[ggibby]

The TRN BT20s adapter sound fine with my CustomArt XX, but the microphone is so bad callers ask me to 'fix it'.
So they get left home in favor of my Jabra 65t, which are brilliant for calls and survivable for music.

I will wait until someone has real world experience with these and can report on the voice quality.

 

[Fawzay]

To me UTWS3 is a very good product and its sound good too, hoping someone who have both the 3 & 5, I would to know the sonic difference and also is it worth it?

 

[frosty5689]

To me UTWS3 is a very good product and its sound good too, hoping someone who have both the 3 & 5, I would to know the sonic difference and also is it worth it?

I have both. I would say the noise floor is cleaner and the amount of power available is noticeable increased. So harder to drive IEMs would sound fuller. aptX Adaptive makes listening to lossless more akin to wired, where aptX had left some to be desired.

Tldr if you dont have hard to drive IEMs and only listen to Spotify or similar, you might not notice much change except the volume can be louder. Still waiting on ambient mode to drop. One thing that's neat is the new TWS pairing mode, no longer show as two separate Bluetooth device, and pairing seems to be less erratic where one earphone isn't paired sometimes randomly with UTWS3. Oh and wireless charging if that's your thing.

 

[Fawzay]

I have both. I would say the noise floor is cleaner and the amount of power available is noticeable increased. So harder to drive IEMs would sound fuller. aptX Adaptive makes listening to lossless more akin to wired, where aptX had left some to be desired.

Tldr if you dont have hard to drive IEMs and only listen to Spotify or similar, you might not notice much change except the volume can be louder. Still waiting on ambient mode to drop. One thing that's neat is the new TWS pairing mode, no longer show as two separate Bluetooth device, and pairing seems to be less erratic where one earphone isn't paired sometimes randomly with UTWS3. Oh and wireless charging if that's your thing.

thanks for the comparison, I think ill stick with the current utws3 and wait for their new lineup~ the only good thing is the aptx adaptive which hopefully its compatible with aptx lossless soon. however, the ambient mode is a also good but my phone has ambient mode included so with utws3 is able to use it. hopefully 2022 aptx lossless will be diverse whose devices that have aptx adaptive~

 

[goodwin]

@FiiO Willson
Any chance that UTWS5 will get LDAC in the feature? Or this is not possible?
Currently using my lovely BTR5, but want to go away from the wire at all. And LDAC support is the show-stopper for me, i'll have to stay with btr5 until somebody will release tws adapters with ldac (going to use with FH7)

 

[thefallenangelx]

@FiiO Willson
Any chance that UTWS5 will get LDAC in the feature? Or this is not possible?
Currently using my lovely BTR5, but want to go away from the wire at all. And LDAC support is the show-stopper for me, i'll have to stay with btr5 until somebody will release tws adapters with ldac (going to use with FH7)

I agree! The chipset in utws5 should be able to go LDAC via fw. The only thing is that i believe they should get auth from Sony…maybe?

 

[ClieOS]

thanks for the comparison, I think ill stick with the current utws3 and wait for their new lineup~ the only good thing is the aptx adaptive which hopefully its compatible with aptx lossless soon. however, the ambient mode is a also good but my phone has ambient mode included so with utws3 is able to use it. hopefully 2022 aptx lossless will be diverse whose devices that have aptx adaptive~

There seem to be some kind of misunderstanding that aptx Lossless is a new codec - it is NOT. It is just aptX adaptive sampling at 24bit / 96KH (as opposed to the normal 24/48). The term 'aptx Lossless' is more of a marketing trickery by Qualcomm to force people to buy more of their higher end SoC (as to unlock normal aptX Adaptive into the 'aptx Lossless' mode, currently you need a Snapdragon 888 chipset on your smartphone). UTWS5 is already able to support aptX Lossless (as per FiiO, UTWS5 can do aptx Adaptive at 24/96 = aptx Lossless), you just need a the latest flagship smartphone with Qualcomm SnapDragon 888 to get to it.

Any chance that UTWS5 will get LDAC in the feature? Or this is not possible?

I don't think there is anything hardware wise that UTWS5 can't support LDAC, just that Qualcomm and Sony has not work out the firmware yet (or perhaps Qualcomm doesn't really want to put Sony's into their SoC but rather want people to use aptx Adaptive).

