Comparison Vivo TWS 3e vs Vivo TWS 3

Sound delay in wireless headphones is a natural process caused by the specifics of audio data transmission over Bluetooth. It can be either almost imperceptible or clearly interfere with comfortable gameplay or watching video content. This paragraph provides the declared sound delay time in milliseconds, which is written in the technical specifications for a particular headphone model.

Impedance refers to the headphone's nominal resistance to AC current, such as an audio signal.

Other things being equal, a higher impedance reduces distortion, but requires a more powerful amplifier — otherwise the headphones simply will not be able to produce sufficient volume. Thus, the choice of resistance depends primarily on which signal source you plan to connect the "ears". So, for a portable gadget (smartphone, pocket player), an indicator of 16 ohms or less is considered optimal, 17 – 32 ohms is not bad. Higher values — 33 – 64 ohms and 65 – 96 ohms — will require quite powerful amplifiers, like those used in computers and televisions. And models with a resistance of 96 – 250 ohms and above are designed mainly for Hi-End audio equipment and professional use; for such cases, detailed recommendations for selection can be found in special sources.

The range of sound frequencies that headphones can reproduce.

The wider this range, the more fully the headphones reproduce the spectrum of sound frequencies, the lower the likelihood that too low or too high frequencies will be inaccessible. However, there are some nuances to consider here. First of all, let us remind you that the perceptual range of the human ear is on average from 16 Hz to 22 kHz, and for the complete picture it is enough for headphones to cover this range. However, modern models can significantly exceed these boundaries: in many devices the lower threshold does not exceed 15 Hz, or even 10 Hz, and the upper limit can reach 25 kHz, 30 kHz and even more. Such wide ranges in themselves do not provide practical advantages, but they usually indicate a high class of headphones, and are sometimes given only for advertising purposes.

The second important point is that a wide frequency range in itself is not a guarantee of good sound: sound quality also depends on a number of parameters, primarily the amplitude-frequency response of the headphones.

The diameter of the speaker installed in the headphones; models with multiple drivers (see "Number of drivers"), usually, the size of the largest speaker is taken into account, other dimensions can be specified in the notes.

In general, this parameter is relevant primarily for over-ear headphones (see "Design"). In them, emitters can have different sizes; the larger it is, the more saturated the sound is and the better the speaker reproduces the bass, however, large emitters have a corresponding effect on the dimensions, weight and price of the headphones. But in-ear "ears" and earbuds, by definition, have very small speakers, and rich bass in them is achieved due to other design features.

A function that allows you to automatically pause the playback track when you remove the headphones (or one headphone).

Autopause is found mainly in wireless models (see "Connection Type") true wireless format (see "Cable Type"); however, there are other types of headphones with this function — for example, with a combined connection and an overhead design. Anyway, the proximity sensor is usually responsible for the auto-pause operation, which is triggered when the earpiece moves away from the ear. This feature is especially useful in situations where, after removing the headphones, there is no time to manually pause playback — for example, you need to urgently respond to what is happening nearby. At the same time, some models are able to automatically resume playback when the earpiece is returned to its place, however, this function is not strictly required — it will not hurt to clarify its presence separately.

A technology used in Bluetooth models (see "Connection") that allows the headphones to connect to multiple devices at the same time. Thanks to this, you can, for example, listen to music from a laptop, and when a call comes in on a mobile phone, switch the headphones to a conversation. This technology has its own characteristics for different manufacturers, and therefore, if the multipoint function is critical for you, you should separately clarify the details of its operation in the selected model.

Codecs and additional audio processing technologies supported by Bluetooth headphones (see “Connection”). Initially, sound transmission via Bluetooth involves fairly strong signal compression; This is not critical when transmitting speech, but can greatly spoil the impression when listening to music. To eliminate this shortcoming, various technologies are used, in particular aptX, aptX HD, aptX Low Latency, aptX Adaptive, AAC, LDAC and LHDC. Of course, to use any of the technologies, it must be supported not only by the “ears”, but also by the Bluetooth device with which they are used. Here are the main features of each option:

- aptX. A Bluetooth codec designed to significantly improve the quality of audio transmitted over Bluetooth. According to the creators, it allows you to achieve quality comparable to Audio CD (16-bits/44.1kHz). The benefits of aptX are most noticeable when listening to high-quality content (such as lossless formats), but even on regular MP3 it can provide a noticeable sound improvement.

