There has been a lot of hype over tech juggernaut Apple’s new iterations to the iPhone 7—primarily over the introduction of packaged in Bluetooth headphones and the removal of the headphone jack which will not allow wired headphones to be used unless you have an adapter.
Many see it as a step forward, others see it as a disadvantage. This bold decision by Apple is a step towards evolution in the tech world. However, also points us in a less desirable direction: loss of sound quality.
Bluetooth headphones are nothing new. They have been in on the market for a while now with prices ranging from fairly affordable to fairly expensive. But if you are looking to get the best quality sound from your iPhone or MP3 player, Bluetooth headphones are not the way to go.
Music files, let’s say WAV files, are digitally compressed into MP3s which in turn makes them smaller so that you are able to store many of them in one device. But by doing this, quality is lost.
With Bluetooth headphones, that MP3 file is now being streamed from your device to your headphones. Streaming works faster and better when what is being streamed is small in file size. A MP3 file that is already compressed will be compressed even more through Bluetooth. Even more quality lost.
Now, this is not a push to have all of us stand behind our plug-in wired headphones or even go back to the sweet and wonderful world of analog. Convenience is key.
Convenience is why most technological advances are made. Just take a look at evolutionary track of the first iPhone to the iPhone 7. All the slimming and reducing and screen size and battery reliability, all in the name of convenience.
All done please us, yet we still complain.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2016.
Oh dear. If you are using MP3s, Bluetooth is the least of your problems…….
Now if your mobile device cab play some files with a bit more resolution, well, wires are the way to go.
Do not despair, Bluetooth and other wireless formats will improve.
This article is absolutely correct. I learned early on with my first iPod to choose Apple Lossless conversion, as the default conversion sounded awful. I needed more space to store my songs, but at least they were listenable. Now the tech companies are convincing people to use BT, with even worse sound degradation. I guess a lot of people have never listened to high fidelity audio, and don’t know the difference.