[HotHotHeat]

Audiophiles have long clung to their cables (and vinyl records), believing wireless technology compromises the listening experience. But Olive, who is the research director for audio company Harman International, says the jack connector actually has little impact on acoustic quality. The two most critical factors to good sound quality are the headphone’s speaker (called the surface transducer or exciter) and the original sound recording.
The current industry standard, Bluetooth 4, is “good enough” as any wired connection, he adds, and the release of Bluetooth 5, which is expected in late 2016 or early 2017, promises to make fidelity even better. The Bluetooth Special Interest Group boasts that the newest standard will double the speed of connections and increase the capacity of data broadcasts by 800%.
Olive argues that Apple’s move to eliminate analog ports will help accelerate scientific research that could benefit a wider audience. As an example, he said an international conference on headphone technology he co-chaired in Denmark last month delved into hearing aid innovations.
As for environmentally minded skeptics, engineers note that the headphone cable is actually the first thing to break. “You can imagine without cables there’s going to be less headphones thrown away,” says Olive. “In that sense, there should be less environmental waste.

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