You can run into latency issues, compatibility, etc. On a budget they work just fine.
Latency isn’t an issue when playing music and I’m assuming a dongle will have the same potential compatibility issues as having it built into the headphones?
I’m not sure what you mean by “works fine” vs “it works better”, is there actually an audible difference or is this just an audiophile belief/myth? A web app for example can work just as well as a native app, although it may not be as efficient under the hood.
That actually presents something for me to think about!
That sounds like you have a winner that handles both tasks!
Thank you Angelom for sharing your personal experience and thoughts. You are absolutely right about the benefits of battery life, most bluetooth headphones like Sony XM5, Dali IO-12, Beoplay H95, Momentum 4, Focal Bathys, etc typically have battery life in the 30 hour or more range and all support fast charging.
Hey Kin, I can definitely set my Fiio adapter on aptX HD! From what I saw it supports aptX HD, LDAC, aptX Adaptive.
SQ it will be better LDAC
Not necessarily. At lower bit rates, aptX adaptive and SBC outperform LDAC because Sony chose to have the codec switch between three bitrates (330, 660, and 990 kbps) as the data stream fluctuates which causes artifacting. aptX adaptive fluctuates between a range of bitrates freely (279 to 420 kbps) so it doesn't have those same artifacts.
I only High-Resolution Audio (Hi-Res) and have the option to hardcode 990 kbps.
Yes, although that should be true of any Bluetooth chip. Like USB, Ethernet and other protocols, it’s a quite complex hierarchy of standardisation development. You have an international organisation (in this case the Bluetooth SIG, Special Interest Group) comprised of study, expert and working groups, and a membership that votes on their proposals and research findings. Then it’s passed on to a major international standards organisation, in the case of Bluetooth that would be the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), to further examine and then ratify it as an “international standard”. In order to legally advertise your device as “Bluetooth” it must comply with the published standards and be “certified” (by the Bluetooth SIG). So intrinsically any Bluetooth chip must perform its task identically, however in practice that’s not necessarily the case for two reasons: First, there’s nothing to stop a manufacturer from bolting on their own audio protocol in addition to what is defined by the Bluetooth standard and second, the standard provides flexibility for different use cases, for example, a variable fixed or adaptive bitpool (one of the parameters that affects audio bitrate).
Yes.
So it’s just a user functionality thing, although ANC could obviously be an audible audio quality issue/improvement in some scenarios, so that’s a good point.
SBC allows different quality profiles and reduced bitpools, so it is possible a particular device may not support the higher quality profiles or higher bitpool and therefore not be audibly transparent. This was certainly the case with some devices a number of years ago but I would presume is far less common (and maybe never?) these days. With the “high quality” profile, which has been the recommended standard for quite a few years, and standard bitpool/bitrate, all the reliable evidence I’ve seen indicates SBC is audibly transparent.
990kbps is not hi-res, it’s not even CD standard (which is ~1.4mbps). However, as it’s a lossy protocol it should be audibly indistinguishable from the CD standard and therefore audibly indistinguishable from other high bitrate (roughly, >250kbps) lossy protocols, such as SBC or AAC.
Thank you for this!
Also Gregario,
