Unsurprising, as there aren't any BT codecs that could provide the necessary bandwidth. By its very nature BT audio is lossy and compressed.
This seems like a bit of a non-story, though it does highlight the value there would have been in giving the AirPods Max a high quality wired audio option.
Couldn't they have invented a non-standard codec that used data transfer to support this though?
Like, I know this isn't trivial, but I could send a FLAC file between computers right now, and this is hardly a recent thing. Couldn't they conceivably use some HLS-esque thing on top of bluetooth to accomplish this?
Granted, I suspect the issue might be bandwidth being too low to make this realistic.
heh, audiophool market is so incredibly stupid. Wooden knobs, extra special power cables, and now audio recordings for Bats. All you gain as a human are aliasing artifacts.
Sony's headphones do digital signal processing of the incoming signal. For instance, there's a user adjustable equalizer. This happens in the headphones themselves, rather than on the device they're connected to. This stuff does truly benefit from a higher bitrate.
That's not how audio codecs encode audio though. If we directly cut off bands that were difficult to encode, most codecs would stop writing anything above 1500hz, and then you'd be listening to a useless mumbled mess. A lossy audio codec will use the FFT algorithm to encode the entire spectrum, and the quality controls how aggressive the algorithm quantizes the waveform (through a process called sampling). On a lossless file, the compression will decode to an identical representation of the original master.
"Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect…really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear…way better sound!!"
> Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect…really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear…way better sound!!
Yeah someone else also replied with this same set of knobs. So what?
I fully understand you are very upset about this 15 year old unsubstantiated post about expensive knobs, but it will
relieve you to know that you could easily take 10 seconds and Google "wooden audiophile mods" and see hundreds of kits for stereos, headphones and DACs for $20-50 depending on what you're modding.
That's fair, I guess they don't really want to force people to have a cell the size of a car battery strapped to their head to listen to music, but it does seem a bit strange to me that a company that prides itself on integrating all their devices to all their other devices didn't see this as a bad PR move.
I once had an old iPod with 128kbps MP3 copies of my FLAC library. I reencoded everything as 256kbps AAC audio (double the bitrate) and noticed the battery life went way up. Turns out those devices had better hardware decoding for AAC.
There are lossless audio wireless gaming headsets. Astro A40 used Kleer, which is 16/44KHz stereo. And now there's also Audeze Penrose.
It should be noted though, that gaming headsets have different priorities. They usually sport bulky design enabling bigger batteries, and low audio latency is a must, so whatever codec is in use it must work fast.
That’s like saying “no video nitrates over 10mbps will have noticeable improvement”. It’s definitely true if you’re watching, say, Khan Academy.
Switch it to a fireworks show and watch the quality suffer.
320kbps MP3 just means the codec allocates 320kb to store each second of compressed signal. Obviously some signals compress better than others and need much lower than that for an acceptable quality (audiobooks are often distributed at 64kbps).
Exactly. Audio codecs for VOIP run as low as 6kbps and sound really good for voices, but completely break down if you try to play any kind of music through them.
From my own experience, 320kbps MP3 is enough to handle any music without noticable audio degradation. I have not done double blind tests, and this was in my 20s when my hearing was a lot better, but at 128 kbps I could clearly hear the loss of quality in some spots like cymbal crashes. At 192 kbps I could not tell the difference between the mp3 and lossless, using good over-ear earphones or speakers.
And as I said, the airpods are medium quality earbuds. Not bad, not great. You will NOT hear any loss of audio quality if you play 320 kbps mp3 through them.
I'm sure most people could not hear any quality loss on 128 kbps mp3 (I don't these days), or even 64. But above 320 there is just no way.
Often, when people say 'I couldn't (or cannot) hear the difference' they are not, or have not, been a/b'ing or making other technically meaningful comparisons. It is effectively saying, 'when I listened to the mp3 it sounded the same as when I listened to the lossless'. These are aesthetic remarks, which also count, but they may not be of value for everyone else.
While i did not do double blind tests, or even blind tests, I did play the problematic sections (like 1-2 seconds) over and over to be sure I could hear the artifacts. It was not some casual listening. And I could only hear the artifacts in specific places, like crash cymbals in rock music, which I never normally listen to.
Glad to hear it (pun intended, if puns are allowed).
