TL;DR: USB-C AirPods Pro support lossless audio with the upcoming Vision Pro headset due to the 5GHz band support in their H2 chip. The previous version only had 2.4GHz.

  • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    TL;DR There is enough bandwidth in 2.4GHz, but fuck you consumer, buy more AirPods.

    • redballooon@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      According to Wikipedia the theoretical max bandwidth on the 2.4GHz bandwidth is 706,25 kbit/s downstream.

      I don’t have data from Apple, but Qualcomms lossless Bluetooth audio transmits up to 1Mb/s.

      So, a three minute internet search supports rather apples story than yours.

      • randombullet@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Yeah wiki also says.

        Bluetooth 2.0 already supports 3mbps or (2.1mbps real world)

        The bit rate of EDR is 3 Mbit/s, although the maximum data transfer rate (allowing for inter-packet time and acknowledgements) is 2.1 Mbit/s.

        BT5 expands on the Low Energy specifications to allow 2mbps burst.

        Bluetooth 5 provides, for BLE, options that can double the speed (2 Mbit/s burst) at the expense of range, or provide up to four times the range at the expense of data rate.

        Also 802.11n already runs at 54mbps for a 20mhz wide channel.

      • ashtefere@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Wow. Not only incorrect, but incorrect in the worst way by fucking up maths by a factor of a thousand!

        • redballooon@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          What math? There is no math in there. I typed 1 unit incorrectly. One that didn’t actually matter for the argument.

          • redballooon@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Should I rather trust a random naysayer on the internet? I haven’t heard yet his numbers or sources, even. My argument still stands after the correction of a unit.

      • zenith391@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I think you meant 2.4GHz instead of 2.4kHz, and I think it can transmit a tad more than that given that Wi-Fi 2.4GHz had much more bandwidth than 1Mbit/s.

        • lazyvar@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          I’m not sure if you’re serious or trying to be sarcastic.

          Bluetooth and WiFi are two different things.

          For starters standard Bluetooth operates on 1MHz wide channels, BLE on 2MHz wide channels, whereas WiFi (nowadays) operates on 20 or 40 MHz wide channels.

          Modern Bluetooth (on 2.4Ghz) can theoretically do bursts of 2Mbps, but in practice even 1Mbps is hard to hit in a sustained fashion.

          2.4Ghz is just a frequency band and is not the same as bandwidth.

          You might as well argue that a pickup truck and a formula 1 race car should be able to reach the same top speed in the same time because their wheel distance is the same.

          I think […]

          Think again

            • lazyvar@programming.dev
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              1 year ago

              Honestly the most frustrating part is that there is plenty to criticize Apple on, so there’s no reason to get caught up in fabricated clickbaity nonsense.

              But instead of focusing on genuine concerns, people would rather hop on some misinformation train.

              All the while, if you espouse opinions that are bit more nuanced than “Apple bad”, then you must be a bootlicker like you said.

              It’s as if people are more concerned about missing out on joining the hype and showing off their armchair skills, rather than exercising a modicum of critical thinking.

              • Schumi@feddit.de
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                1 year ago

                For real, lemmy is bad regarding this topic.

                Started as a Unix sysadmin for over ten years ago and still love to use it but switched to macOS Client Administration. So I know both sides (and also windows on my gaming rig), but I hate to see this „xxx is shit“ Style of content. Just kills the vibe in the tech community.

            • Jeffrey@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              the complaint that “Apple is locking USB3.0 to the more expensive iPhone 15 Pro”, despite that being the result of a process they’ve been doing for years now (current gen base models have the previous gen Pro chip).

              Are you so sure about this? Perhaps I’m paranoid but I think the “pro” designation on the new A17 just means that it has a USB-3 bandwidth capable memory controller. The iphone 16 will have the A17(non-pro) and will therefore not have USB3 speeds. It’s just forward thinking. Apple SOCs have had monikers for years now like ‘bionic’ and ‘fusion’, and even the different core clusters like hurricane, zephyr etc.

              NONE of them have been featured as prominently in the marketing/press material as the “pro” moniker of the A17. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, I think the term is more than just a name.

              Ultimately, my point is that while you’re right that the usage of the A16 in the base iPhone 15 is sufficient reason for it not to have USB3 speeds implemented this year, I wouldn’t my breath for next year

      • Kogasa@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        You can have audio of arbitrary bitrate. Lossless just means it isn’t being resampled or transcoded in a way that prevents exactly reconstructing the original signal. There’s no reason why you couldn’t support lossless audio up to 700Kbps, and the difference between 700kbps and 1mbps is well outside the range of perceptibility. You can also losslessly compress most audio that humans listen to by a significant degree, which is a completely transparent way to support higher bitrates if you can spare the processing time.

        • lazyvar@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Lossless is understood to have a bitrate of at least 1411kbps, or about 1.4Mbps.

          Theoretical sustained bandwidth capability of Bluetooth on the 2.4Ghz spectrum is 1Mbps, but in practice it’s a chunk lower in part due to overhead.

          Even if we assume if you could just cram a higher bitrate through a smaller bandwidth (spoiler, you can’t), everyone would be up in arms about Apple lying about lossless and class action suits would ensue.

          That said, you can’t. This is not like your internet connection where you’ll just be buffering for a minute.

          As for what is and isn’t perceptible, I think you’re mixing up your tonal frequencies with your bitrates here.

          • Kogasa@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            No, lossless isn’t assumed to have a bitrate of at least 1.4Mbps.

            Yes, lossless compression exists.

            No, I am not mixing up bitrate and frequency. Yes, with a typical codec the difference between 700kbps and 1mbps is almost certainly imperceptible in almost all conditions.

  • sbv
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    1 year ago

    Thank you for the tldr.

  • clearedtoland@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I know they won’t but I feel this is one product Apple should offer a simple swap program for users that recently purchased the AirPods Pro 2. It’s not a big deal now, and may never really be, but it does feel like a real F-U to Pro 2 owners.

  • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Does this have any implications for the crappy call quality when you are using Pros for video conferencing - MS Teams etc?

  • 4vr@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Lost my AirPods Pro 2 which was under Apple Care. Which model would I get if I claim? USB C or lightning?

    • HollandJim@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      See if they can swing you at a cost to USB-C, if you can. That has the better chip and better long-term value (if you can keep it in your pants… :D )

      • 4vr@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Hope not but that’s more realistic. I’ll find out in a week.

  • richard_wagner@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I already know the answer, but what I really care about is:

    Will these new AirPods support lossless audio with my iPhone 14?