Fiio X3 mkIII: no hi-res over bluetooth

Just got one of these yesterday.... sounds great to my ears. Even playing 16bit flac cd rips thru my car stereo seems to sound much better than the actual cd in the stereo. Strange thing is if I try to play a 24/96 file over bluetooth to my car stereo it (the x3), tells me format unsupported but yet will play the file thru headphones.

Why would this be? Any ideas?

 

I think bluetooth only supports up to 24/48 Qualcomm® aptX™ HD Audio

 

I hadn't considered that.... makes sense. Thanks

 

How does the Bluetooth sound in your car stereo compared to through the Aux line in your car?

 

Sadly, I can't compare it as my aux & usb inputs have never worked.... However, the EAC ripped flac's sound better via bluetooth than the original cd's do in the deck. (It's a pioneer avic something or other in a subaru)

 

Ok thanks. I might get the new x3. Good to know the Bluetooth sounds great.

 

I just got a Fiio X3 3rd gen in June. I read the post upstream that pointed out that there is a Bluetooth constraint at 24/48. That explains why anytime I try to stream anything above that res from the X3, I get a "file not supported" error. However...…….

I have zero issues transmitting via Bluetooth, files all the way up to 24/192 from my Dell XPS 13 laptop. Zero, nada, zilch issues. I am wondering if the 24/48 constraint, is a constraint imposed by the X3 or if the files from my laptop do indeed play, but are getting downsampled to 24/48?

Either way - it's really frustrating. I have gigabytes of SD cards at 24/96 and 24/192. My new car does not have a CD player, so I was really looking forward to streaming these hi res files.

JQ

 

It could be that your PC is doing some downsampling on the fly before sending via Bluetooth. Assuming you don't have a 3.5mm jack in your car?

 

The most common, basically universal Bluetooth codec, SBC, because of its maximum data transfer rate of 345 kbit/s for a stereo file, won't support higher resolution playback. There are other codecs -- someone mentioned Qualcomm's Aptx HD, there's also Sony's LDAC -- that can do higher bit rates and higher sampling rates. But you need to have both a transmitting and a receiving device that are enabled for the codec. My guess is that your car stereo is SBC only. Even if the FIIO can send using one of those other codecs, unless the car can receive it, it's not going to be compatible.

 

Correct assumption, yes. I have two USB ports that only recognize the Fiio as a storage device. Unfortunately, there are constraints in the file types it will play via USB i.e. no hirez Flac.

 

Thank the Lord vinyl playback does not require codecs

 

Yeah, but it requires encoding and decoding just the same -- the signal is "encoded" with RIAA equalization, and then decoded by a piece of hardware on the other end. It's really not that much different from requiring hardware that supports the right codec on the send and receive sides.

 

I agree. Although analog audio doesn't have a "codec" like with digital audio, the audio on the disc and the record player itself must still be the right kind or it won't work. This reminds me of the Edison Diamond Disc, which was a contemporary of the 78RPM shellac record. Despite the similarity with the regular 78RPM record, you had to play an Edison Diamond Disc on a dedicated record player or you would destroy the disc (the disc didn't use left-to-right motion to encode the sound but hill-and-dale [up and down] motion to encode the audio. See the following video for information on this (that's where I got it from).

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Well, sure, there's the matter of having the right physical/mechanical components to decode the disk, but there's also a matter of having the right electronics with something like the RIAA equalization curve implemented, to decode the signal once you've recovered it from the disk or you'll just get the flat signal from the disk which will be all high end and no low end. You need both the proper physical equipment AND electronics with the proper decoding circuitry on the playback end to make LP playback work. It's pretty similar actually to the need for having both a send and receive device with the same codecs operating to make Bluetooth playback work.