Opus! It’s a merge of a codec designed for speech (from Skype!) with one designed for high quality audio by Xiph (same people who made OGG/Vorbis).
Although it needs some more work on latency, it prefers to work on bigger frames but default than Bluetooth packets likes, but I’ve seen there’s work on standardizing a version that fits Bluetooth. Google even has it implemented now on Pixel devices.
Why use lossless for that when transparent lossy compression already does that with so much less bandwidth?
Opus is indistinguishable from lossless at 192 Kbps. Lossless needs roughly 800 - 1400 Kbps. That’s a savings of between 4x - 7x with the exact same quality.
Your wireless antenna often draws more energy in proportion to bandwidth use than the decoder chip does, so using high quality lossy even gives you better battery life, on top of also being more tolerant to radio noise (easier to add error correction) and having better latency (less time needed to send each audio packet). And you can even get better range with equivalent radio chips due to needing less bandwidth!
You only need lossless for editing or as a source for transcoding, there’s no need for it when just listening to media
This has strong “nobody needs a monitor over 120Hz because the human eye can’t see it” logic. Transparency is completely subjective and people have different perceptions and sensitivities to audio and video compression artifacts. The quality of the hardware playing it back is also going to make a difference, and different setups are going to have a different ceiling for what can be heard.
The vast majority of people are genuinely going to hear zero difference between even 320kbps and a FLAC but that doesn’t mean there actually is zero difference, you’re still losing audio data. Even going from a 24-bit to a 16-bit FLAC can have a perceptible difference.
The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem isn’t subjective, it’s physics.
Your example isn’t great because it’s about misconceptions about the eye, not about physical limits. The physical limits for transparency are real and absolute, not subjective. The eye can perceive quick flashes of objects that takes less than a thousandth of a second. The reason we rarely go above 120 Hz for monitors (other than cost) is because differences in continous movement barely can be perceived so it’s rarely worth it.
We know where the upper limits for perception are. The difference typically lies in the encoder / decoder or physical setup, not the information a good codec is able to embedd with that bitrate.
The world of audio would be more of a mess if Bluetooth was developed scrapped and replaced according to what seems to be your recommendations. I’m glad they did it the way they did.
It’s not time for change. Just alternatives for snobs.
Well bluetooth doesn’t carry enough bitrate to accomplish this. Besides. Apple won’t and doesn’t need to because their AAC encoder is superior. There is no other bluetooth codec that comes even close. Every codec that claims to be the best one yet is more marketing than anything.
Vendors reframed the narrative for SBC to be dog shit so they can push their own as cutting edge new tech. In reality SBC isn’t that bad. The vendor codecs aren’t that good. And Apple has some kind of secret sauce in their AAC encoder that results in really good quality reproduction of audio.
As far as I’ve seen most of the gimmicky codecs are spins of existing old technology. AAC itself is old too but at least one vendor Apple has focused on making their implementation good. We don’t need another standard+1. We just need a common standard done well. If only Apple would open theirs.
BT 5 has max bandwidth of 2Mbps, which would in theory be enough for “CD quality”, i.e 44.1khz/16 bit raw uncompressed audio, as that’s around 1.4Mbps. In real life conditions it isn’t. AFAIK aptX lossless gets close by doing some compression.
But if you go full audiophile levels and start demanding lossless 192khz 24 bit audio, that’s 10Mbps and not even remotely possible over BT no matter what you’d try.
We really need someone other than Qualcomm & Apple to come up with lossless Bluetooth audio codecs.
TBF the whole Bluetooth audio situation is a complete mess
Opus! It’s a merge of a codec designed for speech (from Skype!) with one designed for high quality audio by Xiph (same people who made OGG/Vorbis).
Although it needs some more work on latency, it prefers to work on bigger frames but default than Bluetooth packets likes, but I’ve seen there’s work on standardizing a version that fits Bluetooth. Google even has it implemented now on Pixel devices.
Fully free codec!
opus isn’t lossless
Nobody needs lossless over Bluetooth
Edit: plenty of downvotes by people who have never listened to ABX tests with high quality lossy compare versus lossless
At high bitrate lossy you literally can’t distinguish it. There’s math to prove it;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem
At 44 kHz 16 bit with over 192 Kbps with good encoders your ear literally can’t physically discern the difference
The minute lossless becomes available wirelessly I’ll ditch my ridiculous headphone cable.
