Bluetooth Speaker Manufacturers Teach You To Identify the Sound Quality of Bluetooth

As someone who likes music, there are more or less Bluetooth speakers at home. However, sometimes we will find that the sound quality of some Bluetooth speakers is not very good, so what is the reason for this? In the past few years, the biggest change in the speaker equipment market has been the crazy increase in the sales of portable Bluetooth speakers. With the advantages of no cables, small size, and no need to toss the front end, in the statistics of many home appliances, the overall sales of Bluetooth speakers have begun to catch up or even surpass traditional active 2.0 or 2.1 speakers.

However, in contrast to the huge sales volume, many users found after purchasing that the sound quality of the Bluetooth speakers they bought was often not as good as they thought, so there is a saying that "Bluetooth speakers can only hear a sound".

 
The sound quality of Bluetooth speakers is generally not good, whose "pot" is it? Let's talk about this.

 
How much does Bluetooth audio transmission affect sound quality?

 
When it comes to the factors that affect the sound quality of Bluetooth speakers, many people may first think of the loss caused by Bluetooth audio transmission.

 
In fact, as early as the era of Bluetooth 2.0 / 2.1, the rate of Bluetooth transmission has reached 2.1 Mbps, which is enough to meet the transmission of high-quality audio. However, when performing Bluetooth audio transmission, whether it is the early Bluetooth 2.0 / 2.1 or the popular Bluetooth 4.0 today, the same A2DP protocol is used (in some manufacturers' promotion, Bluetooth 4.0 is equivalent to "good sound". Even "lossless" is nonsense).

Since the A2DP protocol greatly limits the transmission bandwidth, the audio signal needs to be effectively compressed to ensure real-time playback at the receiving end, which results in a variety of different encoding and decoding schemes in Bluetooth audio devices.

 
There are three main types of Bluetooth audio codec solutions: SBC, AAC, and apt-X. Among them, SBC is the ancient but still the most common Bluetooth audio codec scheme, AACand apt-X is relatively new, and some improvements have been made in the SBC scheme. In theory, the sound quality is better than the SBC scheme. The AAC scheme is mainly Used in Apple devices such as the iPhone, the apt-X solution is more common in mobile phones from brands such as Vivo and Samsung.

 
It should be noted that although apt-X claims to be a "CD-level" audio codec solution, in actual use, apt-X is much better than the old SBC, but there is still a certain distance from "CD-level" transmission. distance. In addition, apt-X needs to be supported by both the transmitting device and the playback device. If you want to use apt-X, in addition to needing a mobile phone that supports apt-X, you should also check whether the speaker itself supports it before buying a Bluetooth speaker.

 
If you want to rank these three codec schemes, under normal performance, apt-X is better than AAC and better than SBC, and there is still a significant gap compared to traditional wired audio transmission. However, if this gap is placed in a small-sized Bluetooth speaker, the impact on the sound quality is actually far less than theoretically.

 
In addition to "conventional protocols" such as SBC, AAC, and apt-X, Sony has also introduced a Bluetooth transmission standard called LDAC, which can provide a bandwidth of up to 990kbps, which is higher than that of apt-X. In theory, it can further improve Bluetooth audio transmission. Sound quality, but currently LDAC only supports some of Sony's own devices. If you want to experience LDAC, you need a player such as ZX2, ZX100, or a smartphone such as Xperia Z5, and then buy an MDR-100ADN Bluetooth headset or X99 wireless speaker and other devices, which are limited in scope.

 
sony-srs-x5-Bluetooth-speaker-product-photos04.jpg AUX port on the back of the Sony SRS-X5

 
We can prove through a simple test that most Bluetooth speakers have an AUX line input interface (3.5mm headphone jack), we can use a double-ended 3.5mm audio cable to directly connect the analog audio output from the mobile phone or Hi-Fi player Input into the Bluetooth speaker, and then compare the difference in sound quality transmitted using Bluetooth.

 
In most cases, using these two modes, the difference in sound quality is often small to no discernible difference at all. Taking the Bose Soundlink Mini (1st generation) as an example, after replacing the linear output, the sound will retain more high-frequency details, the low-frequency will become less "heavy", and the sound will become more "clear", but this The improvement of this kind of sound is still relatively limited, and there will be no feeling of "Alto changed to Audi". In addition, the sound quality of the vast majority of Bluetooth speakers on the market is not as good as the Bose Soundlink Mini. This is still the case with Bose. Other products using linear input often bring less sound quality improvement than Bluetooth.
 
In short, in portable Bluetooth speakers, Bluetooth audio transmission does have an impact on sound quality, but it is not enough to become a bottleneck for sound quality.

Miba was established in 2009 and is located in Shenzhen, China. Miba is a professional manufacturer of Bluetooth speakers.

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