8 ms·
The Bluetooth headset latency kills me, especially now so many devices are losing the headphone jack. As a hobbyist musician its unusable, same issue for games.
by mangecoeur 6y ago
The Bluetooth headset latency kills me, especially now so many devices are losing the headphone jack. As a hobbyist musician its unusable, same issue for games.
It’s just worse in every respect and the headsets cost three times as much for the equivalent sound quality.
- nautical 6y agoI completely agree with you .. The latency in wireless headphones is bad .. It is clearly noticeable in games and even in general music playing sometimes .. I cant imagine people playing serious games on mobile devices without headphone jack.
- mvanbaak 6y agoI simply can't imagine people playing serious games on mobile devices period.
- samoa42 6y agoi feel ya. people with a desktop computer are a minority thou.
- camehere2saydis 6y agoI simply can't imagine serious games.
- cybercatgurrl 6y agoI got tired of having ads constantly shoved in my face for games I already paid for that then go free. That's when I realised games on mobile were never going to work for me.
- imtringued 6y agoHandheld consoles have lots of serious games. You just need to be on a platform that values serious gaming, not 5 min play sessions.
- mnky9800n 6y agoThe only advantage is that when I'm running there isn't an annoying cable to fuck with. There is no other benefit that I can see. But I started running more to justify the purchase. Ahahaa.
- sjy 6y agoSame here, but now when I run past other people using wireless devices the sound breaks up. Still probably better than a cable swinging around.
- wishinghand 6y agoSame. I only got bluetooth earbuds for going to the gym. I specifically got ones that are sweat and water proof because otherwise I wouldn't use them. Cabled earbuds are far superior in every other way.
- m0xte 6y agoI’m waiting for some airpods to be delivered today so this is painful to read. I don’t mind a few ms of latency but are we talking noticeably bad latency? The only experience I have is with BT pairing with my car for music. I don’t even use voice in the car.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- spongeb00b 6y agoFor playing music or even calls you won’t notice any difference. The problem is trying to use and app like GarageBand where you need instant response to instrument control. In fact, first time you open GarageBand and it detects you’re using Bluetooth it’ll give you that warning.
- m0xte 6y agoThanks. Just arrived and saw that. It’s not that bad though. I’m not using them for GarageBand though. Phew :)
- enriquto 6y ago> For playing music What do you mean by "playing"? I play the digital piano with wired headphones, and with bluetooth sound it is absolutely unplayable due to the latency.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cma 6y agoPlaying as in pressing play and listening. He was separately talking about interactive playing with the GarageBand example.
- cfn 6y agoIn my experience it varies a lot. I don't have airpods but I have some other wireless earbuds without any noticeable latency. Later I bought a different model from the same manufacturer (Anker) and they are useless for video of any kind. I also have a pair of Sony wireless headphones that have no latency I can discern.
- ksec 6y agoI think the first gen AirPod was 200ms, and current AirPod Pro had it down to ~150ms. Which is already the outliner in the industry as most are still 250ms+. Compared to Wired Headphone of 5ms latency. At least Apple continues the R&D to lower latency. Hopefully someday it will reach sub 50ms.
- magicalhippo 6y agoDoes the phone adjust for this when playing videos? Because I find even 50ms desync between audio and video to be very jarring.
- ksec 6y agoThat is a very good point. I have no idea as I dont use it to watch video. Would not be surprised to see if that was the case.
- narrowtux 6y agoYes, phones delay video playback so it matches the reported latency of the audio device. This works via networked audio protocols as well, at least on Apple devices in my experience.
- jimmySixDOF 6y agoThe popular type is from Qualcomm called AptX Low Latency (not the same as 'lossless' AptX HD versions) and you need it on both sides xmt/receive. I have never seen this supported natively before so I got them as a pair of headphone jack to BT dongle adapters. Video works fine on Hotel TVs which was my normal useage. A normal old school ISM band headphone with transmitter base is better for TV but the dongles travel better.
- zoul 6y agoThis can be easily seen in action when playing audio over AirPlay where the latency is ~2 seconds. When you press Play the video waits for a moment to compensate for the audio delay and only starts after the two-second delay to sync with audio.
- 6y ago
- cactus2093 6y agoI agree for music creation or gaming, but in general wires are definitely annoying and limiting. I could never give up my Bluetooth headphones now for everyday use - wireless plus noise cancellation makes such a big difference when commuting or in the office. The weird thing is, low latency wireless audio transmission is quite common. Like those used for in-ear monitoring on stage, or wireless guitar cables, that just broadcast over rf frequencies. I don’t understand why no one sells headphones using technologies like this, even if it meant a dongle that needs to be plugged into your computer as well. Interference would probably be an issue if a full train car of people were trying to use this or something, so I get why Bluetooth is a better, more standardized default. But I would love to have the option of an alternative. I would definitely buy low latency wireless headphones to use while playing music.
- petra 6y ago// low latency wireless audio transmission is quite common. The new Qualcomm aptX adaptive standard supports lowish latency - ~80ms. list of official supported devices: https://www.aptx.com/product-listing?aptx_type=336 https://www.aptx.com/product-listing?aptx_type=336 It might also work in general , with android 10 devices, but this need verifying.
- atoav 6y agoAs a musician I'd call anything ≤10ms low, while 20ms would be okay and usable. Something like 80ms would just be distracting fo anything rhythmic (okay for pad stuff or other slow swelling sounds)
- zaroth 6y agoI’m definitely 9/10 for wires rather than against. But on the minus side, I have a chirp in my headset (obviously some interference from the motherboard) when connecting with a wire that isn’t there over Bluetooth. Sometimes wires fail too.