For example, Sony's headphones have lossless Bluetooth, and so do Samsung's, and the quality of the headphones themselves is quite good, even by audiophile standards, for in-ears.
You can also get bluetooth adapters for traditional IEMs, Fiio and KZ sell good ones.
At the end of the day, there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
Maybe, but there are no high end TWS headphones. None of them stand up to even $200 wired IEMs.
>You can also get bluetooth adapters for traditional IEMs, Fiio and KZ sell good ones.
I wouldn't call any of the TWS adapters for IEMs good. I have the Fiio ones, they are a pain in the ass to use and connect. And everyone I've heard from says the KZ are worse than the Fiio ones, so I'm not going to try them.
Get a Bluetooth DAC instead like the Qudelix 5k or Fiio BTR series.
> At the end of the day, there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
True, true. I just wish they'd make good bluetooth headphones. I'm sick and tired of dealing with adapters, even the bluetooth ones.
That's completely subjective - Crinacle for example is a popular reviewer and disagrees. By all objective measurements they stand up to many 200$ wired IEMs.
> I wouldn't call any of the TWS adapters for IEMs good. I have the Fiio ones, they are a pain in the ass to use and connect. And everyone I've heard from says the KZ are worse than the Fiio ones, so I'm not going to try them.
> Get a Bluetooth DAC instead like the Qudelix 5k or Fiio BTR series.
I've personally had no issues with use or connection with my KZ adapter - my girlfriend still uses it, and doesn't report any issues (beyond battery life, as it's been 4 years now). I imagine it might also depend on the phone.
> True, true. I just wish they'd make good bluetooth headphones. I'm sick and tired of dealing with adapters, even the bluetooth ones.
I guess it's up to subjectivity. I personally find my wf-1000xm4s and xm5s really quite good after AutoEQ. I'm not the only one either, plenty of reviewers find them, once EQ'd (which is super easy on Android), to be competent IEMs, even compared to other 200$+ wired IEMs.
That's so long as you don't use an iPhone. If you do use an iPhone then yeah, you're screwed as you can't avoid audio compression and you're reliant on manufacturer EQ (though it's perfectly fine for Sony)
AirPods Pro Gen 2 are extremely competitive in audio quality and support lossless (when used with Vision Pro)
Even not so good TWS headphones are more expensive than pretty good wired headphones.
> Sony's headphones have lossless Bluetooth, and so do Samsung's
Unlike Bluetooth which you have to pray to god that it will pick the best codec, wired connection is already lossless.
> there really is no technical reason why bluetooth headphones have to sound any worse than wired headphones.
... until you enable microphone, then it turns into a potato 16kHz mono stream. A successor codec was only finalized in Bluetooth 5.2 and I don't believe there are major earbuds that support LC3 yet.
I would expect so, it's just a more complicated and expensive product to make. Even so, nowadays the difference is quite small.
> Unlike Bluetooth which you have to pray to god that it will pick the best codec, wired connection is already lossless.
I don't have to pray, there is a toggle switch for lossless audio, I just have to select it. It's easy to verify which codec is being used too, it's right there on the app.
And while a wired connection is already lossless, you can risk having a crappy amp on cheaper devices, and often you also have to deal with microphonics from your cables (especially those that have a mic built in). So while it can be as flawless as a lossless codec, it's not always.
> ... until you enable microphone, then it turns into a potato 16kHz mono stream. A successor codec was only finalized in Bluetooth 5.2 and I don't believe there are major earbuds that support LC3 yet.
Sony's headphones do support LC3 as of last week (it came in an update), but yes that's still a valid point as it's only recently being addressed.