5 ms·

The problem seems to be with the data rate that is possible over Bluetooth, isn’t it?

• _ph_ 5y ago
  Yes, for wireless mode bluetooth is probably the limitation. They could have supported data via lightning cable, if they had wanted it, but currently only analog audio is supported via a custom lightning cable.
  • periheli0n 5y ago
    But isn’t analog audio identical to lossless?
    • tshaddox 5y ago
      Not when the headphones re-digitize the analog signal, which I suspect is how they are designed to support the signal processing and noise cancellation features.
      • periheli0n 5y ago
        But as soon as signal processing and noise cancellation enter the picture, there will be signal loss. So even if lossless could be transmitted wirelessly, there will be loss due to signal processing. At most what could be gained is one less ad/da conversion to go through. The the question presents itself, why not buy wired analog headphones in the first place.
  • tshaddox 5y ago
    That custom lightning cable is 3.5mm on the other end, so it’s not surprising that it’s analog-only. What is apparently surprising to some people is that the headphones re-digitize the analog signal before processing the signal (and eventually converting back to analog for the actual headphone drivers). Personally, that isn’t too surprising to me for noise-cancelling headphones, although I have no idea if it’s the case with other noise-canceling headphones that accept analog input.
    • fomine3 5y ago
      Some wireless headphones works passively with 3.5mm without power on. In my experience, MDR-1ABT works great maybe because it's just BT version of MDR-1A, but WH-1000XM3 and Beoplay H9i (both NC) work bad maybe because it's not optimized for it. I wonder there are any NC headphones works great for both.