Headphone upgrade vs latency

[MortenH]

Hello

I´m about to upgrade my Sennheiser HD 458BT, which I´m primarily using for gaming and movies, while the missus is asleep in the same room I have been using them together with 2 Creative BT-W3s to use Apt-X LL (one in my Nvidia Shield for movies, and one in my PC for gaming).

I have been considering the Momentum 4 or the B&W Px7 S2, but I am concerned that Apt-X Adaptive may introduce more latency. I´m no competitive gamer, but I do hate it if movies or games are out of sync On the other hand, the 458BT are not very comfortable - they are simply too tight and warm...

Would you advise against apt-x Adaptive for movies/gaming in general? And if so, do you have any other recommendations that would give me better headphones without introducing more latency?

Thanks!

 

[dunring]

I've gamed with the Momentum 2 and 3 and the B&W PX7 carbon and they're all fast enough for watching TV or gaming with no delay for sound effects. I'm sure you'll be fine with the 4th gen. Check to see which Bluetooth version you have on the computer, even a BT 5 USB adapter is like $2-$5 on AliExpress, I just got one using the phone app and it works great in Win 11.

 

[MortenH]

thanks a lot for your reply.
The reason I was worried is the added latency of apt-x adaptive as compared to apt-x LL, which the Momentum 3 uses. Something like 80+ms compared to 35+ms, which I fear is noticeable. But I´m glad that you haven´t experienced problems, so I am crossing my fingers

 

[silent-circuit]

thanks a lot for your reply.
The reason I was worried is the added latency of apt-x adaptive as compared to apt-x LL, which the Momentum 3 uses. Something like 80+ms compared to 35+ms, which I fear is noticeable. But I´m glad that you haven´t experienced problems, so I am crossing my fingers

Sadly this is one of those "everyone is different" situations - some are perfectly happy playing games on lower end (or just poorly configured) TVs with high latency limited to 30 FPS. Others won't accept anything less than 60 FPS and latency under 30ms and can tell if things get worse than that immediately. Still others have reached a point where anything less than 120FPS (or more) isn't acceptable and will prompt an upgrade where possible. People's expectations and perception vary so greatly when it comes to these things that unless you know someone and have experienced the same gear they're referring to as a baseline it's hard to say (without being able to compare hard numbers like average latency, as you have) if what they're okay with will be similarly good for you.