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Most audiophiles ignore bluetooth headphones due to sound quality + latency, so we (audiophiles) stick to wired at home and we also have dedicated headphone amp

Most audiophiles ignore bluetooth headphones due to sound quality + latency, so we (audiophiles) stick to wired at home and we also have dedicated headphone amps since the pissy sound card D/A convertors are incredibly bad. Bluetooth only when I’m doing yard work. Sadly, modern music is tuned to crappy headphones, crappy car systems, crappy speakers … I miss the 80’s audiophile obsession, the equipment had heart, and mixing and mastering was generations ahead of current (mainstream) music production.

dmd 9mo ago
What does audio have to do with this post?
- petit_robert 9mo ago
  GP seems to mean that if people cared about audio quality, they would not use bluetooth in the first place? Audiophiles tend to have firm stances on what is acceptable or not, I find.
  - K0balt 9mo ago
    There are also some amazing cables available in the space. Especially the digital cables, they are really amazing.
    - brohee 9mo ago
      A friend worked in an audiophile shop during his physics master and he'd swear the customer base was the most gullible bunch he ever saw... And mostly unswayable by rational arguments. In any case someone ought to shear the sheep....
      - calmworm 9mo ago
        I suspect some of that disconnect is because hearing itself isn’t standardized. Differences in frequency perception, hearing loss, and training can make two people genuinely hear different things.
        bzzzt 9mo ago
        Of course people have different hearing, but the audiophile market is overflowing with snake-oil stuff like 'oxygen free copper' cables to 'acoustic resonator discs'. Nobody's proven any of that stuff results in better sound quality (or even different quality after you graduate from junk stuff to reasonable equipment). Seems like an awfully expensive way of experiencing the placebo effect to me.
        dmd 9mo ago
        I know someone who spent upwards of $10k on a single 3-foot HDMI cable that was 'infused with Peruvian copper'. He says it makes the colors "more true".
      - JCattheATM 9mo ago
        100% - most 'audiophile' wouldn't pass a blind test checking audio quality.
Rubberducky1324 9mo ago
I'm really enjoying my Focal Bathys Bluetooth headphones! Sure, wired options will always be better, but when I want convenience, I've been really impressed with these!
ricardobeat 9mo ago
- Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz - aptX can do 44/16 in other devices, Sony has LDAC at 24/96 too - latency under <100ms is meaningless for pure audio listening, video players have latency compensation We have amazing technology available today, at prices and quality unimaginable in the 80s. A $50 in-ear from a chinese hi-fi brand can give you an audio experience you couldn’t buy for thousands of dollars a decade ago. And there’s more and more analog hardware being designed and built as technology costs have fallen. You’re really missing out if you think things were better back then.
- astrange 9mo ago
  > - Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz Only Vision Pro has wireless lossless audio and it works because it's right next to the AirPods. But your phone can passthrough AAC over Bluetooth as long as it doesn't have to mix system sounds or anything in.
- Sohcahtoa82 9mo ago
  > - aptX can do 44/16 in other devices, Sony has LDAC at 24/96 too FWIW, 44/16 can still sound like garbage if compressed using lossy compression with a low bitrate. But aptX is over 300 kbps. That's plenty of bandwidth to sound excellent, and I think anybody who says it doesn't sound good is lying to themselves.
bdavbdav 9mo ago
I think many still recognise the train, car, going for a run / cycle, gym… isn’t an optimum listening environment and the convenience significantly outweighs AQ in a lot of situations.
astrange 9mo ago
"Sound quality" is a theoretical goal which can't be achieved in practice unless you listen in a perfectly quiet room. Your audiophile open-back headphones can't achieve their rated sound quality if eg there's a CPU fan in the room, or if you're wearing glasses, or if your head just doesn't fit the headphones the same way as the tester's dummy head mic did.
TimCookroach 9mo ago
[dead]
taneliv 9mo ago
From a security point of view music listening is quite marginal, I think. The vulnerable headsets make conversations trivial to eavesdrop. Average communication input is in a noisy environment (colleagues, family, wind, equipment, car), and is compressed both in the dynamic range and bitrate sense before sending out. The transport medium then provides latency and packet loss. The fidelity of the audio equipment on the receiving side plays very little role. I imagine even audiophiles quite readily use even below mid-range wireless headsets for conversations, just because they are more convenient. In other words, I don't take calls on my wired AKG headphones, even though my phone has a 3.5mm jack. I'm particularly fond of my €30 in-ear BT headset that provides good enough input and output even when I'm biking. I can't be bothered to check if the model is on the vulnerable devices list, the phone company / Meta / Alphabet / some governments and so on can surveil my communications anyway. Adding a random passer-by to the mix does not meaningfully increase the attack surface. Plus they might get to listen to awesome music, if I'm not on a call.

