alt Hacker NewsIt still positively mystifies me why the only actually lossless codec used for getting data to and from a headset / earpiece wirelessly is the extremely underadopted and proprietary aptX Lossless. Like I just cannot for the life of me understand why is it so difficult to push ~2.3 megabits/sec (48 KHz, 16-bit stereo listen + same but mono mic) wirelessly in the big 2025.
Replies
jononor • 08/01/2025
Every actor making codecs is trying to pull off an MP3, so that they extract rents from everyone else via licensing. They carpet bomb the field with patents to prevent free codecs from succeeding. aptX is an example of an non-free codec made in this manner :)
Bluetooth has low bandwidth. Classic Bluetooth is 1 Mbps. Bluetooth LE can do 2 Mbps. LE Audio was introduced in Bluetooth 5.3 and starting to show up in headphones. I think LE Audio supports high quality bidirectional so that should solve the poor headset problem.