or MQA over cellular is going to be far more susceptible to buffering than lower bitrate streams. Not to mention you will be paying for all that bandwidth once the Rivian free data period runs out.

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