Spotify: bad audio quality over CarPlay

I got a Kenwood DMX 9707S head unit set up in my car. The audio sounds fantastic when using YouTube, Apple Music, or other apps. But, Spotify? Sounds like a mess. It seems like Spotify is trying to do something with my microphone and that triggers the head unit to treat it like a phone call rather than like music/content.

Has anyone else experienced this??

I want to emphasize: quality is set to Very High. Poor audio quality occurs while wired or wireless. Spotify sounds great over my Bluetooth headphones or on my iPhones speakers, but CarPlay? It sounds like trash.

UPDATE

I disabled the ‘Hey Spotify’ feature within the Spotify app; problem solved. I believe the issue is Spotify’s passive listening feature that enables ‘Hey Spotify’, the send/receive connection doesn’t allow the full audio quality. Turning it off allows the full throughput to be allocated to the music and in turn, it sounds great.