For context, LDAC is one of the few wireless audio codecs stamped Hi-Res by the Japan Audio Society and its encoder is open source since Android 8, so you can see just how long Windows is sleeping on this. I’m excited about the incoming next gen called LC3plus, my next pair is definitely gonna have that.
Tell me you’ve never actually tested the quality of a codex and how it’s used without saying it.
Ldac is not actually that good, it’s actually fairly rare that LDAC beats out something like SBC XQ let alone AAC
EDIT: for elaboration, LDAC works at 3 main data rate ranges 990/909, 660/606 and 330/303. Ldac is only high res at the 990 range, and even at that range, it still often looses when pipewire is compiled against libfdk. keep in mind that it’s hard to get real numbers on LDAC because decoding is proprietary, meaning I had to disassemble headphones and connect those for verification, but typically AAC on supported headphones beat out 990kbps LDAC (which is hilarious btw considering LDAC can rarely actually work at 990kbps anyways) and both SBC-XQ and LC3Plus (both of which are usable with pipewire) regularly beat 660kbps LDAC.
TLDR LDAC is crap and SBC-XQ is typically more accurate and lower latency, and LC3Plus is even better then that. and if you have AAC compatible headphones assuming latency isnt a major issue (which you are using LDAC so it’s not) just use AAC, both fidelity and latency is better
EDIT: I should mention, it is known that vendors will tune codecs, I believe Valdikks article in habr briefly goes over this. so it’s very possible that tuning could mean that x codec, including LDAC could be the only good codec, however with how badly LDAC maintains 990kbps, I doubt it will make much of a difference
at 990/909 kbps bluetooth can hardly hold that bitrate unless you have really good conditions so much as walking down a stream will bring it down to 660kbps
and yes, AAC does have better fidelity, at 320kbps AAC and Opus are largely transparent to 90% of users keep in mind I am comparing fdkaac on Pipewire, NOT android, this is an important distinction since they were testing android, and you can see here how spotty AAC is on android https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/
I am talking specifcally about linux in this context
EDIT: also it’s not about being an apple fanboy, Opus is largely just as good, marginally better, but no headphones support them, if you want you can even compile pipewire with higher bitrate limits on opus for stereo, (IIRC the pro profile can override it? cant remember but code is here https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/blob/master/spa/plugins/bluez5/a2dp-codec-opus.c)
opus is transparent for all the the most intense songs by 160kbps, and for regular stuff you’d hear on the radio it’s transparent anywhere from 96kbps-128kbps
You all got a valid point… it’s just that mileage varies and x codec will sound better in y combination. If I remember right, AAC on Android is at times implemented differently than on it’s home Apple: The encoder would work with smaller bitrates to save battery. There must be a special synergy for max bitrate LDAC to sound worse than AAC, indeed. All in all my post is about being open minded and giving you the option to use a thing, rather than finding out what codec is universally the best: You virtually can’t, can you?
keep in mind that it’s hard to get real numbers on LDAC because decoding is proprietary
I used to think the same. But as it turns out, a decoder exists. Maybe some people don’t want anyone to know about it to keep the myths alive ;)
EDIT: Also, as a golden rule, whenever anyone sees the words High-Res in an audio context, they should immediately realize that they are being bullshitted.
just because a decoder exists doesnt mean it’s good and usable, and it also doesn’t mean you are legally allowed to use it without the appropriate licensing
I have their Soundcore Space A40, and the battery life is legitimately amazing. The case lasts me a week of heavy usage, and the buds easily go 6-10 hours depending on how heavily I use the ANC. If the buds get low, tossing them into the case charges them back up most of the way in 15-20 minutes.
The ANC isn’t perfect, but it’s made my recent flights way more tolerable by cutting out most of the noise from the engines while still letting the voice of my seatmate through.
Where the hell do you still buy Anker headphones? I’m in germany and holding on to my soundbuds flow because nothing else even comes close to comparison. I get Anker chargers and adapters and cables and whatever but nothing audio related to a point I thought they gave up on the whole branch.
Micro center carries soundcore products. Where I bought my current P2-L headphones, couple years back.
They use the Soundcore branding currently for their audio products but it‘s the same company
If you’re looking for a replacement for Soundbuds Flow (i.e. ~€20), you’ll be disappointed. For me, Soundbuds Flow were perfect for workouts. Cheap and I didn’t care too much about sound quality. Anker rebooted their audio line and focuses on mid-range to high-end products.
