I see a few people claim that the aptX HD codec still doesn’t work for them.
I would like to know how you’re testing this if you are affected. Either its true that aptX HD codec is still broken for some users, or they are perhaps confusing aptX HD with androids “HD audio” name, or another version of the codec such as regular aptX or aptX Adaptive.
FP4 appears to prioritize the bluetooth audio codecs like this, from 1 being highest priority to 6 being lowest:
- aptX Adaptive (Broken)
- aptX HD (Working)
- aptX (Broken)
- AAC (Working)
- SBC (Working)
- LDAC? (Working. Does not seem to get used automatically?)
If your bluetooth device supports aptX Adaptive it won’t fall back to aptX HD even if aptX Adaptive is broken. If your device supports up to aptX it also won’t fall back to AAC even when aptX is broken. If your device only supports aptX HD as its highest level it should now work out of the box with the latest update. If your device only supports up to AAC or SBC it’ll work out of the box.
See my post here for some workarounds to get working “HD audio” even if your device won’t automatically fall back to a working codec by itself.
I hope this clears up any confusion for users. Of course this bug is not fully resolved until aptX and aptX Adaptive also works correctly. I am fully expecting Fairphone to fix this bug for all available codecs, anything else would be disappointing.
For reference during my troubleshooting I used a number of different bluetooth devices to test. I used both the hidden “Developer options” menu and the Bluetooth Codec Changer app to switch between the available codecs for each device to confirm which ones were working and which ones were broken.
Here are my findings in full:
All testing done with the FP4.SP21.B.048.20230215 update.
Fairphone True Wireless Earbuds
Available Codecs: SBC, AAC
Working: SBC, AAC
Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 2
Available Codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX
Working: SBC, AAC
Broken: aptX
Bang&Olufsen Beoplay Portal PC/PS
Available Codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive
Working: SBC, AAC, aptX HD
Broken: aptX Adaptive
Topping DX3 Pro+
Available Codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, LDAC
Working: SBC, AAC, aptX HD, LDAC
Broken: aptX, aptX Adaptive
Note: LDAC should’ve been used automatically as the highest quality option, but aptX Adaptive has higher priority in the system and thus necessitates extra steps for switching to LDAC. This should in my opinion either be adjusted or make it simpler to switch to LDAC as the default for devices that support it.
Additional observations
As noted by @RAD above in this post there is sometimes a faint “clicking noise” or perhaps “ticking” when selecting either aptX or aptX Adaptive for me on some devices. Perhaps this is some kind of artifact of the connection attempting to reestablish itself constantly or something. I’ll leave this to the developers to investigate.