Bluetooth Adapter

#1

dhd

0 Frags – +

Hey, I have a pair of wireless headphones and I was wondering what Bluetooth adapter has the best sound quality. I got a $5 USB one and it sounds terrible. Any recommendations would be nice. Thanks

#2

Setsul

5 Frags – +

There's different codecs so you need to check what your headphones support first but tbh it will always suck because
a) it's lossy compression and
b) the headphones themselves probably suck too, which is the main problem.

#3

Arie

serveme.tf

2 Frags – +

There are a couple of reasons the sound quality could suck:

The headphones are operating using the "headset (HSP)" profile instead of the hifi headphones profile (A2DP). In this mode, audio quality will be that of an old fashioned phone call. This can sometimes be prevented by disabling the bluetooth microphone device of your headphones in windows, if they have one.
The headphones only support lower bitrate versions of the SBC codec. This will sound like a bad MP3. If your headphones are old, this is probably it.
The headphones are crap

Bluetooth audio can sound very good if:

The headphones support a modern audio codec at a high enough bitrate: high bitrate SBC, AptX, AAC, LDAC. . Anything from a reputable brand made in the last few years will support at least high bitrate SBC (372Kbit max).
Your system supports these bluetooth codecs. Windows 10 can use SBC and AptX.
There are a few great bluetooth headphones available and a ton of crap. Some good ones: Bose QC35 (SBC + AAC), Sony 1000x (SBC, AAC, AptX, LDAC) and the Sennheiser Momentum (SBC + AptX).

There are a couple of reasons the sound quality could suck:

[olist]
[*] The headphones are operating using the "headset (HSP)" profile instead of the hifi headphones profile (A2DP). In this mode, audio quality will be that of an old fashioned phone call. This can sometimes be prevented by disabling the bluetooth microphone device of your headphones in windows, if they have one.
[*] The headphones only support lower bitrate versions of the SBC codec. This will sound like a bad MP3. If your headphones are old, this is probably it.
[*] The headphones are crap
[/olist]

Bluetooth audio can sound very good if:
[olist]
[*] The headphones support a modern audio codec at a high enough bitrate: high bitrate SBC, AptX, AAC, LDAC. . Anything from a reputable brand made in the last few years will support at least high bitrate SBC (372Kbit max).
[*] Your system supports these bluetooth codecs. Windows 10 can use SBC and AptX.
[*] There are a few great bluetooth headphones available and a ton of crap. Some good ones: Bose QC35 (SBC + AAC), Sony 1000x (SBC, AAC, AptX, LDAC) and the Sennheiser Momentum (SBC + AptX).
[/olist]