Bluetooth vs. Wi-Fi Music: Which Has Better Audio Quality?
Wi-Fi is better for music since these connections have much higher bandwidth than Bluetooth, meaning your music isn’t additionally compressed, making for higher-quality audio. Bluetooth can still sound good and is very useful, but for lossless or hi-res audio, Wi-Fi is your only option.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are two ways to wirelessly stream music from your devices to speakers, but which is the best option for you? While one definitely has higher-quality audio than the other, as you’ll see they’re both still worthwhile.
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How Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Differ for Music Streaming
While both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are types of wireless communication, how they work is very different. Each type has its strengths and weaknesses.
Bluetooth connections are direct, meaning that, for example, your phone is transmitting data directly to a Bluetooth speaker or wireless headphones. This introduces several restrictions, as this connection only has so much bandwidth.
The limited bandwidth of Bluetooth means that audio streams need to be compressed to transmit across the connection. This means that no matter how high-quality your source audio is, the connection will degrade it.
Wi-Fi, on the other hand, doesn’t use these direct connections. Instead, your phone or other devices communicate with a router that then sends signals to other devices. This makes for speeds close to wired Ethernet speeds, which means there is no reason to compress music files.
As it stands right now, if you’re looking for sheer audio quality, Wi-Fi is the better option.
Bluetooth for Music: Pros and Cons
While Bluetooth doesn’t offer the same level of audio quality, it still has plenty to offer, especially with wireless headphones, where is still reigns supreme. That said, it has its plusses and minuses.
Bluetooth Can’t Transmit As Much Data
As we talked about earlier, Bluetooth is limited to a certain amount of bandwidth. Especially using the default SBC codec, this means that your audio streams are relatively heavily compressed. This is true with Apple’s AAC codec as well.
There are higher-quality codecs like LDAC available, and Bluetooth LE Audio seems promising. Even so, Bluetooth doesn’t support lossless or hi-res audio well.
Bluetooth is Fine for Most Streaming Services
Bluetooth may not offer the highest-quality audio, but the good news is in many cases, this doesn’t matter much. If you’re doing most of your listening via Spotify, a higher bandwidth connection isn’t going to offer any sort of upgrade anyway (since Spotify doesn’t have the best audio quality).
Some streaming services like Tidal, Deezer, Apple Music, and Amazon Music Unlimited offer either lossless audio, hi-res audio, or both. With these, you may notice a slight upgrade in sound quality over Wi-Fi, but even that is debatable.
Bluetooth is Easier to Use
Pairing a Bluetooth speaker or headphones is a simple, straightforward process. Wi-Fi, on the other hand, requires a router and signing in to your Wi-Fi network on each device.
Bluetooth also lets you take your music anywhere, since all you need is a phone and a speaker. If you’re looking for ease of use and portability, Bluetooth wins.
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Wi-Fi for Music: Pros and Cons
While Wi-Fi offers higher bandwidth and the best overall audio quality, it isn’t automatically the best option for everyone. This is especially true if you’re looking at smaller speakers.
Wi-Fi is Less Portable
Compared to the last point about Bluetooth above, Wi-Fi is both more complex to set up and less portable. If you’re setting up a home stereo system, this won’t matter much. That said, you won’t often be able to take a Wi-Fi speaker everywhere with you.
Still, there are some speakers like the Sonos Roam that offer both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in a single speaker. These let you choose which connection to use depending on the situation.
Wi-Fi is Better for CD Quality and Hi-Res Audio
If you have a collection of lossless, hi-res audio files, or you’re using a streaming service that offers up hi-res audio, Wi-Fi is a much better option. The only codecs used here are the ones your files or streaming services are using, with no extra compression.
This is handy enough for pop music, but if you listen to music with more dynamics like classical or jazz, you’ll hear more detail with lossless audio over Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi is Better for Multiroom Audio
As mentioned earlier, Bluetooth works ad-hoc, communicating directly from device to device. There are Bluetooth speakers that let you pair multiple speakers together, but that still falls short of a proper multiroom setup.
Since Wi-Fi lets the router handle, well, routing the signals, Wi-Fi is much easier to use for multiroom audio. Plug in your various speakers in different rooms, sign them into your network, then start playing music and fill your home with sound.
Is Wi-Fi Always Better Than Bluetooth for Music?
Looking strictly at the data, yes, Wi-Fi offers much higher quality audio than Bluetooth, including lossless and hi-res audio. That said, Wi-Fi isn’t the best option in every case. For example, if you’re looking for portability, Bluetooth wins out.
Audio quality may be the most important factor in a home stereo, for example, but always keep in mind how and where you’ll be using a product before choosing between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. If you can, go for both, and get the best of both worlds.
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Sony STR-DH190
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