Good bluetooth systems to make headphones wireless?

[fuzzybabybunny]

I want to be able to make my headphones "wireless" - basically add a bluetooth receiver to it that receives audio coming from my phone (Samsung S5). That way I can just wrap up my headphone cables and maybe clip the bluetooth receiver onto my jacket. It'll make my phone easier to use because then there's no wire coming out of it.

Some thoughts:

- Since bluetooth would be sending a digital signal to this receiver, the receiver itself should have a high quality DAC.

- Since the bluetooth receiver needs to be powered, it might as well be an amp.

- AA batteries highly preferred.

- Does audio fidelity take a big hit when sent via Bluetooth?

Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[Mike64]

Better late than never?

Does audio fidelity take a big hit when sent via Bluetooth?

I've never heard BT-transmitted music via an allegedly high quality wire-to-receiver BT receiver* (let alone a newer receiver/amp with built-in BT), which would presumably have better overall design and construction, as well as a better DAC, than the cheapo ones I have experienced, but since the fundamental problem with music-over-BT is the lack of bandwidth, I do strongly suspect it'd be a real problem if you're looking for "good stereo equipment"-quality output, and would just be compounded if using high(er) bitrate compressed or lossless digital audio files. I've never had the opportunity to listen to music over BT with aptX with any equipment at all, which is supposed to make a noticeable difference, but for serious fidelity, my so-far-casual research says you really need Wifi. I don't know how feasible it would be to do what you want via Wifi, but if you want good sound through decent-to-high quality headphones, I think that's a much more potentially fruitful line of research than Bluetooth...
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* In case that's not entirely clear, what I mean is a standalone BT receiver with a wired output connected to the auxiliary input of an "ordinary" stereo receiver. I've only experienced very inexpensive ones with cheap, unshielded circuitry, powered by rechargeable internal batteries, using 3.5 mm stereo plug outputs, etc.

 

[Oyeve]

BT and High Quality just can't exist in the same sentence.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Did you see this?
https://www.headphone.com/collections/cables/products/westone-bluetooth-cable

There's also stuff like the Creative E5 although it might be bigger than you're looking for.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Did you see this?
https://www.headphone.com/collections/cables/products/westone-bluetooth-cable

There's also stuff like the Creative E5 although it might be bigger than you're looking for.

I actually tried those Westones and while the sound quality is fine for, say, walking outside in the city, for quiet listening you would want to swap out the cables for the stock ones. I was also very tempted by that Creative.

So what I had heard was AptX on the Westones.

After reading around some more, I think I'm going to wait around for an updated standard. Sony is working on a higher quality Bluetooth standard for true HD Audio. Apple already has one. And there is AptX HD that's out already but which isn't implemented yet in many devices. Supposed to be CD quality. All require a different chip so that means a new phone and a new receiver, so in light of this I think I'm going to wait.

And honestly, I have a hard time hearing the difference between WAV and 320kps mp3, so I figure I'm going to be happy with anything with "CD quality."

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[Mike64]

So what I had heard was AptX on the Westones.

Did/does whatever device that was transmitting the signal have the aptX codec? The transmitter as well as the receiver have to use it to get the benefit of its higher/better compression rate...

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Did/does whatever device that was transmitting the signal have the aptX codec? The transmitter as well as the receiver have to use it to get the benefit of its higher/better compression rate...

Yeah, my Samsung S5 has it.

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[Mike64]

Yeah, my Samsung S5 has it.

Good to know, then. This is the first "identifiable" personal report on it I've seen; from the more general comments/blog posts I'd read, I had higher hopes for it than what you're reporting. Back to the drawing board, I guess...

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Good to know, then. This is the first "identifiable" personal report on it I've seen; from the more general comments/blog posts I'd read, I had higher hopes for it than what you're reporting. Back to the drawing board, I guess...

I'd also like to add that the DAC on my S5 isn't that amazing. I hear markedly better sound when I play the same FLAC files on my laptop compared to my S5 over my wired W60s.

So... Asus UX32VD's DAC over wired is best.

Samsung S5 DAC over wired is second.

The wireless Westone cable's DAC over AptX is third. Don't get me wrong - it's certainly not bad. I would probably have been happy with it had I been using a cheaper pair of IEMs, but since I've spent the money on these W60s, I want to get the most out of them.

I don't know which DAC the Westone cables would have, but I figure that it has got to be at least pretty decent, coming from Westone. So I made the assumption that AptX over the Creative Bluetooth amp would be similar.

Once Bluetooth reaches CD quality though, I highly doubt that I'll be able to hear a difference between FLAC and CD quality unless I was concentrating really hard in a quiet room. And to be honest, I'd probably only be able to accurately pick the FLAC file 50% of the time. At that point the limiting factor is *me*, which I'd be fine with.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Good to know, then. This is the first "identifiable" personal report on it I've seen; from the more general comments/blog posts I'd read, I had higher hopes for it than what you're reporting. Back to the drawing board, I guess...

Oh, and another thing. I had the opportunity to buy the Westone cables for just $90 because it was a used secondhand one - and I still passed it up.

