Zero Latency Wireless Adapter

Headphones Headphone Discussion / Help
1

I need help figuring out if such a thing even exists, because to me it seems like a wonderful niche product.

So, I daily drive the FiiO BTR3K with the 58X plugged into it and it’s great (In fact got some fantastic help with these from this very forum, thank you!), goes to an AptX LL adapter off of my PC and I don’t have complaints about the audio quality, except one thing: As low latency as AptX LL is, it’s not zero latency… I can still hear an every so slight delay still.

An ideal solution to me would be something like a BTR3K, has a 3.5mm headphone out that’s powerful enough to power something like the 58x, receiving a 2.4ghz signal or whatever zero latency signal, and on the transmission end would either be a USB dongle like most wireless gaming headsets or just some sort of transmitter taking a 3.5mm or optical in.

I feel like I’m not too far off of what is used in video production with lavalier microphones, and I know the tech exists with wireless gaming headsets… it’s just that I want to use my 58x wirelessly haha.

Does anybody know of such a product or possibly point me in the right direction? Thank you!

2

unfortunately due to the lack of imagination of product developers no one has come up with a solution to your issue. I have been wanting a prodict like this for a long time. But unfortunately its somewhat rare for audio companies to pay attention to gamers unless they want to sell somewhat mediocre products.

3

I definitely hear ya! Fortunately I think gaming headphones are generally moving in a more quality direction. I’m actually quite partial to Cooler Master’s MH670 for a closed back, it’s just that I sometimes prefer an open back for comms. But I don’t think a peripheral company like Cooler Master will come out with our ideal product. Somebody like FiiO might though, considering everything else they’ve put out there.

4

Just a technical detail. That is not possible (not even with cable if being more detailed).
In wireless there is always delay, around 25ms only for the wireless movement. Little more for actual devices take signal in, process it, send it - receiver pick’s it up, processes it, signal forward.

However, 20-40ms is considered to be optimal, not noticeable so called “low latency”.
You can search what “delay” is mentioned on your setup, is there real delay like +100ms or just imagined delay.

5

This is a fair point! However, there is a noticeable difference between AptX LL and traditional 2.4ghz wireless headphones. Particularly I play Final Fantasy XIV which has a lot of menu sound effects, and when even 40-50ms out of sync, it’s jarring.

Probably the most damning evidence is I have a DAC that splits to both my speakers and Bluetooth transmitter, and the latency in the sound is very apparent, whereas with 2.4ghz headphones, it is not.

That is what I mean by zero latency, maybe not true zero, but close to cable standards like most gaming headsets. Hope this clear things up.

6

Are you sure that aptX LL is on? If it is then that really is a bummer for any hope that bluetooth headphones can be used for gaming… The only “solution” I can think of is to introduce a video delay so that it matches up with your wireless audio setup, but that’s less than ideal for any serious gaming.

7

Sounds like a “Bodypack-Reciever”, those are normaly designed to monitor with in-ears (not headphones) on a concert or so, and as such rather expensive.

Some brands to look into are LD-Systems, Shure and Sennheiser.

8

It’s good that you ask, and yes I am sure. I specifically have this transmitter which I really do like, has a couple of unique features such as audio bypass and LL or HD priority switch. I can confirm that the BTR3K connects to it in LL mode as indicated by the transmitter.

I was wondering about that! But oof those prices. Doesn’t seem like there’s a good generic solution there that I could find. Thanks for the help though!

Something I was briefly looking at was this wireless mic system. It seems like the transmitter has a 3.5mm line in and receiver has a headphone monitoring output, but I have no idea what the power is. Also, it seems like it only runs for 6hrs on a couple of AAA batteries which is a dealbreaker.

9

Just to be clear.
The current setup is PC -> DAC?? - Avantree Oasis - - - BTR3K - 58x ?
And with the 2.4ghz headphones: PC - DAC?? - Avantree Oasis - - - 2.4ghz headphone?

Could you leave the DAC out and see is there any difference from wireless / delay chain.

To my knowledge the AptX LL uses ~2.4ghz (2.402GHz – 2.480GHz) range… maybe?
So the slight change you noticed in delay increase would come from BTR3K and it’s coding…? Maybe. Just from a troubleshooting side, nice little problem.

Could there just be some device that causes minor interference like Wifi or mobile device or etc that causes the added delay or is it really cause of the Fiio’s added coding time?

Is the delay more ok than using a wire, just out of curiosity. :slight_smile:

10

I’ve tried many different configurations, as experimentation is part of the joy of audio enthusiasm, is it not? :laughing: But I’ll lay out my current configuration and why I went that direction:

I have an Arctis Pro Wireless and I use its station as a DAC, more or less. I have it plugged into my PC via USB, and it has a 3.5mm line out and optical out that outputs audio at the same time. I have the 3.5mm line out going to my Avantree Oasis, and the optical out to my speakers (I know this seems backwards but more on that later). So to lay it out:
PC > Arctis Station 3.5mm line out > Avantree Oasis > BTR3K > 58X headphones
PC > Arctis Station optical out > Vanatoo T0 speakers
PC > MH670 USB Dongle > MH670 (using their proprietary 2.4GHz wireless)

I know this sounds like a disaster for latency when decoding/encoding/decoding/encoding/decoding is part of the chain, but believe it or not, I’ve found optical to the Avantree Oasis to have more latency, for both optical out of my Arctis Station and my motherboard onboard audio. I feel like it shouldn’t because it should be digital signal to digital signal. Besides, using 3.5mm line out to my speakers created a noticeable hiss when there’s no audio. So that’s why I have it switched around.

