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smalg2 t1_jco9geg wrote

Reply to comment by lightrush in FINALLY AptX is now free to use by BernabethWarners

Exactly. To be honest I suspect they only made their encoders free to use on Android because they figured it would increase their market penetration (more aptX support on Android means more aptX-compatible headsets sold) which in turn would allow them to make even more money on decoder licensing fees (for headsets) than they would have otherwise (since fees have a "per-device" component). This move isn't for the greater good, it's for money, which truth be told they make a pretty good job at extracting from a technology that dates back to the 1980s.

Which is a shame because SBC is objectively a better codec than aptX. I'm not even kidding. Ever heard of SBC XQ? It's a higher-bitrate version of SBC (same codec, better settings) just like aptX HD is simply aptX with a higher bitrate. Funny thing is, the Bluetooth specification only suggests encoder settings up to 328kbps for SBC, so until recently no encoder ever bothered to go higher. But it turns out most headsets can decode SBC up to 730kbps. The people who discovered this came up with higher-bitrate encoder profiles, and named them SBC XQ.

And not only is SBC supported by every Bluetooth headset ever made because this is mandated by the Bluetooth specification (and aptX isn't), but unlike aptX, SBC uses psychoacoustic modeling, which gives it a better perceived sound quality than aptX for the same bitrate. The result is SBC XQ can beat aptX HD in terms of sound quality while using a comparable bitrate, and works with almost every headset in existence, even older ones. Universal support, better quality/efficiency, and no additional fees required: aptX has literally no reason to exist other than filling Qualcomm's pockets. SBC XQ has already been implemented on Linux (via Pipewire) and LineageOS-based Android ROMs, let's hope it will come to mainstream Android (AOSP) soon.

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Wolverineghost1234 t1_jcoqngp wrote

Why so negative about aptx ? Do you think Sony, Sennheiser will sell lots of their devices without? What di they tell their customers then? AAC for instance is better than Aptx?

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Shirubax t1_jcp54i6 wrote

Last I checked Sony didn't support aptx, at the very least they are pushing their own codec.

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Wolverineghost1234 t1_jcp5q7l wrote

That's right. But take other brands they all have Aptx, aptx hd or LL. If it isn't about the codecs but more on hardware why dare lots of brands not to choose for AAC. They say AAC is not reliable on android..they say but is it true?.

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Shirubax t1_jcpph0m wrote

I don't think it's true, at least not on my xperia phone. You can lock the codec in the developer settings to force a certain one, and I've tried aac before without issues.

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S0_B00sted t1_jcu1m9x wrote

LDAC is a superior codec anyway. aptX can't even recreate a sine wave without garbling it.

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smalg2 t1_jcr68oa wrote

> Do you think Sony, Sennheiser will sell lots of their devices without?

Probably not, and I suspect that was kind of the point. We could simply have increased SBC's bitrate and enjoyed high quality music with our existing SBC gear, the end. But instead, a company saw the money-making potential of this situation, bought the rights to an audio codec designed in the 80s, and pushed for it to be used with Bluetooth by marketing it as "HD audio" (which it wasn't really, at least for the original non-HD aptX). Headset makers got to sell more headsets ("Oh you want to use this fancy new codec? A shame it doesn't work with your current headset, you'll need to buy a new one. Too bad!" - sad Pikachu face) creating more electronic waste in the process, Qualcomm got to collect licensing fees from millions of encoders and decoders around the world, and consumers obviously got to pay for all this (who else?) Other companies saw this and joined the game with their own codecs, and the Bluetooth audio landscape is now this huge mess we all know, with a plethora of codecs competing against each other, and an endless list of platform-specific incompatibilities and limitations. All this when the solution was right there from the start: SBC...

I'm not saying SBC doesn't have room for improvement, especially regarding latency, but it was designed to be capable of much more than what we ended up using it for. It was supposed to support adaptive bitrate for example, but AFAIK this was never implemented correctly.

So yes my opinion of aptX is pretty negative, because IMO this is a typical case of consumers getting abused to make corporations even more money, when there were some much more elegant (but less lucrative) solutions available. Bluetooth audio could have been so much better... Oh well, rant over.

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giant3 t1_jcu623p wrote

> negative about aptx

It is based on truth. This AptX vs Others test shows that standard AptX and SBC @ 328 kbps have only a 0.6 dB difference in distortion. AptX HD is better, but it is using 529 kbps. SBC or SBC XQ at that bit rate would perform similarly.

> AAC for instance is better than Aptx?

Absolutely. Any day of the week. The only codec that can beat AAC is Opus. There is extensive scientific literature on audio codecs. People have spent their entire career on audio codecs and their day job is evaluating the codecs both subjectively and objectively.

AAC & Opus are superior to every other lossy codec out there.

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Wolverineghost1234 t1_jcucp4g wrote

Thank you very much for you're reaction. I think I'm going the choose for the Jabra Elite 7 pro..

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giant3 t1_jcurfcn wrote

> Jabra Elite 7 pro

They are not worth the money as their ANC is garbage though their sound quality is on target.

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Wolverineghost1234 t1_jcuw6zs wrote

I already ordered. Sound is More important to me the ANC. Thanks for your reply.😊👍👍

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