Crackling sound with aptX Adaptive

[SmallPhoneNRG]

I have run into what appears to be a common issue with a crackling or popping sound whenever I listen to music using headphones that support aptX Adaptive.  It is worst when songs are louder or are very busy.

One thing I haven't seen reported is that this only happens for me when using YouTube Music.  I tried a free trial of Amazon's Ultra HD and did not experience this at all even when using aptX Adaptive.

Unfortunately I prefer YouTube Music and can't justify another service that costs the same with fewer perks.  For the last couple months I've been switching codecs in the Developer options to regular aptX.

But I think I may have found the cure: set the Audio Wizard equalizer to "music", and set all frequency bands to -1.  Ever since I did this I have had zero popping issues.

I think YouTube Music and some other streamers are doing some processing to the audio that makes it louder (which makes it sound better in direct comparisons).  YT Music is noticeably louder than Amazon Music.

There must be some kind of signal processing bug in their code when converting the data into the aptX Adaptive format.  The EQ settings seem to be applied before your volume setting, so even with a flat lower EQ you can crank the volume to make up for it.

To others suffering from this I would definitely test out lowering all bands in the EQ, and also check out Amazon Music (free trial) to see if that works for you.

[Ndonnine]

I posted another thread about having issues with high end ear buds on Bluetooth. I was assuming it's a bandwidth issue as the closer the phone is to the ear buds it begins to play fine. 

I use Tidal for high bandwidth sound and have used YouTube music to no avail. 

Interesting theory of it's the codec as an issue since my 3 year old Jabra Active 7s work fine.

[SmallPhoneNRG]

If you're getting differences based on proximity it seems that it would be a performance issue, but the codec would absolutely play a factor.  Do you know which codec is being used in your headphones?  Not all headphones have aptX, and only newer ones have adaptive.

I think they are not avoiding saturation in the conversion from the streaming codec to the Bluetooth codec.  It could be an issue on ASUS' side or the Qualcomm/aptX side.

I get zero popping when I reduce the gains by only one notch, so it's definitely a software thing.