


you’re listening to a lossless audio file), then the transfer won’t go as fast and smooth, and this will reflect as audio stutter and lag. If there isn’t enough bandwidth to support a particularly large audio file transmission (e.g. If the traffic exceeds what the road size can accommodate, traffic jams will happen, reducing movement to a slow crawl (more time required to complete the transmission). Think of bandwidth as the size of the road while the audio file size is the amount of traffic. The bigger the audio signal’s file size (higher quality equates to larger audio files), the more bandwidth it needs to get to the receiver. This audio signal uses a certain bandwidth to “travel” from source to destination. The transmitter sends the audio signal to the receiver. To give a brief background, in a Bluetooth audio chain, you have a transmitter and a receiver. Now, you may ask: Why do wireless headphones have higher audio latency than wired? In a wireless connection, Bluetooth latency can go anywhere from an ideal 34 ms (aptX LL) up to 100-300 ms for true wireless earbuds and headphones. In a regular wired connection, the typical audio latency is 5-10 ms.

These are the milliseconds (ms) it takes to process digital data and convert it to an audio signal that can be streamed through a wired or wireless connection to your headphones. Audio latency is defined as the time it takes for audio data to travel from its source (computer, smartphone, mp3 player) to your headphones or speakers.
