[SomeGuyDude]

One week later and I'm pretty much in love with these bad boys. The M100 was the first "audiophile" headphone I ever owned and the one that first inspired me to sign up on this forum. Since then I've owned an absolutely absurd amount of full-sized headphones, costing anywhere from the $70 UE6000 to the $2000 LCD-3, and now I've circled all the way back around to the successor to what got me into this hobby in the first place. Kudos, Val and V-Moda.

Fun fact: The first set of V-Moda I actually owned were the Bass Freq earbuds that they made long before they turned into a more reputable brand, when they were essentially "Beats before Beats," nice looking but incredibly flimsy products. I didn't think about 'em again for several years until the M100 came rolling around and now here I am.

 

[329161]

Can someone explain something about codecs to me? Because I swear my ears are telling me this but it might be placebo.

So I got a trial to Apple Music and that got me thinking about about how right now the big issue with Bluetooth is the re-conversion happening. Like if I'm on Spotify or Tidal it'll take an mp3/ogg and then convert to aptX and send it along to the headphones, so that's lossy -> lossy. I tried out Apple music because that's AAC both times, and I swear it's like the sound completely opened up. The bass relaxed and everything separated more. That extra low end lost any semblance of mud and suddenly these became my favorite headphones.

I swear this is happening, but is there any tech to back it up?

Tidal streams in AAC for high quality and lower. What phone are u using? If Apple, then there's no aptx. If Android, then you'll only have AAC bt on Oreo, and then only if it's selected as the preferred bt codec, otherwise you're streaming sbc.

 

[329161]

You are 100% right and this is the reason I love AAC so much. There is zero quality degradation up to 264kbps AAC via Bluetooth on devices that support the codec.

Also, Spotify’s OGG format really doesn’t sound that great. I’ve A/B’d comparing Spotify vs Apple Music and everybody preferred Apple Music.

Please don't represent opinion as fact. Distinction needs to be made between fact vs opinons. This is an opinion. There's So much misinformation on this forum as it is. There is ZERO evidence that the different streaming services sound any different when the listener doesn't know which service is playing. I'm not going to mention the word b...d testing, that gets you banned for some stupid reason.
Eg.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Please don't represent opinion as fact. Distinction needs to be made between fact vs opinons. This is an opinion. There's So much misinformation on this forum as it is. There is ZERO evidence that the different streaming services sound any different when the listener doesn't know which service is playing. I'm not going to mention the word b...d testing, that gets you banned for some stupid reason.
Eg.

I like how you made this post without making a single mention of the technical specifications, which was the point of the post you're replying to. AAC to AAC is a non-conversion transfer, mp3 to aptX requires re-encoding.

Even more hilariously ironic, you got all pissy about "facts vs opinions" and then posted a video of people giving... their opinions.

*slow clap* Well done, Detective Doofus.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Tidal streams in AAC for high quality and lower. What phone are u using? If Apple, then there's no aptx. If Android, then you'll only have AAC bt on Oreo, and then only if it's selected as the preferred bt codec, otherwise you're streaming sbc.

I was unaware of that with Tidal! I'd only been using Spotify. I have a Galaxy S9+, and thank you I am well aware of how to go into the developer options and make sure it's using AAC.

I will say Apple's service is really amazing though, and I'm on a trial with both until December so I'm not sure which I'll keep.

 

[329161]

I like how you made this post without making a single mention of the technical specifications, which was the point of the post you're replying to. AAC to AAC is a non-conversion transfer, mp3 to aptX requires re-encoding.

Even more hilariously ironic, you got all pissy about "facts vs opinions" and then posted a video of people giving... their opinions.

*slow clap* Well done, Detective Doofus.

How is this a fact? Provide a link to these technical specifications?


Let's keep this civil and non personal hey. We could do it your way, but it would only lead to deleted posts.
The video I linked showed opinions of people who didn't know which service they were listening to. There was no clear winner. That's the point. No expectation bias.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

How is this a fact? Provide a link to these technical specifications?


Let's keep this civil and non personal hey. We could do it your way, but it would only lead to deleted posts.
The video I linked showed opinions of people who didn't know which service they were listening to. There was no clear winner. That's the point. No expectation bias.

They're the same codec. aptX, AAC, and LDAC are all lossy codecs, but if you transfer from device to Bluetooth using the same thing there's no need for reconversion. I'm honestly not sure how you're struggling with this concept. If you have an AAC file and transfer via AAC over Bluetooth, there's zero loss in quality because there's no need to convert from one codec to another. This is super, super simple stuff. If most people can't tell, that's fine. I legit noticed a difference and I've had multiple instances where I started playing music and noticed my phone hadn't gone into AAC but defaulted to AptX even without checking. This isn't about bitrates or snake oil, this is about sound quality degradation from converting from one lossy codec to another versus leaving it as is.

