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Comment by cactus2093 | Hacker News Reader

cactus2093

I agree for music creation or gaming, but in general wires are definitely annoying and limiting. I could never give up my Bluetooth headphones now for everyday use - wireless plus noise cancellation makes such a big difference when commuting or in the office.

The weird thing is, low latency wireless audio transmission is quite common. Like those used for in-ear monitoring on stage, or wireless guitar cables, that just broadcast over rf frequencies. I don’t understand why no one sells headphones using technologies like this, even if it meant a dongle that needs to be plugged into your computer as well.

Interference would probably be an issue if a full train car of people were trying to use this or something, so I get why Bluetooth is a better, more standardized default. But I would love to have the option of an alternative. I would definitely buy low latency wireless headphones to use while playing music.

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There are wireless headphones using other technologies than Bluetooth. I'm currently using a Steelseries Arctis 7 and it has no perceivable latency (I play rhythm games with it).

And it indeed comes with a USB "dongle"/base-station, with a cable and about the size of a watch, so not really usable on a train etc. (I use wired headphones when working away from my desk).

The best part is that the headset can be connected with a wire to both Xbox and PS4 controllers.

Also the custom dongle has an 3.5mm output plug for speakers, which will automatically turn off when you switch on your headset.

If only Steelseries would make noise-cancelling headphones...

// low latency wireless audio transmission is quite common.

The new Qualcomm aptX adaptive standard supports lowish latency - ~80ms.

list of official supported devices: https://www.aptx.com/product-listing?aptx_type=336

It might also work in general , with android 10 devices, but this need verifying.

The GGP says he is a musician--80ms is going to be much too high.

More niche, but close to my heart, it also basically kills rhythm video games. Those can mostly compensate for display latency, but compensating for audio latency is more troublesome--particularly if the exact amount of latency isn't constant.

To follow up, in most rhythm games, the "perfect" timing window is around +/-33ms. In DDR, the "marvelous" timing is around +/-16ms. 80ms is almost a combo breaker.

Top level players can stay in the +/-33ms window for thousands of notes without making a single mistake, and "full marvelous combos" where you stay in the +/-16ms window for an entire song are not unheard of.

That's the kind of timing we are talking about.

...it's interesting to note, though, that because DDR doesn't provide auditory feedback when you hit a note, it should actually be able to compensate for audio latency quite well. The big caveat being, you have to know what the latency is, and that latency must stay consistent, neither of which apply to Bluetooth headphones.

80ms is a roundtrip across the US, that may be low latency for bluetooth, but it's not low latency for the world.

As a musician I'd call anything ≤10ms low, while 20ms would be okay and usable. Something like 80ms would just be distracting fo anything rhythmic (okay for pad stuff or other slow swelling sounds)

Assuming my audio interface is telling me the truth about roundtrip latency, for me anything above 8ms starts to be detectable when playing guitar. Between 8-15ms or so it's subtle and you can kind of trick your brain into ignoring it but it's definitely still there if you pay attention.

And from what I've seen in the best case scenario a usb audio interface is going to have a roundtrip latency of 4-5ms (thunderbolt can be much better, there are some that claim 1 or 1.5 ms).

So IMO that means ideally wireless headphones need to stay < 3-5ms to be an unnoticeable replacement for wired ones.

Lhdc ll has 30msec latency.It's included in Android 10.

Maybe this would be ok?

Latency is only an issue if it is not accounted for. I am not sure if this is the case for video on android

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