The practical difference in the listening experience is, as you infer, negligible, to almost everyone. Classical music, or other such audio with large dynamic ranges, suffer the most. And while those frequencies above 12-16kHz are often the most obviously hit, the entire range suffers in other ways, phase, low end smearing, transient loss. And while first generation lossless to lossy conversion really is an excellent trade off, lossy to lossy very quickly produces audibly worse sound, even 320 to 320 conversion. But you knew that.
Sounds like a job for an iPhone connected to an Apple Lightning to 3.5mm Adapter connected to a 3.5mm cable connected to another Lighting to 3.5mm Adapter to my AirPods!
Bluetooth 3.0 + HS supports 24mbit, certainly enough for 1.4mbit uncompressed CD audio which likely gets compressed to around 0.7mbit using FLAC or the like. Not sure what HS impact is on energy consumption though.
Yeah this is why for me, the Max's are a complement to my desk DAC+HD6XX setup, enabling a wired-like experience away from the desk, without wires. No it's not full fidelity, but that's not really the point.
It's a complete non-story. Nothing BT offers comes anywhere close to wired. Latency, fidelity and stability are all basically 100% in even the cheapest wired connection.
BT does allow you to get around a low-quality DAC on a phone though. If you have decent headphones and listen to music where fidelity really matters (classical, jazz), you can quite readily tell the difference between the wired headphone output on a low-end Android device and e.g. the same headphones plugged into a FiiO Bluetooth amp connected to the phone.
Very true. I was using the fiio BTR3 for a while with my last phone which didn't have a headphone jack. But keeping the connection was so frustrating... It would just randomly drop or crackle. Making sure it was charged too. I switched to a galaxy s10 which is okay fidelity-wise but at least it's usable. Then I got a portable music player for music and audio books which was a game changer. Will never go back, so long as BT is the wireless standard.
The good news is that their competitors aren't afraid to fill in the gaps. I've heard nothing but good things about the Surface Headphones, which also offer the same ANC/over-ear setup as the Airpods Max, just at a $350 cheaper price.
Indeed. The jack's gone on my phone after 4 years of continuous use now, but my go to earbuds are bright pink Sony ones that cost I think £5 at most. They're comfortable and match my ear nicely; I can buy 5 of them for the price of even a fairly bad set of wireless ones.
Not only that, unless you are using Airpods, iPhone bluetooth audio is far inferior to anything out there. Even cheapo Windows sounds better than iPhone bluetooth.
I've tested the stock dongle with high end and generic $1 dongles, and most, even audiophiles cannot tell the difference. Surprisingly the iPad Air 3 seems to have the best sound coming out of the audio jack, far outpacing any of the dongles and predecessors.
I dunno, Apple tossed the headphone jack to the curb and has been preaching the wonders of wireless and now they've introduced a product that can't use wireless. Seems relevant to me.
This headline seems misleading. Unless I'm misreading something, the AirPods Max don't support _hi-res_ lossless, but they do support normal quality lossless.
“That was great news, and while we didn't expect AirPods Max to be able to play the high-res lossless tracks also offered, we did hope the standard lossless would work. Apple says that isn't the case.”
Soon: Apple introduces narrow-beam-tubular-copper-audio-point-to-point-transfer-apparatus which increases bandwidth and removes the need for additional batteries or chargers.
This is genius, and all of you HN nerds trying to laugh at this post are fools. Apple is onto something here: they could completely eliminate the annoyance of Bluetooth by creating a physical analog that you can patch into other devices at will. If they're able to figure out how to route power deliver and high definition audio through the same cable, they'll be lightyears ahead of the market.
> I assume this is an inability for BT to handle bandwidth requirements?
I doubt it. I'm honestly just as confused as you are, though: lossless audio streaming was possible since Bluetooth 4.0 (and before, with powerful enough encoding). Sony has been doing it for years over their LDAC codec, and Apple's AAC codec could probably do most of the heavy lifting with some minor updates.
> That said I think lossless is a gimmick :D
All sound is really just conjecture that our ears and mind make, so you're definitely welcome to your own opinion there. For me though, the difference between 48k and 96k is pretty distinct, with the 16bit/32bit difference being barely noticeable. Of course, you don't need to listen to "high rez" versions of songs to enjoy them though. My daily drivers for out-of-the-house listening are a pair of Galaxy Buds.