- aptX HD. Development and improvement of the original aptX, allowing for sound purity comparable to Hi-Res audio (24-bits/48kHz). As in the original, the benefits of aptX HD are noticeable mainly on high-quality...audio, although this codec will not be out of place for MP3.

- aptX Low Latency. A specific version of aptX described above, designed not so much to improve sound quality, but to reduce delays in signal transmission. Such delays inevitably occur when working via Bluetooth; They are not critical for listening to music, but when watching videos or playing games, there may be a noticeable desynchronization between the image and sound. The aptX LL codec eliminates this phenomenon, reducing latency to 32 ms - such a difference is imperceptible to human perception (although for serious tasks like studio audio work it is still too high). aptX LL support is found mainly in gaming headphones.

- aptX Adaptive. Further development of aptX; actually combines the capabilities of aptX HD and aptX Low Latency, but is not limited to this. One of the main features of this standard is the so-called adaptive bitrate: the codec automatically adjusts the actual data transfer rate based on the characteristics of the broadcast content (music, game audio, voice communications, etc.) and the congestion of the frequencies used. This, in particular, helps reduce energy consumption and increase communication reliability; and special algorithms allow you to broadcast sound quality comparable to aptX HD (24 bits/48 kHz), using several times less amount of transmitted data. And the minimum data transfer latency (at the aptX LL level) makes this codec excellent for games and movies.

- aptX Lossless. The next stage in the development of aptX technology, which involves transmitting CD-quality sound over a wireless Bluetooth network without loss or compression. Audio broadcasting with sampling parameters of 16 bits / 44.1 kHz is carried out with a bitrate of about 1.4 Mbit/s - this is about three times faster than it was in the aptX Adaptive edition (see above). Support for aptX Lossless began to be introduced at the end of 2021 as part of the Snapdragon Sound initiative from Qualcomm.

- A.A.C. A Bluetooth codec used primarily in portable Apple gadgets. In terms of capabilities, it is noticeably inferior to more advanced standards like aptX or LDAC: the sound quality when using AAC is comparable to an average MP3 file. However, for listening to the same MP3s, this is quite enough; the difference becomes noticeable only on more advanced formats. AAC hardware requirements are low, and its support in headphones is inexpensive.

— LDAC. Sony's proprietary Bluetooth codec. It surpasses even aptX HD in terms of bandwidth and potential sound quality, providing performance at the Hi-Res level of 24-bits/96kHz audio; there is even an opinion that this is the maximum quality that it makes sense to provide in wireless headphones - further improvement will simply be imperceptible to the human ear. On the other hand, supporting this standard is not cheap, and there are still quite a few gadgets with such support - these are, in particular, Sony smartphones, as well as mid- and high-end devices running Android 8.0 Oreo and later versions.

- LHDC. LHDC (Low latency High-Definition audio Codec) is a high-definition, low-latency codec developed by the Hi-Res Wireless Audio Alliance and Savitech. In the vast majority of cases, its support is implemented at the hardware level in Huawei and Xiaomi smartphones. The codec is also known as HWA (Hi-Res Wireless Audio). When using LHDC, signal transmission from the phone to the headphones is carried out with a bits rate of up to 900 kbps, a bits depth of up to 24 bits and a sampling frequency of up to 96 kHz. This ensures a stable and reliable communication with reduced latency. The codec is optimally suited for high-end wireless headphones and advanced digital audio formats.

Headphones with voice assistant support the user interaction with the device to a new level. The call of the assistant. is carried out by pressing one of the control buttons on the headphones or by a specific voice command (for example, «Ok, Google» for the Google Assistant virtual apprentice). The assistant pauses playback, instantly changes the volume of the music, can notify the user of new alerts, helps to answer messages without the help of hands, and commands are given to the paired smartphone via voice control from the headphones.

The search function will come in handy if the headphones are missing somewhere and you cannot find them. It is implemented, as a rule, through a smartphone application. In the programme interface, just press the search button and both headphones will immediately start emitting a loud signal. The second option for implementing the headphone search function is to track the last location of the headphones according to GPS satellites.