Post by Steve Deckert on 08/03/17 at 04:40:22
The way I deal with it is to use the battery operated "Zen-Head / headphone amplifier" piggybacked with an iPod or smartphone playing uncompressed files, or streaming or whatever I want.
This is a high fidelity approach to wireless.
The first time I tried this, was here in the shop and I was playing some good music and admiring the sonics, thinking how good it was, how close to the tubes it was, and then since the whole rig was in my shirt pocket, I walked outside while the music was playing and I have to say it was weird. The sound quality of the listening room just went right outside with me, and it seemed to defy reality. It definitely bent my brain a little bit.
The problem with wireless or bluetooth is both range and bandwidth. The bluetooth as I understand it is only 256 kBps. I find that 320 is far better sounding or even better is no compression (1144) or even better still is high res files. You would be surprised how good a 24 bit high res download can sound on a battery operated iPod or similar digital player when hooked to the battery operated headphone amplifier... makes you realize that there is no such thing as grain in music or good recordings... grain is an artifact of AC power and power grid harmonics. Battery Operated Burr Brown Op Amps is the best solid state sound for analog lovers so that is what makes up the Zen Head (model ZH1) headphone amplifier. A single 9 volt battery lasts up to 50 hours depending on volume.
https://www.decware.com/newsite/zenhead.htm
Steve