Bluetooth audio quality?

[ubs28]

I'm probably imagining things, but do bluetooth headphones depend on what smartphone you uses it from? Because for some weird reason, the Apple AirPods 2 and Apple AirPods Max sound better on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, than it does on my super old iPhone?

It's very weird.

 

[bigshot]

Apple tends to default to AAC, which is a better codec. Maybe your old phone is using something else?

 

[gregorio]

I'm probably imagining things, but do bluetooth headphones depend on what smartphone you uses it from?

Yes, they can. The more recent iPhones (along with later generation AirPods), provide a number of features not available with older iPhones. Off the top of my head; different noise cancellation modes, Adaptive Audio mode and Spatial Audio to name three and there might be others.

G

 

[stfreeze]

I'm probably imagining things, but do bluetooth headphones depend on what smartphone you uses it from? Because for some weird reason, the Apple AirPods 2 and Apple AirPods Max sound better on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, than it does on my super old iPhone?

It's very weird.

It mostly depends on codec and Bluetooth bandwidth/quality. For codec, i.e. signal format, AAC (Apple) is pretty good, LDAC is supposedly better but I can’t hear the difference. But sound quality is also depend on how much data is sent wirelessly.

If you have an old iPhone chances are it either has lower Bluetooth bandwidth so it cannot send more packets fast enough, sound signals will be compressed. Or some features such as spatial audio are not available, causing the perceived difference.

 

[bigshot]

When bluetooth was first included on iPhones, I wasn't terribly impressed. I could hear little anomalies. But it's pretty much perfect now.

 

[Murat]

I experience the same. My xDsd sounds much more refined through Lg V60 / V10 than on Pixel 8, which is weird.