iPhone used the DAC in the BT headphones to replicate the audio, not in the phone.
Bluetooth is Bluetooth is Bluetooth - based on chipset and revision spec. AptX alone doesn’t define the audio quality. Your home amp if matched to the bluetooths headphone spec, I.e. 3.0-3.0, will be more critical.
Codecs:
SBC / AAC / LDAC /APTX support a certain range of MB/Sec for audio ... so your lossless audio for bits per minute is it higher than any of these codecs? Is it higher than what the version of Bluetooth transfer rate supports for those codecs? If the answer is yes to any of those then it’s the audio source and thus your argument makes sense to a degree. If the answer is no then you’re just being a stickler against Bluetooth just because it’s bluetooth.
Lossless audio is great and I’ve yet to hear an audiophile determine and explain that the full range of music can be felt as the full range of audio includes many frequencies the human ear cannot hear, not ever but some bass frequencies we can feel in our chest. I’ve yet to come across any headphones that make you feel bass frequencies in your chest like a 12” woofer in an air tight bin concert bin can.
You’ll have to be more specific about AptX and what it supports and a particular Bluetooth spec for both the audio source and receiver (headphones) along with the bit rate the track has.
Also maybe we can choose a list of 5 tracks to try out maybe even a specific min/sec section of where we should hear specific range of music which some audio would fail? Just please don’t select country I’d not do that to my worst enemy (unless it’s Kenny Rogers The Gambler)
It’s quite hard to reply to this properly on my iPhone X vs my MacBook which I don’t have available. You quoted me and I saw a typo or two in the post that I made, which changed the meaning or intent.
“...many of us listen to CD quality lossless music with good in-ear monitors. The Bluetooth built into almost all phones and headphones isn't nearly as good as the bluetooth you might get from an aftermarket DAC/amp like the CEntrance BlueDAC with AptX...”
I had previously tried change “phones” to “headphones” in my post, but then in an episode of poor editing I didn’t remove the word phones, so both were left in my statement. In the headphone forums we call headphones “phones” and I realized I was on a cell-phone forum where the word has another meaning.
I know the DAC and amp is in the BT headphones, which you can tell from the rest of my post that I knew. I was just alluding to the fact that the built-in DAC/amp of most previous iPhones was superior to what we used to experience in most BT headphones. I also meant “headphone amp” not headphone jack in the previous paragraph.
It’s pretty well accepted that BT audio is lossy and limited vs lossless audio. How well our ears can notice the difference is up to the individual. But Lossless is almost always a higher bitrate than most 320k mp3 (usually 500-1411 kbps for 16/44 depending on the codec - FLAC ALAC AIFF OR WAV) although some music that isn’t very complex can be in the 300’s when lossless compressed such as FLAC or ALAC.
I agree that how limited it sounds is indeed also dependent upon the quality of DAC and amp on the headphone end, as well as the implementation they used, and not just the bit-rate. But the transport is also often responsible for introducing jitter (or not) into the signal stream. Up until lately, having “high quality Bluetooth audio” was an oxymoron.
Audioengine makes a BT DAC, the B1, that is quite impressive sounding. It takes the audio stream and re-clocks and upsamples it to 24/96, which removes jitter and retains a sense of transparency that is often lost with compressed music.
CEntrance also has a remarkable product in the BlueDAC that I posted impressions about on head-fi from the launch at CanJam at Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Oct 2017. V-MODA implemented an upgraded DAC/amp in their newer Crossfade Wireless II headphones, which are an upgrade to my original pair.
These devices seem to be an exception to the previously expected noticeable reduction in sound quality with BT audio, but hopefully it’s becomming the new “norm”.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that losing the headphone jack for BT audio requires the addition of another powered device, for which we get to worry about maintaining the charge. And something like the BlueDAC is 4x2x0.7” and not fun to carry around in blue jeans. So I don’t - I mostly use it at home while my iPhone is plugged in to charge.
Add to that the issue that if you don’t want to worry about charging two devices (phone + BT), you can worry more about charging just the one. Apple gave us a 3.5mm headphone dongle that blocks charging of the iPhone. I get battery anxiety and try to stay topped off at all times when I’m out and about, just in case I want to use the headphone dongle and don’t want my phone to die - phone calls are more important than music.
The Apple 3.5mm headphone adapter is a truly remarkable piece of audio tech for it’s size, and does a worthy job of replacing the headphone jack for those opposed to carrying around rechargeable BT headphones. But since I never seemed to have the adapter with me when I needed one, I’ve invested in half a dozen of these in order to keep one attached each of my portable earphones and headphones permanently.
Most of my arguments against losing the headphone jack would be moot if Apple’s 3.5 mm headphone dongle also included the lightning port to keep the phone topped off. The the Belkin rockstar 3.5mm/lightning adapter is almost always out of stock due to high demand, still too big to want to carry everywhere, and too costly to have half a dozen to keep one with several pairs of headphones.
Having an easy way to carry the dongle on our keychain takes away the rest of my concerns when the trade off is a water resistant iPhone. I went 3rd party for that part of the solution this week, with a key ring that holds the dongle with my keys.
