4 ms·

Not everything at the <£100 price point is rubbish... I recently got a £20 Havit Bluetooth receiver and connected it to a pair of £70 Sony MDR-7506 headphones.

by danw1979 8y ago

Not everything at the <£100 price point is rubbish... I recently got a £20 Havit Bluetooth receiver and connected it to a pair of £70 Sony MDR-7506 headphones. The receiver drives the headphones louder and with less distortion than my iPhone can, and the battery lasts for a few days of intermittent listening. Whatever loss is introduced by the aptX coding is invisible to my ears. I'm blown away by how good this setup is given the price and there shouldn't be any dependency on an expensive source device to run it.

dep_b 8y ago
The DA on older iPhones is mediocre, the DA in those lightning converters is even worse. Try a separate DA if you really want quality audio output.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  > the DA in those lightning converters is even worse Absolutely not true. https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
  - duskwuff 8y ago
    And the DACs in older iPhones are equally good. Mr. Rockwell has reviews of those as well.
  - spronkey 8y ago
    Not to bag on Rockwell, I appreciate his reviews and viewpoints, but do you trust that he has the requisite expertise to correctly analyse the quality of such an adaptor? I... don't. His write-up doesn't inspire confidence either - I have no idea how he has performed the measurements. I know enough to know that audio measurement is a very tricky endeavour, and most other measurements put the lightning adaptor's output at a few dBA worse in SNR and dynamic range than the iPhone 6S' jack output (but otherwise similar). Both are easily worse than a good external DAC. Certainly not "better quality" than the inbuilt option as Rockwell claims. It's good enough for almost everyone, and is likely to be capable of higher fidelity than most source material, but most agree that it is objectively a worse DA.
    - hmottestad 8y ago
      Would honestly love to read any sources you have on the SNR.
- hmottestad 8y ago
  I have to agree with the other commenter here. I have not noticed any difference moving from iPhone 6s to 7 (with dongle) listening through my Shure 530 headphones.
PascLeRasc 8y ago
I've been under the impression iPhones don't do aptX, did you find a workaround?
- SSLy 8y ago
  That would cut into the Beets business.
  - frio 8y ago
    They don't support aptX, but Beats and others (the Sony 1000Xs, for instance) usually support AAC over Bluetooth which is similar in quality.
    - seanp2k2 8y ago
      FYI for anyone wanting higher-quality over Bluetooth, make sure that your devices all support a compatible codec: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-audio-guide/page-2 https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-aud... e.g. iDevices support AAC but not aptX, while Android devices are typically the opposite. See also: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/enable-aptx-aac-bluetooth-audio-codecs-macos/ https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/enable-aptx-aac-bluetooth-a...

dep_b 8y ago

The DA on older iPhones is mediocre, the DA in those lightning converters is even worse. Try a separate DA if you really want quality audio output.

LeoPanthera 8y ago
> the DA in those lightning converters is even worse Absolutely not true. https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
- duskwuff 8y ago
  And the DACs in older iPhones are equally good. Mr. Rockwell has reviews of those as well.
- spronkey 8y ago
  Not to bag on Rockwell, I appreciate his reviews and viewpoints, but do you trust that he has the requisite expertise to correctly analyse the quality of such an adaptor? I... don't. His write-up doesn't inspire confidence either - I have no idea how he has performed the measurements. I know enough to know that audio measurement is a very tricky endeavour, and most other measurements put the lightning adaptor's output at a few dBA worse in SNR and dynamic range than the iPhone 6S' jack output (but otherwise similar). Both are easily worse than a good external DAC. Certainly not "better quality" than the inbuilt option as Rockwell claims. It's good enough for almost everyone, and is likely to be capable of higher fidelity than most source material, but most agree that it is objectively a worse DA.
  - hmottestad 8y ago
    Would honestly love to read any sources you have on the SNR.
hmottestad 8y ago
I have to agree with the other commenter here. I have not noticed any difference moving from iPhone 6s to 7 (with dongle) listening through my Shure 530 headphones.

PascLeRasc 8y ago

I've been under the impression iPhones don't do aptX, did you find a workaround?

SSLy 8y ago
That would cut into the Beets business.
- frio 8y ago
  They don't support aptX, but Beats and others (the Sony 1000Xs, for instance) usually support AAC over Bluetooth which is similar in quality.
  - seanp2k2 8y ago
    FYI for anyone wanting higher-quality over Bluetooth, make sure that your devices all support a compatible codec: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-audio-guide/page-2 https://www.audioholics.com/audio-technologies/bluetooth-aud... e.g. iDevices support AAC but not aptX, while Android devices are typically the opposite. See also: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/enable-aptx-aac-bluetooth-audio-codecs-macos/ https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/enable-aptx-aac-bluetooth-a...