Hm. I have Sennheiser and Bose Bluetooth headphones and found AAC and AptX HD codecs on highest quality settings (on Android in dev tools) to be really good and almost indistinguishable from wired connections.
I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, but my hearing is pretty good and I'm sensitive to quality loss
Funny that you picked these, I have had 5 different people tell me to try them, and I own a pair.
I have some pretty broad musical tastes. If I throw on some modern, electronic music, or anything pop, these do a pretty good job.
The moment I dip into jazz, into anything where the range between the quiet parts and the loud parts (read pre 1990) is large they just dont perform any more. No amount of EQ is going to make up for that missing range.
The best example of this that I can give is Caltrains A Love Supreme. On something good there is a looming undercurrent in the track, the humming is alive. The track is lifeless on every bluetooth headphone I have heard. Hell even my Sonos speakers in the kitchen do a better job.
There’s a massive difference between bluetooth earbuds and $200-300 (ish) noise canceling Bose headphones. Yes, those are obviously going to sound good. I love mine.
But you can’t really find a decent budget option on bluetooth. I hate mine and only use them for audiobooks. You could find reasonable budget wired earbuds even 15 years ago.
Not the parent, but wvwn if quality was decent. I have wired headphones. Good ones. And I just want to use them. Sure there are USB-C DACs you can add to your phone but meh.
Get the idea, but I take my phone for sport runs multiple times a week, including in rainy weather. As of now I still have one with a headphone output. The idea of having to carry two devices and getting the worst of all worlds (more weigth, the unreliability of bluetooth combined with cables) doesn't really fill me with awe and wonder.
I wouldn't call myself an audiophile, but my hearing is pretty good and I'm sensitive to quality loss