I want to buy a wireless Bluetooth headset, but I am worried about the sound quality when it's connected via Bluetooth. All other things being equal (e.g. the quality of the headphones themselves is the same), is there a noticeable impact on sound quality when it's connected via Bluetooth, compared to an analog audio jack? What about between the Bluetooth headset and a wired headset when the Bluetooth headset is wired (plugged into the jack)?
I am looking for knowledge about the pros and cons of Bluetooth audio and analog audio in terms of quality.
Best Answer
Option 1: Bluetooth audio.
Option 2: 3.5mm TRS analog audio connector (wired).
Facts about Bluetooth:
Facts about analog audio:
The answer is that it heavily depends on your situation, and exactly how sensitive your headphones are, and exactly how good the Digital-Analog Converter (DAC) in the bluetooth headset is, and which codecs the bluetooth headset supports, and........ (many other things). If you're using the headphones in a way that a wire would get near certain models of LCD or computers, the analog signal quality may be terrible due to interference. If you're using the bluetooth in a way that it's in a heavily saturated 2.4 GHz environment (e.g. lots of WiFi signals, microwaves, cordless phones around), it may drop out due to heavy interference and crosstalk. Also you have to be able to live with the quality loss of lossy encoding for one of the bluetooth A2DP codecs, if you go that route. You probably can't detect it if you listen to lossy audio vs. lossless, but some people like to fake themselves out and say that they can tell ;)