For context, LDAC is one of the few wireless audio codecs stamped Hi-Res by the Japan Audio Society and its encoder is open source since Android 8
LDAC is great, but simply stating that the encoder is “open source” is quite misleading (while technically correct). The codec is owned by Sony and heavily licensed. It’s a savvy business move of Sony to make the encoder free to use though, so everyone else can support their standard while charging manufacturers who want to integrate it into their headphones.
If we want a really free and open high quality codec, we should push for opus support via bluetooth
Yes… I made double sure to mention ‘encoder’ between that.
Xiph really won the lossy codec scene with Opus and I transcoded all my junk to that format. Hitting (my personal) transparency on 128k vbr is flat out impressive and it warms my heart that corpos won’t have a reason to collect taxes for basic things like audio codec. However it’s a different story with bluetooth audio codec in which I hope will change.
Because 75MB an album is better than 400MB when you’re trying to pack them on a mobile device. Flac is for archival.
Xiph really won the lossy codec scene with Opus and I transcoded all my junk to that format. Hitting (my personal) transparency on 128k vbr is flat out impressive
Same here. I’ve left myself a bit of a safety margin at 144k vbr, but having my whole library at transparent quality AND portable size is very convenient.
Though, now that opus 1.4 is out I feel a bit of anxiety whether i should re-encode everything from flac->opus1.4
Which tool do you use to re-encode everything to opus ?
I tried with ffmpeg and it works but I had many issues with covers.
If we want a really free and open high quality codec, we should push for opus support via bluetooth
Isn’t the new default codec in BLE Audio LC3 free and open and high quality? And it’s required for BLE Audio support, so there will be more and more devices that support it.
LC3plus isn’t really HiFi. It’s designed to be low-complexity & low energy: https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,122575.0.html
LC3Plus is more then sufficient for transparent audio at the typical rates you will achieve with bluetooth, 160k is really low and you can normally sustain around 300-600kbps which is more then sufficient for LC3Plus. this test is IMO flawed for the intents and purposes for bluetooth audio
EDIT: LC3Plus caps at 512kbps, I cant remeber if that is before or after FEC (forwards error correction, not to be mistaken with PLC, Packet Loss concealment, FEC is kinda like raid, PLC hides dropped data)
Not anything to do with the LDAC codec but why does wireless headphones on windows suck. On linux (even a wm) I just turn on my headphones and it works, on windows every time I have to remove the device and add it back again
What about wireless headphones that don’t use bluetooth? I think I had some Logitech ones that did not use bluetooth. Are those a viable alternative to bluetooth on linux?
Windows’ built-in bluetooth stack is famously bad. Try installing the Toshiba one instead. It’s a bit clunky UI-wise, but tends to have less issues.
It’s the same for me. I thought it’s due to the motherboard I’m using, windows being the problem never crossed my mind. The only thing that worked well and didn’t have to be re-installed after a disconnect was the new xbox controller, so I feel like maybe there’s something fishy going on here.
The only thing that worked well and didn’t have to be re-installed after a disconnect
I didn’t have the same experience at all. I’ve used a Bluetooth Xbox controller for years, and it’s worked great… As long as it was only in Bluetooth. If you try to plug it in, let’s say to recharge it or because you want a more reliable connection, you won’t be able to reconnect it in Bluetooth, unless you unpair the device first. Apparently, that is even the _expected behavior", for some reason.
The only way to disable that behavior is to go the the Windows device settings and preventing the controller from being recognized as a USB device, so it only uses the USB as a charging port. Another solution would be to connect the controller to a power plug instead of a USB port of the PC to recharge it, but how unintuitive is that? Imagine if Nintendo, Sony, Apple or even Microsoft themselves on Xbox pulled that? That whenever you plugged in your wireless controller to your device, it suddenly stopped working wirelessly? Out of all the smaller or bigger quirks of Windows, this one has been one of the most unnerving to me for a very long time.
Bluetooth stacks are notorious for being gargantuan spaghetti code base. People have been trying to put out all those little fires because it’s more possible on Linux than Windows.
The standards are terribly complex and the reference implementations were originally written by the standards groups.
Then to keep compatibility everything has to be broken in the same way as the reference implementations which put more effort into “it works this time” than any kind of resilience.
I was trying to connect headphones on my partners Windows machine and it was a disaster. Most of the time it failed to pair, the rest of the time it paired but didn’t recognize as an audio device. We tried with 2 different devices and both worked perfectly on Linux and Android.
