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What is SBC? How headphones and wireless speakers stream audio
In This Article
Bluetoothis the means by which many a device connects to each other to transfer data. For this article, we’re talking about how audio data is transferred from your smartphone to your listening device.
You see, while Bluetooth covers the way in products ‘talk’ to each other, there are different (and very technical sounding) protocols that govern how they communicate. When it coms to audio you’ve got several ways of establishing a connection between a smartphone and, say, a pair of headphones.
SBC is one of them. We’ll explain to you what it is, and whether it’s any good.
What is SBC?
SBC is an audio codec, and it stands for low-complexity subband codec. In its simplest form, it’s an encoded and a decoder to transfer data from one Bluetooth device to another, such as a pair of headphones or a wireless spaker.
It was conceived with low Bluetooth bandwidths in mind, taking up less data to transfer data between two devices. It remains the default codec for transferring audio but you can change this within the settings (you can bump it up to HD audio, which is AAC). Some headphones and wireless speakers will automatically choose the highest quality Bluetooth codec, which depending on your device could be AAC or a form ofQualcomm’s aptX.
Is SBC any good?
Because it was designed to take up less data, SBC hits lower bitrates that other Bluetooth codecs. You won’t get as much detail or clarity as you would with AAC or higher-quality codecs such asLDACand aptX, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad…
While SBC is often thought of as the worse codec for streaming, we’d say it’s completely fine for its purpose if you’re listening to low quality streams (say Spotify’s free tier). If anything it’s the quality of the drivers in your speakers or headphones that will have greater impact on the sound you hear. Marshall’sWillenwireless speaker only supports SBC but it offers a clear, detailed performance for its size and price.
It all depends on how the driver was tuned, so if you have a device that only supports SBC, don’t despair. Give it a listen and it could sound better than you think.
In the latest Bluetooth spec (Bluetooth LE Audio) set out by Bluetooth SIG, it has been replaced by LC3, which essentially does the same thing but offers a higher quality performance.
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Kob began his career at What Hi-Fi?, starting in the dusty stockroom before rising up the ranks to join the editorial and production team as the Buyer’s Guide editor. Experienced in both magazine and …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
