Moved on to wireless (2nd gen Zik Parrots, there are better wireless headphones out there, but I like those and wont buy 3 because the changes are minimal. Waiting for them to put out a Zik 4).
2). Transmitting over bluetooth recompesses and throws away more data
I think in principle Apple could avoid one of these with AirPods if the the iPhone7 streamed .aac/.mp3 as a custom Bluetooth codec, but I haven't heard if they wen that route.
>Don't you pay a double lossy compression penalty?
Yes, in the sense that the results are doubly compressed.
No, in any meaningful sense that I would have an issue with. The headphones have the appropriate BT codecs for high definition audio (the 3 even more so, aptX et al), and the end results have been on par with my wired AT-50x.
You can try double and triple compressing a 320mbps mp3 file and you'd hardly notice any change. Of course such compression algorithms are not omni-potent, but it's close enough.
At a good enough bit rate (256 and especially 320), mp3s are indistinguishable from "CD quality" (which also throws away data in the sense that it quantizes the analog signal, but it doesn't matter there either), and all blind A/B/A tests have shown that.
In headphones that cost less than $1000, and for everyone over 40 that's even more so.
Audiophiles excepted of course, because they have magical unicorn audio senses -- even when they can't use them on a blind test.
1) Your headphones have good codecs, but they are only used if they match an iPhone supported BT codec. For example AptX will not work with iPhone.
2). Yes double compressing .mp3s is not as bad as it sounds, but double compression can be worse with two different codecs. For example I believe iPhone uses SBC codec for Bluetooth, which is pretty different from .mp3/.aac.
I would be interested in knowing if AirPods solve this by doing .mp3 or .aac pass through.
CD quality doesn't throw away data that your ears can hear, thanks to the Nyquist sampling theorem. If your ears can hear better than 20khz I'd be very surprised.
>CD quality doesn't throw away data that your ears can hear, thanks to the Nyquist sampling theorem. If your ears can hear better than 20khz I'd be very surprised.
Yes, Didn't say it throws away data "that our ears can hear" but that it "throws away data", period (which is true). And not just frequencies but also dynamic range.
That said, a high quality mp3 also doesn't throw away data that "our ears can hear", not with absolute physical certainty (as in Nyquist et al), but with psycho-acoustic research level certainty. (I say high quality because lower quality mp3s trade more usable signal for space savings).
1). .mp3 or .aac throws away data
2). Transmitting over bluetooth recompesses and throws away more data
I think in principle Apple could avoid one of these with AirPods if the the iPhone7 streamed .aac/.mp3 as a custom Bluetooth codec, but I haven't heard if they wen that route.