How bad is blue tooth audio?

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losthighway
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How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by losthighway » Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:23 pm

I listen to it all the time at work. Slick stuff still sounds pretty vibrant, but I notice as I've got a Spotify stream going of somewhat poorly produced 80's punk records, or whatever, that they sound really bad to me. Then I think the stream plus blue tooth is enhancing the badness.

Once in a while I get an email responding to a first pass of a mix I did for someone and I just click on my link to hear the song in a different room, and it sounds weird to me.

All of this makes me wonder what blue tooth is doing to what I'm hearing.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by digitaldrummer » Sun Oct 03, 2021 6:56 am

I don't think it is bluetooth. it is usually the D/A converters on what ever listening device you have. bluetooth is just taking digital data and moving it wirelessly. Digital is digital. if the data is transmitted correctly then it is supposed to be the same on both ends of that transmission. but converting it back to analog to play through a speaker or headphone amp is where they typically really suck. especially on cheaper devices.

edit: apparently it is not that straightforward. there are CODECs involved and many competing versions so there may be some that are better than others. So that means that not only are the D/A converters able to mess up the sound, but bluetooth may be down scaling the bitrate, which means your sound goes to sh^t. I found this pretty interesting -- https://habr.com/en/post/456182/

btw, maybe that explains why I never liked listening to audio over bluetooth either.
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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by kslight » Sun Oct 03, 2021 10:22 am

I do not have a scientific explanation, but I believe based on my own experience that different transmitting and receiving devices are using different qualities of Bluetooth codecs.

Never mind that if you are playing back from iTunes vs Spotify vs Google drive vs web browser, wav vs mp3 vs streaming…I believe they all sound different.

For example, all of my cars are 15+ years old..,one of my cars I have an old Sony Bluetooth capable receiver that was designed for voice over Bluetooth, only later on could I pump my iPhone music to it. It works but I believe it is degrading the sound more than another car I have, which still has a tape deck but I put in a relatively modern Bluetooth cassette adapter…this actually sounds pretty decent. And my wife’s car we use a Bluetooth to aux in device, and this sounds different too.

I’ve also noticed that different levels of the transmitting and receiving devices make a difference.


Of course, none of cars have an identical speaker system so not a scientific test by any means but it just compounds the whole “everyone has a different listening environment” analogy.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Sun Oct 03, 2021 11:11 am

Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by losthighway » Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:33 pm

Fascinating stuff you guys, thanks.

Apparently my $25 Bluetooth receiver uses one of the better codecs, but it still is a $25 Bluetooth receiver so it's not an audiophile situation.

I always get split between a producer mindset of playing stuff in random places for the artistic insight about how it feels, and a mix engineer mindset where it makes me want to take eq and balance notes which might be totally insane because I'm listening on a weird system.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by standup » Sun Oct 03, 2021 7:58 pm

At work several years ago we tried to run a Bluetooth speaker, probably a REALLY cheap one, and it sucked. Could barely transmit 25’ across the room, constant dropouts. So if it’s dropping out constantly maybe it compromises the audio when it can barely connect?

I use a BT speaker in my house, but it’s more like 6’ from my phone and seems OK, but hard to say. Maybe the tech has improved in the last few years.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by digitaldrummer » Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:51 am

a big takeaway here is that bluetooth is NOT lossless. So if you are listening to an mp3, and you further encode that, and then let's say your signal is not so good between devices... this is where the serious degradation comes in. Let's say you are listening to a 16/44.1 WAV but the bluetooth bitrate drops to 64Kbps. Who likes to listen to 64Kbps MP3s? not me. and it could sound even worse if it's now a lossy encoding of another lossy encoding scheme (i.e. mp3) ... I like my wires.
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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by kslight » Mon Oct 04, 2021 11:15 am

digitaldrummer wrote:
Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:51 am
a big takeaway here is that bluetooth is NOT lossless. So if you are listening to an mp3, and you further encode that, and then let's say your signal is not so good between devices... this is where the serious degradation comes in. Let's say you are listening to a 16/44.1 WAV but the bluetooth bitrate drops to 64Kbps. Who likes to listen to 64Kbps MP3s? not me. and it could sound even worse if it's now a lossy encoding of another lossy encoding scheme (i.e. mp3) ... I like my wires.
This is why I find expensive “hifi” Bluetooth headphones absurd. I use Bluetooth in the gym and in the car, where convenience generally outweighs quality, and a $15 monoprice headset or $25 Bluetooth adapter is completely adequate.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by The Scum » Tue May 03, 2022 12:06 pm

What do you think of that?
I think you look like a bot shilling products.
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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by Nick Sevilla » Tue May 03, 2022 12:50 pm

losthighway wrote:
Sun Oct 03, 2021 4:33 pm
Fascinating stuff you guys, thanks.

Apparently my $25 Bluetooth receiver uses one of the better codecs, but it still is a $25 Bluetooth receiver so it's not an audiophile situation.

I always get split between a producer mindset of playing stuff in random places for the artistic insight about how it feels, and a mix engineer mindset where it makes me want to take eq and balance notes which might be totally insane because I'm listening on a weird system.
It took me years as well to get rid of that mindset when not in front of a console. And that is key: If you are not in front of your console or in your studio, you absolutely need to teach your mind to stop the critical listening. And it takes a long time to learn to do so.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Re: How bad is blue tooth audio?

Post by vvv » Thu May 05, 2022 8:22 am

Then there are those of us with fully integrated personalities ... :twisted:

Kidding, I hafta turn it off some.
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