But yeah with this setup, audio goes to both my speakers and headphones at the same time (have to mute my speakers normally but this provides a convenient test), and it’s evident sound comes out of the speakers first, then the headphones. Sounds sort of like an announcer on stadium loudspeakers with that echo delay, literally <100ms but noticeable.

I’ve tried onboard audio as well, both 3.5mm out and optical, using the bypass feature with the Avantree, the works, and this setup is what I settled on when prioritizing low latency and convenience.

It does! All of bluetooth actually transmits at the 2.4GHz range, but it is a digital signal where encoding was actually never intended to be latency-free. This is where the variety of codecs come into play and why there’s such a wild difference in latency and quality. The way that most wireless gaming headsets go about it is typically their own proprietary encoding that is optimized for as little latency as possible. So it’s like… I know the tech is possible, just curious if anybody made anything like what I’m looking for, you know?

So that’s the thing. I’ve somewhat settled on the fact that AptX LL works well enough that I typically use it for gaming while on comms, and most of the time I go by with little issue, not noticing the delay, but occasionally, like I mentioned with navigating FFXIV’s menu, I’ll suddenly notice the sound effects don’t line up quite right with my mouse clicks. That’s it really.

11

So I’m going to resurrect this thread a bit and report back with a few interesting findings. But I found a good solution!

@MadGman I have to thank you for pointing out some component along the way may be adding latency, because that’s exactly what it was! It was the Avantree Oasis funny enough, something that advertises low latency adds ~100ms of latency even while in LL mode. In contrast, I got this TaoTronics transmitter and wow, what a difference in latency.

I started an Audacity project to measure latency among all of my sound devices because I was intensely curious. Methodology was to have a “master” track of solid, short ticks, and record with my Elgato Wave microphone. Recording and playing the master track provided a consistent way to measure latency end-to-end, so with a wired headphone as a control, it’s easy to see how much latency various BT codecs give.

With this TaoTronics adapter instead, AptX LL only adds ~7ms over my BTR3K wired in! Even more astounding is my Sony XM3, which supports AptX (non-LL) has less latency than LL on the Oasis. What a piece of junk lol.

Only downside I see so far is reception is slightly less than the Oasis. Very occasional microsecond clips in audio if I’m moving around or something, but sitting still, audio is perfect.

Also, something else I noticed is there’s some minor static if the transmitter is plugged in and using 3.5mm audio. Using optical mitigates it, if not completely eliminates it. Which makes sense since there shouldn’t be any analog conversion with optical.

@RiceGuru If you’re still searching for a solid wireless solution, give the BTR3K + the TaoTronics transmitter a try! You can disable AptX HD on the BTR3K app if you pair it with a phone, so it’ll default to LL, or you can disable HD on the transmitter too by holding down the bluetooth button for 7 seconds, according to the manual. This combo is right on par with other wireless headsets out there, even faster than my MH670!

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12

Well done. Excellent troubleshooting.

13

For those that are coming back to this thread for zero/low latency bluetooth, I’ll share the setup I’ve settled on:

1Mii Transmitter - Supports opt/aux in, usb powered, AptX LL & HD (and you can toggle between them). I’m using optical in.
BTR5 - The bluetooth receiver that everyone loves. The BTR3K also works well.

I’ve measured roughly 5-20ms difference between the BTR5 wired in (USB DAC) and AptX LL, which is humanly imperceptible and on par, if not faster than “gaming” wireless headsets (I’ve also measured Arctis Pro Wireless & MH670). My Sony XM3 on AptX (non-LL, non-HD) measures roughly 100-125ms, which is noticeable but definitely not bad. HD adds another 50ms on top of that and that gets into the realm of pretty bad. BTR5 on AptX HD was the worst contender at 180-200ms.

My only gripe is LL tends to have very quick little microsecond cuts occasionally, like little clips in audio. As I understand it, this is because LL doesn’t have any sort of buffer, or at least the buffer is tiny. I opted for the 1Mii transmitter for the dual antennas and direct line of sight to mitigate this, and it seems the BTR5 is better than the BTR3K about reception in the short range, but worse at long range. Probably because it’s bigger and made of glass/metal instead of BTR3K’s plastic and small form factor.

I tried playing with the DAC clocks and distortion compensation in the FiiO app to see if I can mitigate it further but that doesn’t seem to affect audio buffers in any way, and despite my research, I’m still not entirely sure what these options do.

In any case, I’m quite pleased with this setup now! Hope this helps anybody else looking for a good solution!

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