soundofatrain

I am recently coming from a series of BMW I drive cars, so still getting used to the MMI on my new A6. Love the car, but I am struggling with a single aspect of the MMI. Is there a way to display the artists instead of the channel names when browsing the satellite radio? This functionality exists in my wife's Volvo, and the last few iterations of the i Drive. Am i just missing something here ?
Thanks for the help.

BigDawg

When in satellite, hit the function button on the MMI.

snagitseven

Are you speaking to the main screen or the DIS? On my 2013 A6 the main screen will show the artist and song title when the satellite source is selected. In the DIS, only the Sirius station name will be displayed. Unfortunately, there is no way to change this.

DB22

You are not missing something here, the car is. It is one of the few great cars that decides that you may only look at one thing at a time: you can have radio or navigation or other single items but you can't have more than one. It is the result that you get when the designers have never actually used the product that they designed.

irenesbob

Possibly. On the other hand it might be that the designer's list of desirable/necessary features likely to be used in day to day driving disagrees with what drivers like you and the OP might want.

Perhaps the designer is driving the same car as the OP every day but does not miss that functionality, as I do not.
As I understand the OP's question, they are looking for information about what is currently on air for each channel/station without having to select (and start playing) the particular channel. I am sure that is possible (or maybe is as another poster suggests), but to me it is a lot lower in priority than something like improving reliability of the car’s components or reducing rattles.

It could be cultural as well. If the designers are not living in the USA, they may not see the perceived needs so many Americans have. That being said, maybe Audi should make more of any effort to understand the particular perceived needs of one of its largest customer bases - the good old USA.
Different strokes, I guess.

DB22

Cars in the 50's had a radio with a display, that carried through RDS and satellite radio. Now we have more information available but we have to press buttons and delete other functionality to see it.
Most cars either have a radio or an additional display for the permanent display of channel, song or artist. Audi is the only car I know of where this information is only available by having to press buttons and therefore deleting other useful displays. A lot of cars have a small bar of info on the nav screen, there are numerous ways to accomplish the task of not having to press buttons every time you wish to read RDS.
Nav should be " in addition to" not "instead of".

hinckley

When listening to Sat Radio, go into the Settings menu (lower right button around the MMI ****). In that menu, there are a couple of boxes to check. I can't remember exactly what they say, but it is something like "Show Station Details". With those boxes checked, you tune your Sat Radio as you normally do. After you're listening to the station for just a couple of seconds, the main screen display will change from the station list to show the station name and logo, and all of the detail song info. You can still change stations by using the buttons around the volume **** or the steering wheel buttons. When you do that, the main screen display will revert back to the station list. Unfortunately, as other have said, the detail info does not show up in the smaller instrument panel display.

irenesbob

It seems trains must be pretty silent these days lol.
So far we have not heard back from the OP so it it hard to know if any of our comments have helped.
My reading was that he wanted to be able to see artist names (maybe title etc. too I assume) while scrolling through the channel listing without having to select one and then wait the second or two it takes for the information to appear in the MMI screen as with our cars.
He asked: " Is there a way to display the artists instead of the channel names when browsing the satellite radio?" It is the browsing part that makes me think he wouldn't be happy with the way our cars display the RDS.

DB22

That's a reasonable assumption. If anybody is happy with it then they probably have never been in another car.

irenesbob

lol
I drive many rentals, but the audio system seldom concerns me (my Audi included) so long as it has satellite radio. About the only tech thing with my A6 that pisses me off is the TPMS's not being able to read what the actual pressure is. I could live with having sensors in the tires since I don't change tires. When I get into a $25K Japanese rental car and can see actual pressure numbers for each individual wheel I cuss out Audi, because that is a safety/handling issue. The sound system doesn't affect what I see as the basic function of a car (dynamic things); a car is (to me) not a rolling sound studio. That being said, if such issues are important for you I feel for you and will support you and say that Audi needs to get with it to stay competitive with what folks expect these days. Now, if they only had a dipstick - lol