 

[329161]

They're the same codec. aptX, AAC, and LDAC are all lossy codecs, but if you transfer from device to Bluetooth using the same thing there's no need for reconversion. I'm honestly not sure how you're struggling with this concept. If you have an AAC file and transfer via AAC over Bluetooth, there's zero loss in quality because there's no need to convert from one codec to another. This is super, super simple stuff. If most people can't tell, that's fine. I legit noticed a difference and I've had multiple instances where I started playing music and noticed my phone hadn't gone into AAC but defaulted to AptX even without checking. This isn't about bitrates or snake oil, this is about sound quality degradation from converting from one lossy codec to another versus leaving it as is.

That aside, just got my shields in!

Very pretty.

I'm not struggling with the concept.
Aac BT is streamed at 264 kbps. Are all your aac files at that bitrate? If not then there will be reconversion.
You talked about technical specifications. Please provide a link to where it says there is no reconversion. I've had a private chat with MichaelSD and he is neither sure of this, nor could he provide evidence for that statement.

Of course you're free to believe whatever you want but don't make statements without factual basis.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Very pretty.

I'm not struggling with the concept.
Aac BT is streamed at 264 kbps. Are all your aac files at that bitrate? If not then there will be reconversion.
You talked about technical specifications. Please provide a link to where it says there is no reconversion. I've had a private chat with MichaelSD and he is neither sure of this, nor could he provide evidence for that statement.

You ARE struggling with the concept. AAC is not locked to 264, that's what it's capable of. It can go higher or lower. I'm not going back through Google like I spent hours doing before I bought the CF2WCE (damn that's unwieldy) just because you're too lazy to look it up for yourself. The info is out there, it's not my job to re-research on your behalf.

Honestly I'm just done with this. You're being deliberately obtuse at this point and I'm tired of it. Onto the muted list with you.

 

[329161]

You ARE struggling with the concept. AAC is not locked to 264, that's what it's capable of. It can go higher or lower. I'm not going back through Google like I spent hours doing before I bought the CF2WCE (damn that's unwieldy) just because you're too lazy to look it up for yourself. The info is out there, it's not my job to re-research on your behalf.

Honestly I'm just done with this. You're being deliberately obtuse at this point and I'm tired of it. Onto the muted list with you.

Lol. You can't back up the claim. I have looked it up. Couldn't find it anywhere to indicate no reconversion. The only reference i could find was MichaelSD saying it on Reddit. Hardly definitive.
Funny when you can't back up your argument you accuse me of being "obtuse". I was being logical.
You're going to" mute" me. I can picture someone with their arms crossed stomping on the floor.
You're being a bit childish, no?
But seriously, I'm happy for you to prove me wrong.

 

[329161]

Haha. All good. Happy listening all.

 

[plakat]

I doubt that there's no reconversion in the case of AAC material, sent over an AAC encoded link later on...
While obviously I did not look at the source code of e.g. the Apple iOS Music App, I would expect each player to decode a file to the stream expected by the audio interface (Core Audio API in case of macOS /iOS), which will then forward it to the output option selected in the system settings. The player would have to query this API for which output device is active and provide different data streams.

I think this is how Audirvana handles audio when to avoid resembling not using direct access (which blocks other applications from using sound output).

Yes, it might be possible that an application provides the data precompressed for the Bluetooth connection using AAC, but since much is abstracted awaking Core Audio, i think it would be much easier for the player application to just provide decoded data and let Core Audio take care of what to do with this data, i.e handle all source Formats the same.

It would be very interesting to get insight from a person actually working on such an application about what is possible with Core Audio. But I'd not bet on the presumably more complex no-reconversion

But whatever the actual process, I like what comes out of the new CF2 when connected to an iPhone (playing ALAC files bought from Qobuz)

 

[SomeGuyDude]

I mean if you're using ALAC then yeah it's being compressed down to AAC. But like I've been saying, go ahead and look it up, AAC sending AAC is a non-conversion process. And it's definitely an audible difference. I have definitely had moments where I fire up Apple Music and go "crap this doesn't sound right" and lo and behold it's defaulted to aptX for some reason.

 

[plakat]

Sorry, I did not find any definitive information on that topic, but a short statement by an audio developer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/7db893/comment/dpxtcfg
This more or less reflects what I said earlier, I.e. possible but not too likely.
Another article by lifewire (which does not reflect technical knowledge to me) states that AAC files are transferred through without recoding, but doesn't state sources for that. Seems to base that simply on the encoding used, but given the process described in that reddit thread, this isn ot enough to be sure no transcoding is in play.

What are your sources to be so sure?

Yes, it doesn't apply in my case anyway, that's correct. ALAC files are definitely compressed going over Bluetooth.

 

[audioandy]

VModa is one of the brands for me that's a red flag if someone likes them. All of the models I've tried have an overpowering bass response, to the point where it removes fidelity across the rest of the signal. I have a vivid memory of testing a Tool track on VModas (cause you know, bass-y testing, should be great), and almost not being able to hear the lyrics over the nasty overpowering bass. I've only tried two of the VModa cans though and wonder if there's a pair that doesn't ruin the bass response like the ones I've heard. I guess I should also mention that I'm the opposite of a bass head, too much bass and it ruins headphones for me in general.

Unrelated, ergonomically, next to designed-to-be-uncomfortable Grados, these are some of the most uncomfortable cans for me, which I usually find with these fake over-ear-on-ear types that pinch (like the momentum v1s)