Nobody “needs” to listen to music over Bluetooth at all, but why not make it sound like it’s supposed to?
Why use lossless for that when transparent lossy compression already does that with so much less bandwidth?
Opus is indistinguishable from lossless at 192 Kbps. Lossless needs roughly 800 - 1400 Kbps. That’s a savings of between 4x - 7x with the exact same quality.
Your wireless antenna often draws more energy in proportion to bandwidth use than the decoder chip does, so using high quality lossy even gives you better battery life, on top of also being more tolerant to radio noise (easier to add error correction) and having better latency (less time needed to send each audio packet). And you can even get better range with equivalent radio chips due to needing less bandwidth!
You only need lossless for editing or as a source for transcoding, there’s no need for it when just listening to media
This has strong “nobody needs a monitor over 120Hz because the human eye can’t see it” logic. Transparency is completely subjective and people have different perceptions and sensitivities to audio and video compression artifacts. The quality of the hardware playing it back is also going to make a difference, and different setups are going to have a different ceiling for what can be heard.
The vast majority of people are genuinely going to hear zero difference between even 320kbps and a FLAC but that doesn’t mean there actually is zero difference, you’re still losing audio data. Even going from a 24-bit to a 16-bit FLAC can have a perceptible difference.
The Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem isn’t subjective, it’s physics.
Your example isn’t great because it’s about misconceptions about the eye, not about physical limits. The physical limits for transparency are real and absolute, not subjective. The eye can perceive quick flashes of objects that takes less than a thousandth of a second. The reason we rarely go above 120 Hz for monitors (other than cost) is because differences in continous movement barely can be perceived so it’s rarely worth it.
We know where the upper limits for perception are. The difference typically lies in the encoder / decoder or physical setup, not the information a good codec is able to embedd with that bitrate.
for bluetooth to be a proper replacement for wired audio it needs to support 56kbps dial up.
Ah yes, good old TS3 and Mumble times.
discord also uses opus
is opus the one that allows high quality mic and headphone at the same time over Bluetooth?
That’s more than a codec question, that’s a Bluetooth audio profile question. Bluetooth LE Audio should support higher quality (including with Opus)
Bluetooth as a whole is kind of a mess if we’re being honest.
That’s what happens when you have a 25 year old protocol and try to maintain backwards compatibility through all of the versions.
The world of audio would be more of a mess if Bluetooth was developed scrapped and replaced according to what seems to be your recommendations. I’m glad they did it the way they did.
It’s not time for change. Just alternatives for snobs.
Can we name a more poorly implemented protocol? Probably. One used as much as Bluetooth? Probably not.
NAT
SMTP?
Comes from being a compromise “standard”. The name says it all, being named after a king that brought multiple tribes together.
Isn’t LDAC made by sony?
Correct. Qualcomm makes aptX
Proprietary by Sony, but they did open source it
Don’t they make the encoder free, but license the decoder?
Sony created LDAC
On Windows, Alternative ADP2 driver provides LDAC support. It’s a few bucks, but also the only option I know of.
Just use uncompressed 16bit/48khz! We’re not bats that would need 96khz audio!
Well bluetooth doesn’t carry enough bitrate to accomplish this. Besides. Apple won’t and doesn’t need to because their AAC encoder is superior. There is no other bluetooth codec that comes even close. Every codec that claims to be the best one yet is more marketing than anything.
Vendors reframed the narrative for SBC to be dog shit so they can push their own as cutting edge new tech. In reality SBC isn’t that bad. The vendor codecs aren’t that good. And Apple has some kind of secret sauce in their AAC encoder that results in really good quality reproduction of audio.
As far as I’ve seen most of the gimmicky codecs are spins of existing old technology. AAC itself is old too but at least one vendor Apple has focused on making their implementation good. We don’t need another standard+1. We just need a common standard done well. If only Apple would open theirs.
Except Opus. Beats it at most bitrates
BT 5 has max bandwidth of 2Mbps, which would in theory be enough for “CD quality”, i.e 44.1khz/16 bit raw uncompressed audio, as that’s around 1.4Mbps. In real life conditions it isn’t. AFAIK aptX lossless gets close by doing some compression.
But if you go full audiophile levels and start demanding lossless 192khz 24 bit audio, that’s 10Mbps and not even remotely possible over BT no matter what you’d try.