What headphones?

Mike1951 posted:

So I eventually settled for a pair of B&W PX's.

I was looking forward to the convenience of Bluetooth,  but after a couple of flights with the noise-cancellation on mid-setting, I was a bit underwhelmed. 

Back on solid ground, I bought a suitable audio lead and ran a test. The reproduction with the lead in place is noticeably superior in terms of detail retrieval.

I was concerned that the noise reduction wouldn't work with the lead in place and was pleasantly surprised to find this is not the case. Also, unlike with a Bluetooth signal,  switching to 'aircraft' mode NC does not result in any loss of audio quality...  ????

I have got B&W P7s (or is it 8s - I think 7s) and I love them.

I have never heard anything that has a good sounding Bluetooth connection.  The Bluetooth signal has to go through a digital-analog conversion before the analog output and I think a lot of the problems arise there.  Depending on the sender there might even be a requirement for D-to-A but I suspect probably not.

I suspect that developers use a standard Bluetooth chipset and the DAC in the chipsets ain't gonna be that good.  Certainly if you are using high-end equipment the Bluetooth DAC ain't gonna compare to the DAC in your streamer or whatever.

Even my iPad sounds noticeably better using a cable than a Bluetooth connection to my Bose speaker but that could be poor implementation on my iPad or Bose.

The other thing I don't like about bluetooth is that I always seem to get problems getting a connection and when I do it usually forgets about it next time.

Very stylish cans for sure..... enjoy them

Yup I do and btw it is the P7s I have, which were cable only whn I bought them.  I should say though, that they IMHO best used for classical music.

I’ve got 2 pairs of Bluetooth headphones, B&W P5 wireless and B&O H3 wireless. They’re both decent with my iPhone but I understood Bluetooth audio to be lossy? Is that not correct? It seems an open and obvious reason why Bluetooth simply isn’t as good as wired.

Went for a quick listen to the Focal Utopias yesterday.  I thought my Focal Clears were excellent.  The Focal Utopias were just better. I preferred them to the Audeze LCD-4 that I had a brief listen to also.  If you've the budget they'd be worth auditioning.