Significant Bluetooth delay with Mac Studio and external speakers

L

Liver

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 24, 2005
Messages
5,943
I have significant Bluetooth delay from a Mac Studio and external speakers. Its like 3-4 seconds!

It’s not a big deal when I am listening to music in the back ground, but with anything with video, the audio video lag is awful. At that point I put on my WIRED head phones and watch.

I’ve tried looking this up online, but I found all sorts of answers from years ago. All that has changed with updates to OSX.

What can I do to improve this? Even if I have to buy a bluetooth transmitter.
 
Liver said:
I have significant Bluetooth delay from a Mac Studio and external speakers. Its like 3-4 seconds!

It’s not a big deal when I am listening to music in the back ground, but with anything with video, the audio video lag is awful. At that point I put on my WIRED head phones and watch.

I’ve tried looking this up online, but I found all sorts of answers from years ago. All that has changed with updates to OSX.

What can I do to improve this? Even if I have to buy a bluetooth transmitter.
Click to expand...
how far are they? tried the plist delete? looks like lots are having this issue, it is a solid aluminum box...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Liver
like this
Same room, line of sight, maybe 7 feet. If I need to a USB C Bluetooth transmitter to get out of the metal box, I will do it.

I have not tried the plist delete, it seemed like that was an old solution that was not valid on the latest update. I can try it.

Yes, a lot of issues around with this and over years so its hard to find a solution that works with all the latest updates.
 
Liver said:
Same room, line of sight, maybe 7 feet. If I need to a USB C Bluetooth transmitter to get out of the metal box, I will do it.

I have not tried the plist delete, it seemed like that was an old solution that was not valid on the latest update. I can try it.

Yes, a lot of issues around with this and over years so its hard to find a solution that works with all the latest updates.
Click to expand...
move them closer if you can see if it helps. might need that option.
wont hurt to try it.
yup, and they keep putting it in the same stupid spot and increasing the metal around it.
they need an ext port for an antenna, then they could sell those for $100 and people would goggle them up.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Liver
like this
UnknownSouljer said:
I'd generally recommend just moving to wired speakers. There's no set of competent monitors that are driven by bluetooth.
Click to expand...

I dont disagree. I just dont want the wires. I used to have headphones and headphone amps and dacs breaking the 5 figure mark. Now give me the freedom of wireless and be done with it.
 
Liver said:
I dont disagree. I just dont want the wires. I used to have headphones and headphone amps and dacs breaking the 5 figure mark. Now give me the freedom of wireless and be done with it.
Click to expand...
I don’t know if it can be avoided. I had the same issue when trying to stream to a TV and having an audio delay.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I don’t know if it can be avoided. I had the same issue when trying to stream to a TV and having an audio delay.
Click to expand...

I dont think it can be absolutely avoided, as you said. However having a 4 second delay is extreme. I have a full Sonus set up with a current gen Apple TV as a source and the delay isn’t noticeable to me. I am sure if tested, you would find a delay, but its not noticeable to me.

This 4 second delay off of the Mac Studio is maddening.
 
Liver said:
I dont think it can be absolutely avoided, as you said. However having a 4 second delay is extreme. I have a full Sonus set up with a current gen Apple TV as a source and the delay isn’t noticeable to me. I am sure if tested, you would find a delay, but its not noticeable to me.

This 4 second delay off of the Mac Studio is maddening.
Click to expand...
I imagine at least a part of it has to do with energy saving protocols. It seems like it would be also device dependent. You may not be able to change the latency with your current pair of speakers. You may need a different set that might offfer better latency.

I use two sets of Bluetooth headphones, neither of which have this problem. I imagine it will also come down to being speaker dependent.
 
Last edited:
Liver said:
Now give me the freedom of wireless and be done with it.
Click to expand...

You can have the tyranny of wires or the tyranny of latency and compression. Definitely try a different brand/model speaker though? 4 seconds is remarkably bad.
 
Bluetooth delay is maddening. There are multiple audio codecs supported by Bluetooth but the standard/always supported ones are slow and have lag. There's a low latency one and a couple others that are better. I forget the names. It's been a few years since I looked into this for my parents. Unfortunately a lot of gear doesn't support them. IIRC Windows doesn't support one of the more common fast ones. Or at least Win10 didn't in 2019. Not sure about Mac. At any rate it's a shit show and I decided to just stick with cables.

You might be able to find some non-bluetooth wireless speakers. They make headphones like that. My parents have a couple RF headphone sets of them from Sennheiser. That was my solution to the BlueTooth lag problem for mom & dad. Their RF headphones have basically 0 lag. I think they're analog. Of course they require a proprietary transmitter plugged into the computer or receiver or whatever you're using them with.
 
I fixed the issue with a Creative BT USB C dongle.

Remember, the latency I’m talking about was 2-4 SECONDS not understandable BT latency due to the technology.

This is a software issue inherent to OSX.
 
Liver said:
I fixed the issue with a Creative BT USB C dongle.

Remember, the latency I’m talking about was 2-4 SECONDS not understandable BT latency due to the technology.

This is a software issue inherent to OSX.
Click to expand...
Maybe on that hardware. I grade and edit films with Bluetooth headphones and they do not have any noticeable latency.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top