[Bern2]

Think you replied to the wrong post.
 
Bern

 

[akg fanboy]

New to this craft? you mean my Denon2009 Account aswell? you know the one that doesn't say 5220 before I had my gmail account? ow yeah thought so.

Or lets see my Sennheiser HD 555 from a decade ago? or my Denon D5000 that I bought donkey years ago? or my ATH M50?

New to this craft? nah its more like I have grown to educate myself not to be scammed by snake oil. Luckily I have been blessed to actually try out expensive headphones to know most of it is a scam to trick gullible idiots.


The cut off point for human hearing of audible differences more than 5% is around $140 and over 30 years of age.

Let me guess you are one of those who claim to tell the difference in FLAC and MP3 320K in blind test or those that claim to tell the difference between FLAC and uncompressed CD? LOL AHAHHA or those who talk about "Burn In Cables" LOL

Bring scientific evidence to prove me wrong, bring those double blind tests on people of different ages who can hear these differences. Bring those scientific evidence of "Cable burn in" that anybody besides superman can call real LOL

But I will give you that, the snake oil cables that costs hundreds of dollars or thousands really are something, if I too had a factory I would make cables and sell to idiots for hundreds and thousands of dollars "SILVER DRAGON SON!!!!" BLACK DRAGON CABLE with other fancy names and when they buy it and say hey wait a minute I have been scammed I will just say you have to burn them in and when placebo kicks in they will say aah yes totally worth the money.


LEL

I have passed a lossless vs lossy test before.... But I will admit it was very hard and it required me to focus on only 1 aspect of the music which made it more of a chore than a pastime activity

 

[Denon2010]

^ Yup whatever difference that might even exist between 320k Mp3 and FLAC is so tiny and insignificant that if you throw in a random song its practically impossible to tell. I don't waste precious space on FLAC when 320k does the same job.
 
I did a test on 320k and FLAC and it took me half an hour, of trying to find something somewhere in a specific song and I found nothing. You are lucky you could even find something. I am 31 now, my ears are not what it used to be when I was 20 it is an unfortunate reality we live in.
 
Infact its why I am slowly switching to Bluetooth now thanks to advancement of technology and my aging ears bluetooth is just perfect a couple percent won't kill me for that wireless freedom on the go. Not getting hooked up and tangle on the bus seat arm rest or whatever.

 

[novice]

^ Yup whatever difference that might even exist between 320k Mp3 and FLAC is so tiny and insignificant that if you throw in a random song its practically impossible to tell. I don't waste precious space on FLAC when 320k does the same job.

I did a test on 320k and FLAC and it took me half an hour, of trying to find something somewhere in a specific song and I found nothing. You are lucky you could even find something. I am 31 now, my ears are not what it used to be when I was 20 it is an unfortunate reality we live in.

Infact its why I am slowly switching to Bluetooth now thanks to advancement of technology and my aging ears bluetooth is just perfect a couple percent won't kill me for that wireless freedom on the go. Not getting hooked up and tangle on the bus seat arm rest or whatever.

I'm one who gradually listens more to Apple Music than his flac collection. I feel they are inconveniently located and even with terrabytes of them still feels limited compared to vast world of Apple Music. If I'm not working at home at my desk then no flac for me, even when I do, sometimes I just like to wwilfing (what was i looking for) in Apple Music. At first I'm convinced the quality difference was worth a dedicated listening session at the designated station, listening to certain high-bitrate music selection. Not now.

That said, I still think wireless is long way to go.

That could mean no desktop dac or amp since the D-A conversion and amping process is done in the phones so source direct to phones then. It could be a good thing since that means headphones manufacturers build amps integrated into the phones and tweak (color) them according to what they think best. Or a bad thing since that means no more playing or gears mix and matching. Less fun?

 

[Denon2010]

I'm one who gradually listens more to Apple Music than his flac collection. I feel they are inconveniently located and even with terrabytes of them still feels limited compared to vast world of Apple Music. If I'm not working at home at my desk then no flac for me, even when I do, sometimes I just like to wwilfing (what was i looking for) in Apple Music. At first I'm convinced the quality difference was worth a dedicated listening session at the designated station, listening to certain high-bitrate music selection. Not now.

That said, I still think wireless is long way to go.

That could mean no desktop dac or amp since the D-A conversion and amping process is done in the phones so source direct to phones then. It could be a good thing since that means headphones manufacturers build amps integrated into the phones and tweak (color) them according to what they think best. Or a bad thing since that means no more playing or gears mix and matching. Less fun?

 
Actually wireless does not have a long way to go, in 6 months from now when Bluetooth 5.0 releases, wireless will be indistinguishable from Wired. lol
 
Infact Bluetooth 4.2 and Aptx is already indistinguishable from wired to most people 40 years etc
 
Thank Apple for pushing this agenda, the lack of 3.5mm jack has brought a lot more attention to bluetooth headphones.
 
Watch and see something, as soon as people get a taste of that wireless earbuds freedom you will see just how fast the headphone world will change, there was a time when we said we will never use cordless or cellular phones because the quality was really bad compared to wired.

Today phonebooths and house phones are a thing of the past.

 

[wordfool]

Now we just need better battery technology, because that to me is the achilles heel of BT/wireless right now. 