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[Mike64]

I highly doubt that I'll be able to hear a difference between FLAC and CD quality unless I was concentrating really hard in a quiet room.

Personally, I think very, very few people could tell the difference between CD, FLAC, and/or even high bitrate compressed audio in blind testing, even under the best of conditions. Just as there are people who can see into/further into the UV and IR light ranges than the vast bulk of humanity, I dare say there are outliers who can hear far better than almost everyone else, but statistics demonstrate pretty definitively that human hearing - especially past our mid-20s at the outside - simply isn't what many self-described "audiophiles" would like to believe it is, both in terms of frequency range and differential acuity. (ETR: I don't know if that latter term is really exists, but what I mean is the degree to which one can distinguish differences/changes in frequency and loudness in real time, not "acuity" in the sense of overall "sharpness of hearing").

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Personally, I think very, very few people could tell the difference between CD, FLAC, and/or even high bitrate compressed audio in blind testing, even under the best of conditions. Just as there are people who can see further into the UV and IR light ranges than the vast bulk of humanity, I dare say there are outliers who can hear far better than almost everyone else, but statistics demonstrate pretty definitively that human hearing - especially past our mid-20s at the outside - simply isn't what many self-described "audiophiles" would like to believe it is, both in terms of frequency range and differential acuity (I don't know if the latter is a real technical term, but I hope it's meaning is clear enough).

For me, I can pick out the difference between 320 kbps MP3 and WAV about 50% of the time if I'm concentrating. And when I can pick the difference its very minute, to the point where I'm not 100% certain I'm picking WAV over MP3. 128 kbps though I can pick out all the time.

However, I can clearly hear differences when listening to the same song on different headphones. Basically, getting good headphones is like 85% of the battle. Having music that's maybe around the 256 kbps range and up and getting a decent DAC make up the remaining 15%.

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[Mike64]

For me, I can pick out the difference between 320 kbps MP3 and WAV about 50% of the time if I'm concentrating.

Errrm... statistically speaking, "being right 50% of the time" basically means you're guessing...

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Errrm... statistically speaking, "being right 50% of the time" basically means you're guessing...

Yeah pretty much. I had three choices - 128, 320, and WAV, and I had to pick which one was WAV. They weren't songs that I'm familiar with though, and some of them felt like really bad songs for audio fidelity testing, so maybe WAV is easier to tell apart from 320?

 

[JeffMD]

Just going to chime on on this oldish thread for inaccuracies. When dealing with bluetooth, the DAC on the phone/player makes zero difference, it is never used. Once the audio is decoded the waveform data that is normaly handed to the "audio device" (DAC, soundcard) is routed to the bluetooth stack in which it is transformed via profile into (normally) and mpeg2 stream and sent to the BT receiver (the NEW/default audio device). So sound quality at this point is %100 on your transmission type and the DAC that is on the receiver end, be it a bluetooth receiver modual or a set of headphones with bluetooth built in.

As far as default SBC bluetooth audio goes, there are alot of issues that make it hurt sound quality; A) you are recompressing audio that has already been compressed, B) it is being recompressed as mpeg2 which is older, and C) recompressing using the same mpeg algorithms just impacts sound quality exponentially. In the end under the best circumstances, you still lose a noticeable amount of high and low end. SBC is fine for portable speakers and basic car audio, but like in my car I play my music from a USB stick because it just sounds so much better then streaming it from SBC.

Now some people took notice of this, and that is why we have AptX. AptX is a proprietary codec+profile from a company designed for bluetooth to greatly help with the failings of SBC. Mainly it is overall a better audio compression and supports higher bitrates, and it uses an algorithm which when applied to a previously compressed mpeg stream doesn't hurt it nearly as much. The problems with AptX is it is a hardware supported feature, and both the playback and receiver device must support it. This also means royalties need to be paid where as SBC is totally free.

Thankfully you will find AptX on LGs, samsungs, and HTC's phones from the last several years, although apple has yet to jump in the pool. Finding headphone and speaker support is still a little troubling. I have purchased a number of cheap bluetooth receivers, and while they were able to offer better then SBC sound quality they suffered from poor DACs and lots of hiss. The last device I purchased was the http://www.ebay.com/itm/Avantree-Ap...mitter-and-Receiver-Saturn-Pro-/232299322175? , it features very good sound quality but still has a problem with noticeable levels of hiss. unfortunately the only ones with an interest in aptX receivers are Chinese manufacturers looking to build cheap devices that offer a little bit more then the rest of the chaf.

Now something I haven't been able to research much because it is something I just happen to stumble over when looking at some more of the recent BT headphones, some of them have apps, and may even require that these apps be installed. For instance the samsung level u pro. When paired, the phone even says it must download this app. This leads me to wonder if some of these new bluetooth headphones are utilizing a custom application which streams the audio untouched, using the bluetooth as a file transfer medium only and letting the software in the headphones and the app manage the data stream contents. This breaks alot of bluetooths universal uses (only android and iOS support, the samsung level u pro apparently has compatibility issues across android phone models even) but would still be the ideal solution for QUALITY wireless headphones. I still need to research this more.

Edit: used a2db instead of SBC, they are not interchangeable. a2db is the profile and SBC is the codec.