Before very long, Bluetooth was familiar from wireless computer keyboard and mice, as well as from hands-free calling systems in cars. When music and Bluetooth were mentioned in the same breath in the early s, it was usually as a way of loading music onto a player—not streaming wirelessly from the player to headphones or speakers. By the end of that year, however, the first stereo Bluetooth headphones hit the market. The technical specifics can get pretty complicated, but Bluetooth offers much lower bandwidth—a skinnier pipe—than Wifi, let alone a direct connection.
Some spin-offs of Bluetooth can up the bandwidth for music in a major way. But both the audio player and the headphones or speakers need to be aptX-compatible.
Potentially, though, other advances in technology could keep improving sound quality to new Bluetooth devices. Recent versions of Bluetooth at least theoretically permit data speeds of up to 25 Mbps ; for an over-simplified comparison, the standard for CD quality is 1.
The upcoming Bluetooth 5 should be faster still. In practice, though, not everyone who uses Bluetooth will be listening on pricey new headphone models from Bose or Sennheiser. For every listener exposed to higher-fidelity options when confronted with possibly buying new wireless gear, many more will be snapping up the cheapest speakers from big-box stores. In some ways, I want to be OK with that. Music should be accessible to as many people as possible, right?
Rain, spilled drinks, dropping your headphones in a puddle or lake, and intense humidity are among the many possible sources of exposure to moisture for your headphones.
Too much exposure can cause your headphones to malfunction and can even cause permanent damage. Earbuds are especially susceptible to muffled audio due to earwax building up in front of the speaker grid. Problems with proprietary drivers with either the headphones or the device they are connecting to can cause low-quality audio pass through or faulty connections that drop.
Muffled audio from Windows devices is often caused by either proprietary drivers or bad sound equalization. Chances are that if the sound is already muffled these effects are causing audio distortions. Remember, it can be software drivers, built-up debris, water damage, or just a bad MP3 file.
When I first got my iPhone there was a headphone jack available for plug-in headphones. However, as the iPhone evolved that headphone jack was lost, which led to my investment in Bluetooth Skip to content. Replacing my headphones is too expensive. So instead, I sought to find a way to bring them back to life.
Pick up your headphones and give them a thorough inspection. Take note of any discolorations, residue, or anything out of the ordinary. What Causes Muffled Audio Moisture Rain, spilled drinks, dropping your headphones in a puddle or lake, and intense humidity are among the many possible sources of exposure to moisture for your headphones. Debris Headphones and earbuds alike gather dust, dirt, earwax, and other debris over time. It quite literally creates a sound dampening barrier. Faulty Wireless Connection Problems with proprietary drivers with either the headphones or the device they are connecting to can cause low-quality audio pass through or faulty connections that drop.
Some codecs allow higher data rates, thus requiring less compression and offering the potential for better sound. If you use these two things along with a wireless speaker or headphones that also support AAC, Bluetooth will not impact the sound quality. This process can reduce sound quality, although the difference will probably be subtle.
However, we consider high-resolution support to be more a marketing claim than a useful feature here. It would benefit you only with high-resolution files from a high-resolution streaming or download service, and only if your headphones or speaker can reproduce the claimed extra fidelity—and when the codec is discarding so much data anyway, the benefit of giving it even more data to throw out is questionable.
Another characteristic that distinguishes codecs is latency. Some codecs, such as aptX, are less math- and memory-intensive and thus have less latency. More math- and memory-intensive codecs, such as AAC, may have greater latency but may be more efficient at conserving data and thus may produce better sound quality for a given data rate. There are always trade-offs with codecs. Here I should disclose that I worked as marketing director for Dolby Laboratories from to and was involved in promoting AAC, but I have had no financial interest in the company or the technology since I left.
Bluetooth also comes in different versions, such as 4. The only exception I can think of is that newer versions might make transmission a bit more reliable, which could conceivably allow a scalable codec such as aptX Adaptive or LDAC to run at a higher data rate.
Here are the audio codecs found in Bluetooth devices.
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