 

[novice]

Actually wireless does not have a long way to go, in 6 months from now when Bluetooth 5.0 releases, wireless will be indistinguishable from Wired. lol

Infact Bluetooth 4.2 and Aptx is already indistinguishable from wired to most people 40 years etc

Thank Apple for pushing this agenda, the lack of 3.5mm jack has brought a lot more attention to bluetooth headphones.

Watch and see something, as soon as people get a taste of that wireless earbuds freedom you will see just how fast the headphone world will change, there was a time when we said we will never use cordless or cellular phones because the quality was really bad compared to wired.


Today phonebooths and house phones are a thing of the past.

True, especially to people who listen directly (no dac, unamped), also true to ppl who don't mind using ibuds and such. Dont care abt quality. To these people the future is here now - ibuds - end of discussion. These people are not here in this forum.

For quality, they need to incorporate today's quality solution (dac amp) into something extremely portable - can't think of anything more portable than becoming part of the headphones themselves, how big will they become? but then there's flexibility issue (my prev post) - can you replace ibuds' dac?

But then this kind of tech may be still long way to go to adapt for small manufacturers (think Grado).

For me, i went from flac nuts to 256kbps Apple Music, my bedside rigs exist no more (only headphones). I am willing to trade quality for convenience, but only to certain extent. ibuds still dont cut it for me.

Now we just need better battery technology, because that to me is the achilles heel of BT/wireless right now. 

Then there's battery problem. Apart from play-hour, also problem with size and weight and also longevity and then there's safety. I hope they solve it soon, I hate to charge phones everywhere day, i once had a Siemens phone which I charged on Sunday only. Or Philips? Can't remember.

My point is Bluetooth 5.0 does not solve unsolved problems it just does what has been achieved by 4.x - only better. There are still problems to solve and it needs more than only 5.0 to make that leap.

 

[Audioholic123]

   
Actually wireless does not have a long way to go, in 6 months from now when Bluetooth 5.0 releases, wireless will be indistinguishable from Wired. lol
 

No it won't. That is not possible.

 

[boiledelephant]

I'm pretty new here, but why not? Surely a high enough bitrate and a stable enough connection would make the two literally identical to human senses? Or is it just that you can't get the kind of bandwidth on a wireless connection that you need to replicate CD quality? (Freely admit I don't know much about the limitations of bluetooth/wireless audio.)

 

[Audioholic123]

FWIW, everytime I use bluetooth headsets (very rarely) the volume is lower, soundstage is narrower, bass and treble is thinner. It sounds closer to mono rather than stereo to me. This has very little to do with the sound signature of the headset and more to do with the fact that what you are hearing essentially is radiowaves. I sincerely hope that this technology does not wipeout wired headphones as radiation - no matter how small, is not a good thing.

 

[Viqor]

Lossless data transmission over wireless only really solves a small part of the wire chain. You still need a DAC to convert that data to an analog signal and an amplifier to power that signal to listenable levels. These things can obviously be integrated into the headphones themselves, but then you are restricted to designs that require only a fairly small amount of power since they have to be amped to an acceptable volume and provide enough battery life to be useful. Bluetooth can't solve any of those problems. Not to say that those specific issues can't be resolved at some point in the future, but at this point those are still very real hurdles for making a lot of headphones wireless.

 

[Music Alchemist]

Wireless headphones will never reach the level of sound quality of the best wired headphones that cost thousands and are generally paired with amps that are just as or even more expensive.

 

[bfreedma]

  Wireless headphones will never reach the level of sound quality of the best wired headphones that cost thousands and are generally paired with amps that are just as or even more expensive.

 
Considering that just over 100 years ago, Edison's wax cylinders and players represented the state of the art for audio reproduction, I'd be careful using the word "never".
 
It's little more than a question of miniaturization and energy storage, both areas of rapid technical advancement.  My guess is that "never" is less than a decade away.

 

[novice]

Lossless data transmission over wireless only really solves a small part of the wire chain. You still need a DAC to convert that data to an analog signal and an amplifier to power that signal to listenable levels. These things can obviously be integrated into the headphones themselves, but then you are restricted to designs that require only a fairly small amount of power since they have to be amped to an acceptable volume and provide enough battery life to be useful. Bluetooth can't solve any of those problems. Not to say that those specific issues can't be resolved at some point in the future, but at this point those are still very real hurdles for making a lot of headphones wireless.

This is my reply condensed into one concise paragraph. Exactly my point.

EDIT: Actually two long replies into one short paragraph, boy I need to learn how to write more efficiently.

 

[boiledelephant]

This is my reply condensed into one concise paragraph. Exactly my point.

EDIT: Actually two long replies into one short paragraph, boy I need to learn how to write more efficiently.

S'alright, by definition I doubt any of us are in a terrible rush or concerned with brevity. I get Viqor's point but I also think bfreedma's point trumps it. The only real limitation is how small and efficient you can make an amp, how well you can isolate a DAC against interference, and how dense you can make battery power. And they are getting better at all that all the time.
 
I accept that, at the moment, wireless headphones may all sound inferior due to design and size restrictions (I have to take peoples' word on this - I don't own any), but as I said a bit ago, history tends to make fools of people who predict what can't happen.