> I doubt it. I'm honestly just as confused as you are, though: lossless audio streaming was possible since Bluetooth 4.0 (and before, with powerful enough encoding). Sony has been doing it for years over their LDAC codec, and Apple's AAC codec could probably do most of the heavy lifting with some minor updates
LDAC isn't lossless afaict, and the size difference between lossy and lossless codecs is generally an order of magnitude.
Of course it could also just be lack of a decoder in the headset :D
re: sound quality
I agree it's subjective, but 192KHz (not kbit) seems absurd
Is there any earphone-style device that could plausibly come close to providing enough fidelity to tell the difference between lossless and high-end lossy? I thought that only in rare and controversial cases could anyone tell the difference, and even then only using extremely high-end equipment.
No, there isn’t. This is just a marketing exercise to make people question whether they should use Tidal.
Psychologically some people will worry they aren’t hearing music in the ‘best quality’ if it isn’t lossless, and ‘no perceptible difference’ isn’t enough to remove that doubt.
Traditionally, lossless music has been a more indie-driven scene, mostly distributed through sites like Bandcamp and Beatport. It's certainly become more commercial today (and Tidal is still a ripoff), but I don't think it's fair to take that out on the medium as a whole. Modern lossy codecs are designed to trick your ears into thinking you're hearing the highest quality audio, not actually delivering it. When you remove that psychoacoustic element, it's an objectively different listening experience: whether or not you notice it though is a different discussion.
It depends on the environment and who's listening to it. High end lossy is really good these days (great for casual listening), but I think most people could tell the difference between the two with a basic setup and a quiet room.
Of course, ymmv since audio is entirely subjective. If you enjoy listening to lossy music, you shouldn't let anyone take that away from you.
Funny that the company which aggressively removed wired audio connectors from all its devices is now pushing lossless music which requires wired connectors..
I have a feeling you could put a toggle on that actually does nothing, and people would say they can absolutely tell the difference because the headphones were $500. Audio quality is notoriously subjective and plays right into cognitive price-based biases.
Ultimately if someone is enjoying something, who cares if it’s a placebo or not! I think the world would benefit from more placebos (especially in pharma), as their effects are real!
This sounds like they need to push some higher quality Bluetooth codecs/profiles to be consistent with themselves.
But they also haven't made an attempt to solve the disastrous Bluetooth telephony situation (for context: there are exactly 0 practical ways of using a Bluetooth microphone without sounding like you're calling from the last millennium).
Non-story. AirPods Max only stream via BT. Hi-Res Lossless requires INSANE bandwidth. Bluetooth is naturally lossy. Therefore, AirPods Max cannot support lossless.
76 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadThis seems like a bit of a non-story, though it does highlight the value there would have been in giving the AirPods Max a high quality wired audio option.
Like, I know this isn't trivial, but I could send a FLAC file between computers right now, and this is hardly a recent thing. Couldn't they conceivably use some HLS-esque thing on top of bluetooth to accomplish this?
Granted, I suspect the issue might be bandwidth being too low to make this realistic.
It still isn't proper Hi-Res and won't be enough for Apple's Hi-Res Lossless, but it's a lot better than standard BT audio.
[0]https://www.soundguys.com/ldac-ultimate-bluetooth-guide-2002...
heh, audiophool market is so incredibly stupid. Wooden knobs, extra special power cables, and now audio recordings for Bats. All you gain as a human are aliasing artifacts.
not difficult to encode, inaudible to humans
>entire spectrum
oh boy, so why does Hi-Res stop at 192KHz? clearly its not the entire spectrum. We should be encoding at least to couple MHz, right? more better!
Wooden knobs are fun. People like things that are fun. Chill out.
"Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect…really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear…way better sound!!"
"Now to be fair, I couldn't find the actual website for the above as the link now provides an error message"
https://web.archive.org/web/20000511085018/http://www.askjee...
When someone is selling snakeoil, that's not fun. That's just shitty.
> Dynamics are better and overall naturalness is improved. Here is a test for all you Silver Rock owners. Try removing the bakelite knobs and listen. You will be shocked by this! The signature knobs will have an even greater effect…really amazing! The point here is the micro vibrations created by the volume pots and knobs find their way into the delicate signal path and cause degradation (Bad vibrations equal bad sound). With the signature knobs micro vibrations from the C37 concept of wood, bronze and the lacquer itself compensate for the volume pots and provide (Good Vibrations) our ear/brain combination like to hear…way better sound!!
