Comment by smallstepforman
9 hours ago
Most audiophiles ignore bluetooth headphones due to sound quality + latency, so we (audiophiles) stick to wired at home and we also have dedicated headphone amps since the pissy sound card D/A convertors are incredibly bad. Bluetooth only when I’m doing yard work. Sadly, modern music is tuned to crappy headphones, crappy car systems, crappy speakers … I miss the 80’s audiophile obsession, the equipment had heart, and mixing and mastering was generations ahead of current (mainstream) music production.
"Sound quality" is a theoretical goal which can't be achieved in practice unless you listen in a perfectly quiet room. Your audiophile open-back headphones can't achieve their rated sound quality if eg there's a CPU fan in the room, or if you're wearing glasses, or if your head just doesn't fit the headphones the same way as the tester's dummy head mic did.
- Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz
- aptX can do 44/16 in other devices, Sony has LDAC at 24/96 too
- latency under <100ms is meaningless for pure audio listening, video players have latency compensation
We have amazing technology available today, at prices and quality unimaginable in the 80s. A $50 in-ear from a chinese hi-fi brand can give you an audio experience you couldn’t buy for thousands of dollars a decade ago. And there’s more and more analog hardware being designed and built as technology costs have fallen. You’re really missing out if you think things were better back then.
> - Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz
Only Vision Pro has wireless lossless audio and it works because it's right next to the AirPods.
But your phone can passthrough AAC over Bluetooth as long as it doesn't have to mix system sounds or anything in.
I think many still recognise the train, car, going for a run / cycle, gym… isn’t an optimum listening environment and the convenience significantly outweighs AQ in a lot of situations.
I'm really enjoying my Focal Bathys Bluetooth headphones! Sure, wired options will always be better, but when I want convenience, I've been really impressed with these!
What does audio have to do with this post?
GP seems to mean that if people cared about audio quality, they would not use bluetooth in the first place?
Audiophiles tend to have firm stances on what is acceptable or not, I find.
There are also some amazing cables available in the space. Especially the digital cables, they are really amazing.
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