Apple could improve the AAC codec to make things much better - under ideal conditions - but true lossless will likely require some significant enhancements to Bluetooth, or the development of Wi-Fi headphones that support something like a future “AirPlay 3” protocol. What this all comes down to is that there’s simply no way you’re going to hear true lossless audio from any wireless headphones in the near future. The same would also be true if Apple were to implement the MPEG-4 SLS extension to the AAC codec. In other words, for the same reason that you get faster internet speeds when sitting right beside your wireless router than you do on the other side of your house, Bluetooth will also give you lower data rates when you’re not right beside your iPhone.Īs a result, even high-bitrate codecs like Sony’s proprietary LDAC can’t guarantee the highest quality - in fact, they’re specifically designed to “scale down” to lower lossy bitrates when they can’t maintain a fast enough Bluetooth connection. While some Bluetooth codecs have higher data rates that get closer to lossless quality, none of them can yet deliver the full bandwidth required for even CD-quality lossless audio, much less the newer hi-res formats.īluetooth connections also suffer from the same signal attenuation problems that Wi-Fi and cellular signals do - the farther away you get from the source, the lower the data rate. To be clear, this limitation applies to all wireless headphones. This makes sense, since Apple only uses the standard AAC codec over Bluetooth, and just like the AAC file format, that’s an entirely “lossy” codec, meaning that at least some audio fidelity is discarded to lower the data rate so that it can be streamed wirelessly to a set of headphones. As we explained in much more depth yesterday, you won’t be able to take advantage of Apple’s soon-to-be-upgraded lossless music catalog from any wireless headphones - including Apple’s own premium AirPods Max.
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