Just about all of this is bollocks.
Here's where Boing Boing got the link, https://web.archive.org/web/20051124101630/http://www.ilikej...
And here's the original site: https://web.archive.org/web/20051214132650/http://www.refere...
I fully understand you are very upset about this 15 year old unsubstantiated post about expensive knobs, but it will relieve you to know that you could easily take 10 seconds and Google "wooden audiophile mods" and see hundreds of kits for stereos, headphones and DACs for $20-50 depending on what you're modding.
https://old.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/5lzar8/what_do_...
"wooden knobs are fun"
- "actually one time, 15 years ago, someone tried to sell wooden knobs for $500, therefore wooden knobs are not fun"
You must be great at parties.
EDIT:
Added a "don't" to the first sentence.
It should be noted though, that gaming headsets have different priorities. They usually sport bulky design enabling bigger batteries, and low audio latency is a must, so whatever codec is in use it must work fast.
It’s not like anything above 320 kbps mp3 will be detectable.
Switch it to a fireworks show and watch the quality suffer.
320kbps MP3 just means the codec allocates 320kb to store each second of compressed signal. Obviously some signals compress better than others and need much lower than that for an acceptable quality (audiobooks are often distributed at 64kbps).
And as I said, the airpods are medium quality earbuds. Not bad, not great. You will NOT hear any loss of audio quality if you play 320 kbps mp3 through them.
I'm sure most people could not hear any quality loss on 128 kbps mp3 (I don't these days), or even 64. But above 320 there is just no way.
The practical difference in the listening experience is, as you infer, negligible, to almost everyone. Classical music, or other such audio with large dynamic ranges, suffer the most. And while those frequencies above 12-16kHz are often the most obviously hit, the entire range suffers in other ways, phase, low end smearing, transient loss. And while first generation lossless to lossy conversion really is an excellent trade off, lossy to lossy very quickly produces audibly worse sound, even 320 to 320 conversion. But you knew that.
Arguably there should just be a lightning-to-lightning connection option, but where there's a dongle, there's a way.
Ideally is corded mic and corded ethernet. Failing that, corded headset and wifi from a phone is runner up.
It's a 3.5mm deal-breaker.
I've tested the stock dongle with high end and generic $1 dongles, and most, even audiophiles cannot tell the difference. Surprisingly the iPad Air 3 seems to have the best sound coming out of the audio jack, far outpacing any of the dongles and predecessors.
This time it's 3.1mm (slim connector).
I recall BT (LE maybe?) you only have relatively small periodic windows to transmit data.
That said I think lossless is a gimmick :D
I doubt it. I'm honestly just as confused as you are, though: lossless audio streaming was possible since Bluetooth 4.0 (and before, with powerful enough encoding). Sony has been doing it for years over their LDAC codec, and Apple's AAC codec could probably do most of the heavy lifting with some minor updates.
> That said I think lossless is a gimmick :D
All sound is really just conjecture that our ears and mind make, so you're definitely welcome to your own opinion there. For me though, the difference between 48k and 96k is pretty distinct, with the 16bit/32bit difference being barely noticeable. Of course, you don't need to listen to "high rez" versions of songs to enjoy them though. My daily drivers for out-of-the-house listening are a pair of Galaxy Buds.
LDAC isn't lossless afaict, and the size difference between lossy and lossless codecs is generally an order of magnitude.
Of course it could also just be lack of a decoder in the headset :D
re: sound quality
I agree it's subjective, but 192KHz (not kbit) seems absurd
Psychologically some people will worry they aren’t hearing music in the ‘best quality’ if it isn’t lossless, and ‘no perceptible difference’ isn’t enough to remove that doubt.
The rest of us can relax.
Of course, ymmv since audio is entirely subjective. If you enjoy listening to lossy music, you shouldn't let anyone take that away from you.
Ultimately if someone is enjoying something, who cares if it’s a placebo or not! I think the world would benefit from more placebos (especially in pharma), as their effects are real!
But they also haven't made an attempt to solve the disastrous Bluetooth telephony situation (for context: there are exactly 0 practical ways of using a Bluetooth microphone without sounding like you're calling from the last millennium).
Maybe with LE Audio ...