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Bluethooth latency still an issue in newer BT headphones?
I've seen a lot of nice BT headphones these days - just wondering if these newer units have beaten the latency issue - esp for iPad music use. The lure of no wires is still def attractive! Any coments?
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IIRC, the latency of BT audio is a problem with the BT protocol itself. All BT devices are stuck with that, no matter how good they are 😕
Thanks - that's what I was afraid of.... guess I'll stick to wired. :-(> @ehehehe said:
Umm - will give those brands a look-see... THANKS!
I have some very cheap Xiaomi (redmi lite 4), and they have low latency mode made for games, it gets a latency that I can feel but I can work around for simple melodic/rhytmic input.
It doesn’t really make much difference.
I went from Sony WH1000XM4 to Airpods Max then back to my old B&W P5s.
The P5s have a bit more latency but sound 10x better.
Yeah I’m afraid even Apple’s semi-proprietary Bluetooth headphones have too much latency to monitor live performance. And per @ehehehe every Bluetooth earphone/headphone I’ve ever encountered has an exaggerated bass response so isn’t great for monitoring anyway. THAT SAID, I did get a low-cost pair from Amazon a while ago and they had a 1/8” jack so you could use them wired if you needed low-latency, and then go wireless for mixing and arranging etc. They only lasted like a couple years but then they were less than $100. Soundcore by Anker was the brand.
Did you check to make sure that wired was truly latency free. Some dual-use BT devices have turned out (surprisingly) to have latency even when wired .... there is a thread somewhere about this as relates to BT speakers...even some pretty high-end ones.
Yes, the Anker ones could be used wired while powered off or with a dead battery.
I saw many youtubers use Aiaiai headphones, saying it has the least latency from all bt headphones. Check them and see if it make sense
https://aiaiai.audio/headphones/tma-2
Bluetooth will always be slower than a direct cable connection.
I’ve been using AirPod Pro 2nd gen all summer at a $50 discount.
I don’t play live instruments or live monitoring, but I have no problem banging notes in on time into Drambo’s sequencer on a grid with 16th note resolution at around 90 bpm. I was able to do this immediately following the transition from wired cans So I don’t feel I needed to rush or relearn the feel. Also, Toneboosters Morphit has a correction profile for AirPods first generation. I just need to be conscious not to have any look ahead limiters or fx that introduce latency until I’m mixing.
This isn’t ideally how I want to work on music, but it allows me to work on music more. In other words it’s better than the alternative for me: no music and making excuses. For me it’s the active noise cancellation and portability that saves the day. And my mixes seem to not suck that bad 👍
I noticed that the WF-10000xm4, according to the specs, have very very low latency, pretty negligible, on Android, but much more on iOS. Because I mostly work with midi etc, I still manage to get a lot of use out of them on my iPad, and have no regrets, but switch over to wired headphones or earphones when having very very low latency is important.
Aiaiai TMA-2 are available as Wireless as well as Bluetooth, these are my choice for cable free ultra low latency music making. There are also gaming headphones that use Wireless instead of Bluetooth, the drawback is you need a wireless transmitter of some kind at the device end.
Audio Technica ATH-M50xBT2 have a bluetooth mode but you can also plug in a cable for latency free monitoring. When you use them in BT mode you can apparently change the EQ curves via an app (not so when hard wired).
Best of both worlds maybe? The non-bluetooth M50s are pretty good studio headphones.
https://www.audio-technica.com/en-gb/ath-m50xbt2
I have these high up on my shopping list. I have some m40s already and I like them a lot. I would like another pair for my office so would have the m50s at home. Bt on the sofa is much more convenient and makes it easy to use iPads/iPhones that need separate adaptors.
Thanks to all for the GREAT tips & comments. I am just a "wannabe" synth player so it is difficult to justify the expense of the better headsets.... 😁
yes, but I've not tried the uber speedy/spendy ones. I use a cord and so far it just always works better. Maybe im old school.
I tried the Mrs super expensive airpod max pro earbud somethings and was surprised to find some apps were glitchy, full on micro stutter garbage, and did not play back properly with them.
I just pulled the trigger on the Phillips SHP9600. It can take an external cord and I have a 3mm to USB C which seems to work thru my USB hub to the iPad. SHOULD be adequate for casual synth stuff… so…. Did I step on my weenie? 😂
I really want Apple to put the effort into developing a proper low latency wireless audio codec. Money left on the table, boys! Imagine how much they could charge for 'AirPods Pro Creative', or however they could brand it.
Yeah… hard to understand why this has taken so long to get fixed. Seems like there would be “big bux” for it. 💰
These Yamaha wireless headphones claim to be designed for musicians and have ultra low latency. You can apparently record audio in real time with no apparent lag. Curious to try them. They have been presented at Namm this year.
https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/musical_instruments/guitars_basses/amps_accessories/yh-wl500/index.html
(Airpod pro 2gen have quite a noticeable latency for music production)
Note that that the low latency mode of those headphones is not BT. The low latency mode uses a wireless transmitter that you plug into your audio source. Low latency wireless transmission is not new.
The headphones ALSO do BT for music listening and that is not advertised as low latency. The headphones are also pricey.
These things have been around forever and you have seen them before. They are just these marketed towards musicians with a price mark up….
That is why I wrote "wireless" and not "bluetooth".
They retail at 300€ at my local music store. If they deliver what they promise it could be a very handy investement.
It could get faster than speakers tho... it's like 3ms per meter you are away from them
I just wanted to make sure that other people reading were clear about this -- as the Yamaha site doesn't show that a transmitter is needed -- I think a of people might not realize the situation.
Bluetooth has several encoding standards and Qualcomm created one called AptX that reduces latency and improves the bitrate. Qualcomm makes cellphone chips that support it so Android phones tend to offer it and they get lower latencies down to 40 MS. (0.4 of a second).
But it requires chip support and has licensing fees.
Apple devices don’t support it so a transmitter on a headphone port is required… but Apple also requires that USB or lightning to mini-phono adapter which has its own added latency. I expect Apple will invent their own low latency protocol sometime to make AR/VR more immersive and control their peripheral market as always.
40 ms is still a lot of latency (about what you get with buffers of 2048) and i believe it is 40ms additional latency. Not very usable for recording. I’ve also read that IRL the latency is often higher.
For general info and to expand on this comment, I use AptX-LL with my iPad. I use this…
https://us.creative.com/p/accessories/creative-bt-w3
Now your headphones also have to support AptX-LL, and mine do, but this is magitudes more usable than just apple AirPods connected to BT. Cause they are headphones I can’t perform round trip/one way latency measuments easily to show you, but it’s very workable.
(yeah yeah yeah..I won’t use it live….)
Edit: also 40ms isn’t .4 sec, it’s .04
Edit 2: also ms is only part of the equation. Depending on tempo, ms vary on the “beat grid”….. so you have to look at in context of the project you are working in cause your perception of 40ms a can change depending on tempo:
https://tuneform.com/tools/time-tempo-bpm-to-milliseconds-ms