Hi all. I recently purchased a Qudelix 5k to use with my iPhone to be able to EQ as well as to pump out a bit more volume. I’m just curious how the sound quality is compared to a wired connection. I’ve heard Bluetooth headphones generally are unable to compete with wired and I’m wondering if that applies to the Bluetooth in a dac/amp like the 5k too or if the dac/amps handle the wireless connection any better.

If there is a large difference does anyone have a relatively budget friendly option for usb type c -> lightning cable adapter for audio transmission?

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Elidyr90 t1_iu40ndw wrote on October 28, 2022 at 11:59 AM

iPhone only uses AAC which is limited to about 256kbs. So if you really really care about lossless or high quality codecs it’s not worth it.

Practically tho, the difference is pretty negligible in your typical everyday use and the features & usability of the Qudelix far outweigh the ~5 % (arbitrary number) quality loss.

Also worst case you could use one of these usb camera hub thingies to use the Qudelix wired, since it’s pluck & play

Edit: about wired headphones outshining BT headphones: I’d say this is generally true, but there’s a huge difference between actual BT headphones and using a good BT Transmitter on wired ones.

stankworm OP t1_iu5vt7a wrote on October 28, 2022 at 7:54 PM

Thanks for your detailed response! I’ve never quite considered myself a “critical” listener so I think I’ll just stick with the Bluetooth connection. It sounds great to me and I haven’t had a single drop out so far so it seems like it be a waste to buy the cable. I was only considering it if it was a sizable difference.

Elidyr90 t1_iu650zp wrote on October 28, 2022 at 8:58 PM

Yeah, the Qudelix is probably one of my favorite pieces of technology I own.

I use it all the time when I'm outside eventhough I own a 400€ DAP. It's just way more convenient. I'd consider myself more of a critical listener and AAC is more than sufficient for me in most use cases.

hurtyewh t1_iu5xm8i wrote on October 28, 2022 at 8:07 PM

The issue is mainly with bluetooth built-in to TWS and headphones. Qudelix is perfectly fine even with the lower bitrate.

cr0ft t1_iu6fq3j wrote on October 28, 2022 at 10:18 PM

The quality with LDAC or even AptX HD is basically indistinguishable from cable.

Sure, there's compression, but LDAC for instance is 900 kbit, and that's roughly where a FLAC is, and FLAC can do lossless at those bitrates.

Bluetooth isn't just one thing, it can encompass multiple technologies to transmit the data, with varying fidelity.

Small wireless earbuds have gotten markedly better, but they still have to cram in tiny amplifiers, batteries as well as wireless transmitters into something that can fit in your ear. Some models have a fair amount of hiss at rest because the amps are driven so damned hard, and hiss annoys the shit out of me. You won't get that with a high quality unit like the Qudelix or the FiiO BTR5 I use, and in my opinion when people start saying how shit Bluetooth is, they're confused as to where the problem lies; it's not the wireless transmission, it's the shit gear they have in their ears.

Phone amps are also often pretty shitty and low quality. I'd argue that the great amp in the 5k is more important than avoiding wireless.

Lucky-Manager-3866 t1_iu6u90d wrote on October 29, 2022 at 12:14 AM

I have A/B tested my 5K on Spotify Bluetooth and Apple Lossless wired through iPad. Can’t tell the difference.

blargh4 t1_iu4oxo1 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 3:06 PM

Depends on which lossy codec your connection uses, and whether your source material will compound multiple lossy compression steps . SBC (the standard-enforced bluetooth codec everything must support) is garbage sound quality wise to me, optimized for power efficiency on brain dead hardware. The other codecs sound better but they have patchy support between vendors. Their audible effect on sound quality tends to be overblown.

stankworm OP t1_iu5vx4t wrote on October 28, 2022 at 7:55 PM

I generally just use Amazon musics ultra HD for the most part which I believe is supposed to be lossless? Not positive.

blargh4 t1_iu6192l wrote on October 28, 2022 at 8:32 PM

Well, if it's showing the HD icon anyway, sometimes it drops down to a lossy stream and then it starts to sound pretty chewed up. But if your music is only getting one whack of decent quality lossy compression (and 256kbps AAC is more than decent), the difference will be subtle enough to matter to only the most obsessive audiophiles.

samaxemaga t1_iu55dgh wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:56 PM

New iPhones have Bluetooth 5.3 which helps with battery performance.

The rumor is the next iPhone will have Qualcomm’s LOSSLESS Bluetooth chip. That will put wires out of business.

samaxemaga t1_iu55kz9 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 4:58 PM

My Fiio uses Bluetooth 5.0. It sounds great connecting to iPhone 11. Almost as good as AirPodMax.

J-Laguerre t1_iu3z500 wrote on October 28, 2022 at 11:44 AM

Forget BT on iPhone AAC is just shit. Buy a cable

CosmoM3 t1_iu4fcvn wrote on October 28, 2022 at 2:00 PM

I mean....wireless will never have the same fidelity/speed/bandwidth as wired. I think that goes with anything.