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.
Yeah, the problem (imo) isn’t lossy v lossless. It’s that the supported codecs are part of the Bluetooth standard and they were developed in like the 90s.
There are far better codecs out there and we can’t use them without incompatible extensions on Bluetooth.
There’s a push for Opus now, it’s the perfect codec for Bluetooth because it’s a singular codec that fits the whole spectrum from low bandwidth speech to high quality audio, and it’s fully free
You literally can not distinguish 192 Kbps Opus from true lossless. Not even with movie theater grade speakers. You only benefit from lossless if you’re editing / applying multiple effects, etc, which you will not do at the receiving end of a Bluetooth connection.
The newer H2 SoC AirPods support ALAC, Apple’s lossless codec; however, their phones don’t yet support it, so the only way to use it is with the Vision Pro.
AFAIK, ALAC will not be actually lossless over bluetooth for the sames reason LDAC can’t be lossless; there simply isn’t enough bandwidth. That doesn’t mean that it won’t sound great or perhaps work better than LDAC.
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.
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
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.
Can we name a more poorly implemented protocol? Probably. One used as much as Bluetooth? Probably not.
SMTP?
Comes from being a compromise “standard”. The name says it all, being named after a king that brought multiple tribes together.
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
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)
Sony created LDAC
Isn’t LDAC made by sony?
Correct. Qualcomm makes aptX
Wait, did Apple implement its own codec? I thought even the Airpods Max used AAC, which is lossy.
As for Qualcomm, only aptX Lossless is lossless and I’m not aware of many products supporting it (most supports aptX HD at most)
Yeah, the problem (imo) isn’t lossy v lossless. It’s that the supported codecs are part of the Bluetooth standard and they were developed in like the 90s.
There are far better codecs out there and we can’t use them without incompatible extensions on Bluetooth.
There’s a push for Opus now, it’s the perfect codec for Bluetooth because it’s a singular codec that fits the whole spectrum from low bandwidth speech to high quality audio, and it’s fully free
Opus is great, but there is no option to make it lossless, like what WavPack (also a free-as-in-freedom codec) provides for example.
Transparency is good enough, it’s intended to be a good fit for streaming, not masters for editing
Why not have the option for true lossless available so that Bluetooth can be scaled up to sound good on even the highest end of systems.
You literally can not distinguish 192 Kbps Opus from true lossless. Not even with movie theater grade speakers. You only benefit from lossless if you’re editing / applying multiple effects, etc, which you will not do at the receiving end of a Bluetooth connection.
The newer H2 SoC AirPods support ALAC, Apple’s lossless codec; however, their phones don’t yet support it, so the only way to use it is with the Vision Pro.
AFAIK, ALAC will not be actually lossless over bluetooth for the sames reason LDAC can’t be lossless; there simply isn’t enough bandwidth. That doesn’t mean that it won’t sound great or perhaps work better than LDAC.
It runs over a 5GHz connection, not a 2.4GHz connection like bluetooth.
Oh, so they aren’t on bluetooth at all? That is an entirely different story, thanks for the info.
Wait what? Do they not connect over bluetooth? Please don’t tell me they made up more proprietary bullshit.
Yes, the protocol used is currently proprietary. That being said, so was ALAC at launch and they later made it open-sourced and royalty free.
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