How to Choose a TWS Headset

Speaking of Bluetooth headsets, the mainstream ones are actually in three styles:

There is a “head-mounted” on the head, a “neck-mounted” on the neck, and the last called “true wireless headset“.

The head-mounted type is more suitable for use in classrooms, homes, or airplanes. The scene is relatively fixed. Fortunately, it can be kept warm in winter. When the temperature is high in summer, it is not suitable for going out.

The neck-hanging type, including those with short wires around the head, has the advantage that it is not easy to fall off, and the stethoscope effect is relatively small. It was originally designed for fitness athletes.

Then there are all kinds of true wireless earphones that are popular nowadays, which is most suitable for office workers to go out on the street or fitness enthusiasts to listen to music while exercising.

The most typical ones are the new AirPods Pro, beats Powerbeats Pro, Sony WF-1000XM3.

When choosing a Bluetooth headset, you must first understand your needs.

The sound quality of Bluetooth headsets is not that perfect. Therefore, the purchase of Bluetooth headsets, first of all can not have too high expectations for sound quality.

Appropriately lower your expectations and pay attention to other pain points, such as battery life, wearing comfort, waterproof function, connection stability, etc…

But is the Bluetooth headset sound quality is poor? in fact, there is no big difference.

The development of Bluetooth technology has already supported very fast data transmission. So it should be easy to bring lossless music with Bluetooth 5.0.

But the bad thing is that there was an early A2DP protocol. Because the developer could not foresee the rapid developing of technology, the audio transmission data was restricted in the beginning.

Just like you use cloud disk to share some movies with your friends. You must first compress the file, then upload it to the network drive, and finally download it to someone else’s computer, and finally unzip the file. The question now is not how fast the bandwidth is, but the cloud disk does not let you download so fast.

The A2DP protocol limits transmission efficiency

Since the iPhone 7 canceled the 3.5mm headphone jack, many manufacturers decided to cancel the headphone jack too. The huge gap in demand directly stirred the market for wireless Bluetooth headsets.

In order to improve the sound quality of Bluetooth, manufacturers also tried their best.

Encoding is equivalent to different decompression techniques.

SBC is one of the most original and basic default Bluetooth transmission schemes, and its transmission code rate is about 328Kbps, 44.1KHZ.

Taking ordinary CD-level audio as the standard, a two-channel 44.1KHZ sampling rate of 16bit 1411Kbps audio, the size is about 10Mb.

Although the bit rate of SBC is similar to ordinary MP3 files, due to the lossy, it is far from the sound quality of CD level. This is why for a long time, everyone feels that the sound quality of Bluetooth headsets is not as good as wired headsets.

Though the protocol can’t be changed, manufacturers can only put focus on coding.

In addition to SBC, there are many other audio coding schemes.

Such as Apple’s commonly used AAC, Qualcomm’s exclusive apt-X series, Son’s LDAC, and Huawei’s LHDC.

Based on different encodings, the Bluetooth headset also has two completely different “technology trees.”

One based on IOS system. Although the sound quality of the AAC used by Apple is not the most outstanding, but with its own chip and operating system, it can ensure a relatively low headphone delay.

If you are an iPhone user, then don’t hesitate to buy AirPods, or beats.

In particular, beats have been ridiculed for “low quality and high price” in the HiFi circle. But recent years, after acquired by Apple, the evaluation is not bad for new released product like W1&H1.

The other based on Android such as apt-X HD, LDAC, the sound quality much better than SBC.

To put it bluntly, manufacturers do everything possible to improve the efficiency of data compression. Although it is still a lossy transmission, the sound quality is relatively better, close to the lossless level.

Mobile phones that have been generally upgraded to Android 8.0 now support the LDAC protocol. Mobile phones that use Qualcomm Snapdragon chips generally also support aptx, and Huawei also has its own solution for LDAC.

Therefore, when purchasing wireless headphones, you must pay attention to what protocol the mobile phone supports and what protocol the headphones support. The sound quality of the wireless headphones depends on the encoding.

As for the sound delay

In addition to the Apple headset, it is difficult for other wireless headsets to balance the stable audio quality with low latency.

Of course, unless it is a serious request for delays such as audio games and FPS, it is difficult for ordinary people to feel the difference of latency, so it’s suitable for daily using.

About noise reduction

The common noise reduction nowadays is generally divided into two types: physical noise reduction and active noise reduction.

If people usually use headphones in work and daily life, and also care about the sound of the outside world. They usually choose headphones with “active noise reduction” function.

It seems class up, but the principle is not as magical as expected. That is, the headset first collects the external environmental noise, and then uses the algorithm to output a “sound” of opposite phase and the same amplitude to cancel it out to achieve the filtering effect.

As for the physical noise reduction, it is using various earplugs and soundproof earmuffs.

If there was no diaphragm glass room in the early e-sports competition, you can often see the e-sports players wearing wired headphones and a large layer of earmuffs on the outside. This is for physical sound insulation.

Some in-ear headphones will also use as the “passive noise reduction” gimmick, but the effect is limited.