John Darko
Add aptX lossless streaming, Auracast broadcasting and low-latency audio gaming to your Bluetooth audio experience — that’s Sennheiser’s proposition for its all-new BTD 700 USB-C dongle.
The BTD 700 is equipped with Bluetooth 5.4 and connects as a class-compliant audio device to its host to transmit audio to a nearby Bluetooth receiver i.e. a pair of Bluetooth headphones. The 2.4cm dongle (and optional USB-A adaptor) will work with any laptop, PC, smartphone or tablet.
Google translated from the German press release, “The BTD 700 supports aptX Lossless and aptX Adaptive codecs for reliable, high-resolution wireless audio with up to 24-bit depth at 96 kHz.”
Some points of order are, err, in order:
1. Hi-res Bluetooth is not the same as the hi-res streams we pull down from Apple Music, Tidal or Qobuz using wi-fi or Ethernet. No Bluetooth codec on the planet can handle hi-res audio losslessly. aptX Adaptive will always discard some audio data to fit the audio stream down the Bluetooth ‘audio pipe’.
2. That Bluetooth pipe is just about wide enough for lossless CD-quality audio but there’s a catch: the receiving headphones must also support aptX Adaptive with aptX Lossless.
3. aptX Lossless is the uppermost tier of aptX Adaptive and will only be engaged if and when the environmental conditions are favourable.
4. In the event of Bluetooth congestion or interference, aptX Adaptive will auto-magically step down to a lossy level to keep the music playing. The end user has no control over the auto-magical stepping up and down.
5. Sennheiser’s Bluetooth headphone app tells us when aptX Lossless is in play (and when it isn’t) but other manufacturers’ apps do not.
6. Sony’s LDAC codec – found in every modern Android smartphone – uses a similar three-tiered approach to Bluetooth streaming. It auto-switches between 990kbps, 660kbps and 330kbps and is therefore always lossy.
The BTD 700 is available now for €50.
Further information: Sennheiser
