It's the simplest way to compare the capability of each Bluetooth codec for transmitting music. Bitrate is the rate at which data is transferred by a codec, measured in kilobits per second (kbps) – or megabits per second (mbps) in the case of the most capable codecs. New Bluetooth standards may allow new codecs to emerge. Bluetooth standards introduce new features (like Multipoint) and capabilities (like greater range). It's important to remember that even a small amount of compression is detrimental to sound quality, so pretty much every codec is lossy.īluetooth codecs are different from Bluetooth standards, such as Bluetooth 5.3. Indeed, not all codecs are created equal. When a music file is compressed and passed wirelessly between Bluetooth devices via a Bluetooth codec, some of the song's detail is almost always lost forever in the process – to varying degrees depending on the codec's capability, which we'll get to momentarily. Compression can also be used to reduce audio-coding delays and minimise latency issues. ![]() A Bluetooth codec is a software format that compresses and then encodes music so that it can be efficiently transmitted wirelessly between devices before being decoded by hardware that supports that same codec.Ĭompression reduces the file size lossily (meaning it loses information as it does so), as the less information that is transmitted, the smaller the file size can be. It was originally just a placeholder until the creators could think of a better name, but that never happened. As the story goes, during an early meeting between Intel, Ericsson and Nokia about Bluetooth's inception, Jim Kardach from Intel suggested Bluetooth, saying “King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.” It's actually named after the 10th-century Danish king Harald Bluetooth, who carried the nickname on account of his off-coloured grey/blue tooth. If you have ever wondered what Bluetooth is named after, the answer isn't something you would correctly guess and scribble down in a pub quiz. These two communicate with each other over Bluetooth using ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio waves – electromagnetic waves with frequencies of around 2.4GHz (2.4 billion waves per second). For now, most of us are stuck with lossy audio because of Bluetooth’s current bandwidth limitations.Essentially, a Bluetooth connection exists between a 'main unit' (a music source, say) and a 'peripheral' (a speaker or pair of headphones, for example). On top of that, these high-bitrate Bluetooth codecs (24-bit or greater) are not always lossless. Considering hearing abilities decrease with age, it’s likely that you and I have some damaged stereocilia. Humans cannot perceive anything above 16-bit/44.1kHz audio we can only register that if we have perfect hearing. When checking out your buds’ Bluetooth codec specs, don’t get too caught up in the “bigger is better” mentality. There are diminishing returns with high bitrates. An uncompressed, 16-bit/44.1kHz audio file is 1,411kbps. This is written as “kbps,” and a common bitrate. Bitrate (kbps): The bitrate represents the number of bits processed in a unit of time (typically seconds). ![]() Instead, this jump in bit depth increases the noise floor. Going from 16-bit to 24-bit audio doesn’t yield more accurate audio. A higher bit depth contains more information than a lower bit depth. Common audio bit depths are 16, 24, 32, and occasionally 64-bit.
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