 

[goodwin]

There seem to be some kind of misunderstanding that aptx Lossless is a new codec - it is NOT. It is just aptX adaptive sampling at 24bit / 96KH (as opposed to the normal 24/48). The term 'aptx Lossless' is more of a marketing trickery by Qualcomm to force people to buy more of their higher end SoC (as to unlock normal aptX Adaptive into the 'aptx Lossless' mode, currently you need a Snapdragon 888 chipset on your smartphone). UTWS5 is already able to support aptX Lossless (as per FiiO, UTWS5 can do aptx Adaptive at 24/96 = aptx Lossless), you just need a the latest flagship smartphone with Qualcomm SnapDragon 888 to get to it.



I don't think there is anything hardware wise that UTWS5 can't support LDAC, just that Qualcomm and Sony has not work out the firmware yet (or perhaps Qualcomm doesn't really want to put Sony's into their SoC but rather want people to use aptx Adaptive).

on other hand - most popular smarphones (samsung) does not support anything higher than old plain aptx (no hd, or adaptive). but they perfectly support LDAC.

 

[ClieOS]

on other hand - most popular smarphones (samsung) does not support anything higher than old plain aptx (no hd, or adaptive). but they perfectly support LDAC.

BT codec support on smartphone is different because it is not SoC based (and thus is not limited by what BT chip set they used) but rather OS based. So all Samsung need to do is to load the software into their version of Android and they will be able to support aptX HD or aptx Adaptive if they want to, but obviously they have chosen not to do so. This is usually more about companies' politic than anything else.

 

[goodwin]

however, that makes utws5 technically less competitive for around 1/4 of smartphones in the world and talking about Samsung - yes, it is a political decision, but this is something that most probably will not change anywhere soon. LDAC support on TWS side gives a good advantage

 

[ClieOS]

... LDAC support on TWS side gives a good advantage

AFAIK, LDAC support current only work on non-Qualcomm based TWS. Qualcomm on the other hand is the world largest supplier of BT chipset, not to mention also the major player on smartphone processor. It is an open secret that m,ost companies that use Qualcomm chips don't like the company much, but have to force to work with them regardless. It is still early to say who will win the day. Remember that Samsubng at a point actually push their own BT codec to compete with aptx and LDAC, then fail spectacularly.

 

[HipHopScribe]

There's really nothing FiiO can do about codec support. Qualcomm's chipset supports what it supports. Samsung supports what it supports. FiiO has no say with either of them.

I think Samsung's act is a bit shady here, as they could clearly enable more support easily, but they would rather people use the Samsung Scalable codec. For the sake of comparison, I have last year's flagship Sony Xperia, and despite Sony having their own LDAC codec, they fully support the latest AptX codecs including Adaptive and TWS+

 

[goodwin]

There's really nothing FiiO can do about codec support. Qualcomm's chipset supports what it supports. Samsung supports what it supports. FiiO has no say with either of them.

I think Samsung's act is a bit shady here, as they could clearly enable more support easily, but they would rather people use the Samsung Scalable codec. For the sake of comparison, I have last year's flagship Sony Xperia, and despite Sony having their own LDAC codec, they fully support the latest AptX codecs including Adaptive and TWS+

For ex., IFI Audio Zen Blue is also using qcc5100 for bluetooth connectivity (unfortunately, not sure which exact version) - but it does support LDAC and HWA. So, doesn't look like a Qualcomm issue... This is why it is good to hear an answer from Fiio itself - with explanation, or excuses, or whatever.

 

[HipHopScribe]

For ex., IFI Audio Zen Blue is also using qcc5100 for bluetooth connectivity (unfortunately, not sure which exact version) - but it does support LDAC and HWA. So, doesn't look like a Qualcomm issue... This is why it is good to hear an answer from Fiio itself - with explanation, or excuses, or whatever.

So, not a TWS device and you're not even sure they're using the same chip. FiiO supports LDAC in devices comparable to the Zen Blue.

 

[goodwin]

So, not a TWS device and you're not even sure they're using the same chip. FiiO supports LDAC in devices comparable to the Zen Blue.

Fiio supports LDAC on CSR chips (like CSR8675), not on QCC line. But there are products around with QCC and LDAC, so this looks doable. But again - I may be missing something, so best to hear anything officially.