3 ms·

"Interference" and "glitchiness" are kind of hand-wavy, and so is the "known issue" of BT audio quality. If you could link some "hard facts" about those, I'd lo

"Interference" and "glitchiness" are kind of hand-wavy, and so is the "known issue" of BT audio quality. If you could link some "hard facts" about those, I'd love to read on. Yes, you can experience wireless issues with poorly designed devices. But I know people that use BT audio as their primary ways to listen to music, and I'm personally building such a device for my car. I can send audio to it from further than I am willing to test, and I haven't yet had my audio interrupted. As far as I can tell, as long as you're making sure you're using the highest quality standard possible, you'll receive a decent experience. Where the experience breaks down, as I mentioned earlier, is the lack of high-fidelity sound reproduction options due to the size of the decoding circuitry and battery pack. BT audio headphones, though usable, are generally not great. If you have something externally powered (e.g. my car) it is fine... but that use case occurs less often. Perhaps your devices only support the SBC codec, mandatory for inclusion in the standard. Or perhaps your devices have chosen to communicate over the hands-free profile instead of A2DP, which is another issue I've had. I don't claim that 3.5mm jacks will be outdated, and I certainly don't think so either. I just think that BT audio is "good enough" strictly in terms of fidelity, and that other factors confound its inclusion in high-fidelity headphones.

aries1980 9y ago
For bidirectional audio, 64kbit/s is not good enough. On sound quality, the current bluetooth headsets are 2-3x priced over the same brand's top wired headphones, for fraction of the quality. Not just because the aptX HD is not “good enough”, but because the poor DACs. Good enough DACs are power-hungry bugs, it is unlikely to see them built into wireless headsets in 2-3 years time.
bestiesint 9y ago
Fair enough in some respects, but the facts you're looking for are really about product quality ratings, which gets into a quagmire. My point isn't that decent quality audio with BT isn't possible, it's that I don't think BT standards are at the same point as 3.5mm. As you yourself said, if you're saying that BT is fine "as long as you're making sure you're using the highest quality standard possible" then there's a problem. It sounds like you've run into some of the same issues ("choosing to communicate over the hands-free profile"); I think my broader point is that with BT, it seems like there's a lot of those sorts of things. Something like car audio or home stereo, with a nice, well-configured set up, is fine, but for a lot of things it doesn't have the same plug and play kind of simplicity of 3.5 mm. Maybe we agree more than we disagree, although come to different opinions about jacks in phones. To me, BT is a promising thing that's not quite foolproof enough to compare to 3.5mm. In general I feel like mobile device design has this tail-wagging-the-dog problem the last few years.

aries1980 9y ago

For bidirectional audio, 64kbit/s is not good enough. On sound quality, the current bluetooth headsets are 2-3x priced over the same brand's top wired headphones, for fraction of the quality. Not just because the aptX HD is not “good enough”, but because the poor DACs. Good enough DACs are power-hungry bugs, it is unlikely to see them built into wireless headsets in 2-3 years time.

bestiesint 9y ago

Fair enough in some respects, but the facts you're looking for are really about product quality ratings, which gets into a quagmire. My point isn't that decent quality audio with BT isn't possible, it's that I don't think BT standards are at the same point as 3.5mm. As you yourself said, if you're saying that BT is fine "as long as you're making sure you're using the highest quality standard possible" then there's a problem. It sounds like you've run into some of the same issues ("choosing to communicate over the hands-free profile"); I think my broader point is that with BT, it seems like there's a lot of those sorts of things. Something like car audio or home stereo, with a nice, well-configured set up, is fine, but for a lot of things it doesn't have the same plug and play kind of simplicity of 3.5 mm. Maybe we agree more than we disagree, although come to different opinions about jacks in phones. To me, BT is a promising thing that's not quite foolproof enough to compare to 3.5mm. In general I feel like mobile device design has this tail-wagging-the-dog problem the last few years.