I gave the BTR5 a spin with my HD 6XX.
YouTube Music 256kbps, Pixel 4 + iPhone 11 Pro.
Quick impressions after an hour or two of listening:
it sounds fantastic
I know, I know, SPL and stuff. For me, the BTR5 drives the HD 6XX fine over unbalanced, with volume around 60-70%, high gain.
Iāve already ordered some Hart Audio balanced cables, because I was curious. Iāll post an update after trying them.
EQ was weird. I think this is where the lack of power may be showing. On my Hel, I can boost the hell out of the lower frequencies and the 6XX will be happy. With the BTR5 they seem to choke. The extra balanced powa might help here.
playing YTM 256kbps, I canāt really tell the difference between LDAC, APT HD (Pixel 4) and AAC (iPhone 11 Pro)
I also canāt really tell the difference between this and my Schiit Hel.
Well. The Hel can go MUCH louder, comparable volumes are like 9 o-clock for the Hel to ~38/60 on the BTR5 (both high gain). Also EQ (read above).
Android app seems slightly better. But they both work alright. Being able to connect to both and switch on demand was nice, made comparisons a little easier.
I believe AptX is good up to 352kbps. LDAC is better for CD-quality playback (yup, 990kbps).
CD-quality is 1411kbpsā¦ but thereās still compression happening (allegedly lossless).
Still, most people use FLAC files ā lossless compression of about 1/3ā¦ ~940kbps.
Iāve experimented with Tidal and lossless and to be honest, I havenāt been able to tell the difference when I compare it to YouTube Musicās high quality version. I know many people claim they can. Not disputing that, but so far it all sounds very similar to my ears. Maybe if I knew exactly what to listen for, Iād notice. But perhaps itās better that I donāt know
However, if the YTM track is not 256kbps, I can tell. Itās usually the ones that come from videos. IIRC, I used to be able to tell the difference between SBC and the other codecs, but itās been a while since I used that codec, so not sure.
Yeah itās hard if you donāt have āgolden earsā or ādetail monsterā headphones. Obviously more apparent if you could A/B youtube VS the CD, but well.
One thing I know is, youtube just demolishes the sub-bass. Electro songs I bought in .wav versus the youtube videos (official, 1080p, etcā¦) I get maybe 30% more sub-bass from the CD-quality file.
Itās also really hard to do a direct comparison, and that gets worse 44 ā 96/192 because even knowing itās the same recording is difficult.
The reason most people find it hard to differentiate, is because if it werenāt compressed audio would have been a complete failure, the difference really is tiny, itās in the details.
All I really notice with compressed audio is a loss in staging, and āclarityā/treble quality, if your systems not particularly resolving, you probably wouldnāt notice that.
I would choose uncompressed over compressed, but I have tracks on CDās I ripped 2 decades ago that I donāt have as FLAC, and are unusual enough streaming services donāt have them, and Iām happy to listen to those in the format I have.
Iād just stop worrying about it and listen to the music.
To add to @Polygonhellās point, Iām going to drop a link to another post here:
The podcast linked to within that post has a couple of audio researchers as guests. One of the researchers points out that listeners inevitably prefer a lossless format over a lossy formatā¦ EVENTUALLY. The tricky part is mp3 and other compression codecs are really good at determining and presenting the āessenceā of a piece of music. If oneās exposure is first and most often to a lossy format, that essence creates the expectation of how a track should sound. The subtle details like reverb and air that often get lost in a lossy (HA!) format can initially sound like a distraction from that essence. However, in time and with practice listeners do begin to prefer the added realism that the lost content gives back when moving to a lossless format. But that takes time and lots of listening.
Could be. Any new headphone/speaker is going to require some level of mental burn-in (physical burn-in is real too but almost always has a much, much smaller and sometimes vanishing effect). If you go from something relaxed like a Meze 99 series to detail cannons from the Beyer line, then yes, a similar effect could probably happen.
mine will be here Saturday, gonna tac this to the back of the THX portable. gonna test with 600ās and 6xx when it arrives Tuesday, use case will be for bluetooth from my TVā¦
Needing some help with the BTR5 and an iPhone Pro Max. I had the BTR5 on the LDAC codec and started messing with the other ones to see what they sounded like. Now the BTR5 wonāt do anything but SBC no matter what I change the codec to. Doing this via the FiiO music app. Have rebooted and hard booted the iPhone to no avail. BTR5 is still in SBC. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
The only codec the iPhone supports is AAC. So if you turn that codec off in the FIIO app, then it automatically reverts to SBC. AAC is still good, but if you want better, your only option with the iPhone is using the BTR5 as a USB DAC. To do that youāll need the iPhone camera adapter plus a USB A to USB C.
Oh really? Now thatās interesting. That makes me feel a lot better actually about using AAC with the BTR5. I was getting extremely confused trying to understand these codecs and bluetooth codecs. As a newbie to all this I realize how little I actually know.
Noā¦ differences between headphones will all be enormous compared to just āthe same file in .mp3 vs the originalā ā mainly because I donāt even think itās scientifically possible to release two pairs of headphones and do, like, āwe took the exact same technicalities, but added a ton of detailā.
