Can Bluetooth Actually Sound GOOD?!
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
865 words · ~4 min read
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how many times has this happened to you you're in the middle of a game a
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conference call or you're jamming out to some embarrassing music when you have to
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get up and go answer the phone forgetting that you're using a wired
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pair of headphones the cord drags your laptop to the ground and making matters
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worse you lose your balance trying to catch it and now you've got both a
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broken computer and no idea when that pizza you ordered is coming so the
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advantages of having a wireless audio solution from someone like our sponsor
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for today's video antlion are pretty obvious but there's plenty
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more to choosing the correct one other than finding something without wires and
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calling it a day and if you're looking for a bluetooth device much has been
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made of choosing the correct codec
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but how much does that matter well you can learn more about codecs up here but
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simply put a codec is the scheme that your devices will use to encode and
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decode a digital signal to produce actual sound so if you're looking for a
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bluetooth speaker or headset it almost certainly supports a codec called sbc
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this codec is kind of the universal lowest common denominator that allows a
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huge range of playback devices and speakers to work with each other and it
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actually delivers decent enough results it supports up to 328 kbit per second
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bit rates which is about what you'd get with a spotify premium subscription and
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many people would actually be hard-pressed to tell the difference
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between sbc and fancier codex
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however it's important to remember that this doesn't necessarily mean that your
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tracks that you're paying your 10 bucks a month for will sound exactly like
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you'd expect on an sbc speaker or headphones the vast majority of the
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audio that you listen to over the internet is compressed and spc
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re-compresses that audio with its own algorithm to preserve battery life at
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the expense of sound quality so some people will be able to tell the
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difference especially with higher end gear
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so sbc isn't a terrible codec but there
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are better ones other codecs such as aptx and aac support higher bandwidth
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and therefore higher quality audio and the very premium optics hd and ldac even
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boast that they support 24-bit audio streams
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with that said audio that high-res has
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long been the subject of controversy with many enthusiasts claiming that
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virtually no one can tell the difference between 24-bit audio and the standard
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16-bit stream that you'd hear on something like a cd
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but could there be more to codex than just sound quality
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yes a more important difference that better codec can make is in the latency
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that is the delay caused by the time it takes for your devices to receive and
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process a signal have you ever noticed an unacceptably long audio delay when
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watching a video or playing a game using bluetooth where the audio simply doesn't
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sync up with what's happening on screen well if that's the case you might want
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to look into devices that support the optics ll codec with ll standing for low
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latency this codec can cut down on that pesky audio delay several times over so
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give it a shot if you game or watch lots of movies over bluetooth
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just remember that whichever codec you're interested in has to be supported
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by both your source device and the speaker or headphones so some research
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is required before buying especially because it's difficult to check what
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codec you're currently using in Windows
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unfortunately it might be difficult to find this information on some gadgets
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such as laptops a little patience though will be worth it if you're tired of
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everything you watch looking like a badly dubbed kung fu movie
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speaking of patience bear with me for a moment while i tell you about our
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sponsor for today's episode antlion audio's modmic wireless microphone
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allows you to attach a mic to your favorite headphones you simply stick it
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to pretty much any headphones you'd like with its magnetic mounting system and
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then using aptx technology which of course we talked about today they're
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able to achieve ultra low latency that's up to five times faster than standard
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bluetooth it's got dual mic modes to allow for omni or uni-directional light
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pickup with the switch on the mic and it features 12 hours of battery life and
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you can even charge it while it's in use it's cross-platform compatible so it'll
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work with pc Windows mac and ps4 and you can check it out at LMG.gg
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wireless modmic we're going to have that linked below
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so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos leave a
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