[Karlmalone1]

Ok so this is probably a silly question, but my knowledge of these topics is quite limited! So I was wondering the sound quality differences of a set of headphones (Sennheiser 598) plugged directly into my smartphone vs The Sennheisers plugged into a home theater receiver, and using bluetooth from my phone to the receiver. I know that bluetooth is generally worse for audio quality, but would the difference in the receiver having higher power vs my smartphone amp be enough to overcome the difference? Thanks!

 

[JK1]

Bluetooth compresses the music. if you are starting with uncompressed files then the degradation of the sound by using a good bluetooth setup might not be that great. If you are starting with mp3 or other compressed files or streaming music though, then recompressing the music by using bluetooth is likely to be much more damaging to the sound quality. If you care about the sound quality, then don't use bluetooth. Bluetooth is more for gym use, where sound quality isn't that critical, and having a cord would be a major impediment.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Ok so this is probably a silly question, but my knowledge of these topics is quite limited! So I was wondering the sound quality differences of a set of headphones (Sennheiser 598) plugged directly into my smartphone vs The Sennheisers plugged into a home theater receiver, and using bluetooth from my phone to the receiver. I know that bluetooth is generally worse for audio quality, but would the difference in the receiver having higher power vs my smartphone amp be enough to overcome the difference? Thanks!

 

BT will compress uncompressed files, but if you're not using lossless anyway then just go use it if that's somehow more convenient for you, although I don't really see how when the headphone is wired up to the receiver anyway.

 

Personally thought I'd sooner worry about the output impedance on the receiver than BT to the receiver. That said, if you're getting the signal from the smartphone anyway, then why bother with the receiver at all? Get a small DAC-HPamp, maybe even one with BT input if you want to reduce the wires (like the Creative E5), plus a shorter cable from the amp to the headphone.