dmd 9mo ago

What does audio have to do with this post?

petit_robert 9mo ago
GP seems to mean that if people cared about audio quality, they would not use bluetooth in the first place? Audiophiles tend to have firm stances on what is acceptable or not, I find.
- K0balt 9mo ago
  There are also some amazing cables available in the space. Especially the digital cables, they are really amazing.
  - brohee 9mo ago
    A friend worked in an audiophile shop during his physics master and he'd swear the customer base was the most gullible bunch he ever saw... And mostly unswayable by rational arguments. In any case someone ought to shear the sheep....
    - calmworm 9mo ago
      I suspect some of that disconnect is because hearing itself isn’t standardized. Differences in frequency perception, hearing loss, and training can make two people genuinely hear different things.
      - bzzzt 9mo ago
        Of course people have different hearing, but the audiophile market is overflowing with snake-oil stuff like 'oxygen free copper' cables to 'acoustic resonator discs'. Nobody's proven any of that stuff results in better sound quality (or even different quality after you graduate from junk stuff to reasonable equipment). Seems like an awfully expensive way of experiencing the placebo effect to me.
        dmd 9mo ago
        I know someone who spent upwards of $10k on a single 3-foot HDMI cable that was 'infused with Peruvian copper'. He says it makes the colors "more true".
    - JCattheATM 9mo ago
      100% - most 'audiophile' wouldn't pass a blind test checking audio quality.

Rubberducky1324 9mo ago

I'm really enjoying my Focal Bathys Bluetooth headphones! Sure, wired options will always be better, but when I want convenience, I've been really impressed with these!

ricardobeat 9mo ago

- Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz - aptX can do 44/16 in other devices, Sony has LDAC at 24/96 too - latency under <100ms is meaningless for pure audio listening, video players have latency compensation We have amazing technology available today, at prices and quality unimaginable in the 80s. A $50 in-ear from a chinese hi-fi brand can give you an audio experience you couldn’t buy for thousands of dollars a decade ago. And there’s more and more analog hardware being designed and built as technology costs have fallen. You’re really missing out if you think things were better back then.

astrange 9mo ago
> - Apple has a lossless codec for wireless, ALAC that can do up to 24bit/192khz Only Vision Pro has wireless lossless audio and it works because it's right next to the AirPods. But your phone can passthrough AAC over Bluetooth as long as it doesn't have to mix system sounds or anything in.
Sohcahtoa82 9mo ago
> - aptX can do 44/16 in other devices, Sony has LDAC at 24/96 too FWIW, 44/16 can still sound like garbage if compressed using lossy compression with a low bitrate. But aptX is over 300 kbps. That's plenty of bandwidth to sound excellent, and I think anybody who says it doesn't sound good is lying to themselves.

bdavbdav 9mo ago

I think many still recognise the train, car, going for a run / cycle, gym… isn’t an optimum listening environment and the convenience significantly outweighs AQ in a lot of situations.

astrange 9mo ago

"Sound quality" is a theoretical goal which can't be achieved in practice unless you listen in a perfectly quiet room. Your audiophile open-back headphones can't achieve their rated sound quality if eg there's a CPU fan in the room, or if you're wearing glasses, or if your head just doesn't fit the headphones the same way as the tester's dummy head mic did.

TimCookroach 9mo ago

[dead]

taneliv 9mo ago

From a security point of view music listening is quite marginal, I think. The vulnerable headsets make conversations trivial to eavesdrop. Average communication input is in a noisy environment (colleagues, family, wind, equipment, car), and is compressed both in the dynamic range and bitrate sense before sending out. The transport medium then provides latency and packet loss. The fidelity of the audio equipment on the receiving side plays very little role. I imagine even audiophiles quite readily use even below mid-range wireless headsets for conversations, just because they are more convenient. In other words, I don't take calls on my wired AKG headphones, even though my phone has a 3.5mm jack. I'm particularly fond of my €30 in-ear BT headset that provides good enough input and output even when I'm biking. I can't be bothered to check if the model is on the vulnerable devices list, the phone company / Meta / Alphabet / some governments and so on can surveil my communications anyway. Adding a random passer-by to the mix does not meaningfully increase the attack surface. Plus they might get to listen to awesome music, if I'm not on a call.