Many lossless codecs are lossy codecs + residual encoders. For example FLAC has predictor(lossy codec) + residual.
Could also stand for Lazy DumbAss Cat if the pic is any relation
Compression is lossy.
So when you zip some files and then unzip them, some of the bytes are missing? Really?!
If nothing is lost, what did you compress away? Decompression is magic, I ain’t gotta explain shit
If you want the magic explained, here’s a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lempel%E2%80%93Ziv%E2%80%93Welch
you compressed away redundant data, 1111111000000000011111111 -> (1x7)(0x10)(1x8)
It’s loss-less, not loss-none
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
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!
Nobody needs lossless over Bluetooth
Edit: plenty of downvotes by people who have never listened to ABX tests with high quality lossy compare versus lossless
At high bitrate lossy you literally can’t distinguish it. There’s math to prove it;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem
At 44 kHz 16 bit with over 192 Kbps with good encoders your ear literally can’t physically discern the difference
is opus the one that allows high quality mic and headphone at the same time over Bluetooth?
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.
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
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.
BT 5 has max bandwidth of 2Mbps, which would in theory be enough for “CD quality”, i.e 44.1khz/16 bit raw uncompressed audio, as that’s around 1.4Mbps. In real life conditions it isn’t. AFAIK aptX lossless gets close by doing some compression.
But if you go full audiophile levels and start demanding lossless 192khz 24 bit audio, that’s 10Mbps and not even remotely possible over BT no matter what you’d try.
