Best wireless headphone for TV watching?

Best wireless headphone for TV watching?

Author
Discussion

wax lyrical

Original Poster:

883 posts

242 months

Wednesday 10th April
quotequote all
Any recommendations? Normal Bluetooth options seems to have a bit of audio-lag, so produce lip sync issues when watching TV.

Thanks!

OutInTheShed

7,671 posts

27 months

Thursday 11th April
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I've been impressed by a friend's Sennheisser headphones.
I don't know the brand of the TV.
But AIUI, the BlueTooth signal comes direct from the TV, not via the analogue or optical audio output from the telly, via the transmitter which comes with the headphones?

My friend has seriously impaired hearing so was looking for clarity of dialogue etc.
If you want stunning special effects and hi-est of HiFi your needs might be different.

clockworks

5,375 posts

146 months

Thursday 11th April
quotequote all
I've been considering getting some decent Bluetooth headphones for use with the AV amp. My Denon 2800 has a built-in Bluetooth transmitter, which I discovered by chance while googling for which headphones to look at.

I borrowed some JBL BT headphones to try, but couldn't get them to pair with the amp - scan found no devices.
Headphones paired straight away with my tablet.

Does anyone still make the older type wireless headphones that use a dedicated transmitter?

Edit

I just realised that an Echo Show can be used as a BT speaker. Managed to pair it to the Denon AVR, so that proves that the amp is working.
One slight oddity was that, with the Echo Show in pairing mode, and the AVR in scanning mode, I had to "approve" the connection on the Echo Show before it could be displayed on the TV screen as an available device. Obviously no way of doing that on a pair of headphones?



Edited by clockworks on Thursday 11th April 14:35


Edit:

Updated the AVR firmware, and headphones paired perfectly!

I'll try them later with a few sources, see how the lip sync goes.

Edited by clockworks on Thursday 11th April 15:59

wax lyrical

Original Poster:

883 posts

242 months

Thursday 11th April
quotequote all
Thanks both. I’ve heard that using Bluetooth for TV watching anyways leads to lipsync issues. So headsets that have base stations that plug into the TV and then send the sound as radio signals work best.

clockworks

5,375 posts

146 months

Friday 12th April
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I tried the borrowed JBL bluetooth headphones for a couple of hours - Netflix, BBC news at 10 and Newsnight.

I didn't notice any lip sync issues at all, and no dropouts.

clockworks

5,375 posts

146 months

Saturday 13th April
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I bought some Sony XM4 headphones to try.

Sound quality is much better than the JBL that I borrowed.
There is a very slight delay, but only really noticeable if I have the speakers and headphones running at the same time - a slight "echo" effect.

I think my Samsung TV also has Bluetooth audio out. Wondering if I could connect the 'phones to the TV, and adjust the TV's BT audio delay?

clockworks

5,375 posts

146 months

Saturday 13th April
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I tried the headphones using the TV's Bluetooth connection, and the audio delay is imperceptible.

Problem is, it only works with the TV antenna input, not with sources connected via the receiver. Seems that the "monitor output" of the receiver is video-only?

I had no idea that there were different bluetooth codes, some with less lag than others.
It appears that the Denon X2800 only supports the very laggy SBC codec.

Looks like a better (low latency) bluetooth transmitter will sort it, but how would I connect it to the amp without messing up the normal 5.1.2 speakers? Amp is in a cabinet outside the room, so I don't want to keep plugging/unplugging into the headphone socket.

Edit:

Looks like I could connect a Bluetooth transmitter to the receiver's zone 2 RCA pre-outs, and set the amp to send all sources to zone 1 and zone 2 simultaneously?
Not clear whether that would disable the Atmos speakers that are connected to the zone 2 speaker connections though

Edited by clockworks on Saturday 13th April 19:12

Nethybridge

945 posts

13 months

Monday 29th April
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This is a prob for me, I like headphones late at night for TV, my Toshiba
TV has a headphone socket but hardly any volume on sony earbuds or
my sennheiser earmuffs, I have a optical connect soundbar but it has no HP socket.

Tried bluetooth HPs but the lip sync is atrocious, and with
many sources [ 3 HDMI, 2 USB + Freeview via aerial ] that means a lots of
different lip sync adjustments depending what device your using as a TV source.

As wireless headphones with a docking station work via the optical output
would that do away with the lip sync problem ?


Whataguy

830 posts

81 months

Thursday
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I've tried various headphones, akg/bose/etc but settled on a Sony NS neck speaker instead.

It's a neck band that works like a soundbar and beams audio towards your ears - like the Apple Vision Pro does.

It works well, sound that's loud for me doesn't make much noise from a distance to disturb others.

The bluetooth adapter it comes with runs from the optical output, so there is no lag.