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Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

bluetooth.com

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Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#11

Post by daze42 »

jdietrich wrote: post #6

>LE Audio is Multi-Stream Praise be to the heavens - we can finally have Bluetooth headphones that don't revert to low-bitrate mono if the microphone is active.

YES! This has been bothering me for so long. I'm shocked it's taken them this long to iron it out. I hope the device manufacturers implement it soon.

Edit: on second read, I'm not so sure LE Audio will address this issue.

"Multi-Stream Audio will enable the transmission of multiple, independent, synchronized audio streams between an audio source device, such as a smartphone, and one or more audio sink devices."

This sounds like it's referring to stereo or other multichannel audio, not bidirectional. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#12

Post by klodolph »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #8

The "Broadcast" mode is really an interesting concept - depending on the available range. There are a lot of potential uses for this technology beyond the basic. Of course "I can share my headphones with you" is great, in the day in age of watching moves on iPads in say a plane. However I think in a business setting the broadcasts could be used for all sorts of cool bits. Remember the TV's in airports running news on…

> Mass transit (trains, buses, subway stations, airport) could broadcast announcements, the same way they do now over speakers, so those who have a hard time hearing the announcements (or just have headphones in anyways) could actually hear them.

These are often transmitted over audio induction loop already.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#13

Post by ulfw »

lightedman wrote: post #4

This literally addresses none of my complaints regarding Bluetooth Audio. Latency needs to be on the order of single-digit milliseconds. LC3 can achieve around 20. One order of magnitude too high. Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater. And give me 100 feet of range.

"Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater."

What kind of bluetooth have you been using? Modern codecs sound perfectly fine.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#14

Post by lightedman »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #9
lightedman wrote: post #4

This literally addresses none of my complaints regarding Bluetooth Audio. Latency needs to be on the order of single-digit milliseconds. LC3 can achieve around 20. One order of magnitude too high. Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater. And give me 100 feet of range.

What is your use case for low latency? I understand that some want it for bluetooth headsets for videogames, where milliseconds mater - but beyond that? Also what about AptX LL? Or LLAC?

I play guitar. Timing is absolutely necessary. Anything past 15ms I can perceive and it is highly distracting and off-putting to my internal metronome.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#15

Post by snarf21 »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #8

The "Broadcast" mode is really an interesting concept - depending on the available range. There are a lot of potential uses for this technology beyond the basic. Of course "I can share my headphones with you" is great, in the day in age of watching moves on iPads in say a plane. However I think in a business setting the broadcasts could be used for all sorts of cool bits. Remember the TV's in airports running news on…

Agreed, plus everyone at the bar can listen to whichever game they want without annoying everyone else. That is killer.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#16

Post by monocasa »

ulfw wrote: post #13
lightedman wrote: post #4

This literally addresses none of my complaints regarding Bluetooth Audio. Latency needs to be on the order of single-digit milliseconds. LC3 can achieve around 20. One order of magnitude too high. Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater. And give me 100 feet of range.

"Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater." What kind of bluetooth have you been using? Modern codecs sound perfectly fine.

Modern codecs are non standard vendor extensions.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#17

Post by klodolph »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #9
lightedman wrote: post #4

This literally addresses none of my complaints regarding Bluetooth Audio. Latency needs to be on the order of single-digit milliseconds. LC3 can achieve around 20. One order of magnitude too high. Audio needs to not sound like it's being played underwater. And give me 100 feet of range.

What is your use case for low latency? I understand that some want it for bluetooth headsets for videogames, where milliseconds mater - but beyond that? Also what about AptX LL? Or LLAC?

If you are a musician, try introducing a 10ms or 20ms delay and then play something on piano or guitar. Whether you notice it depends on a ton of factors which I’m not going to get into, but in general, at 10ms the music will feel sluggish and you will have difficulty playing on the beat. This can be verified with ABX tests if you like.

The timing accuracy for professional musicians can approach 1ms under controlled tests. The human auditory system is extremely sensitive to timing differences, among other reasons, because we use these timing differences to localize sound. 10ms is about equivalent to a 3m distance in space. So if you have a 10ms delay on your guitar, it sounds like you are playing a guitar that is 10 feet away from you.

Re: Announcing Bluetooth LE Audio

#20

Post by davefp »

Just yesterday I was discussing how one might do live translation for someone speaking to a multi-lingual group, for example a tour guide at a museum. The broadcast features mentioned here would make things way easier, and people could use their own headphones to boo.
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