When I play FLAC music via Plexamp or Plex for Windows 10 I use a Bluetooth headset or my cars Bluetooth system.
Looking at Plex Dash or Tautulli I see they report that the stream is Direct Play (FLAC) and Quality is original (797 kbps) (for example).
Now I suspect this does not tell me what is delivered to my ears in the headset, just what is delivered to the Plex apps?
Is it correct that Bluetooth, however, will lower the quality of the music?
One reason for trying to understand this is what setting I should choose in Plexamp settings - Quality - Cellular. Options go from 64 Kbps to 2 Mbps and then Maximum. I’d like the best quality available, but if Bluetooth is a bottleneck anyway, I can just limit the quality if you see what I mean?
Which quality is used between your phone and the BT speaker/headphone is outside of Plexamp’s influence/knowledge.
Some devices already support a lossless BT profile, some don’t. (“aptX”, but even this one is maxed out with CD quality. So you won’t get any benefit from high-res audio files over BT.)
That is a separate topic.
This setting exists primarily because of possible limitations of mobile data connections (depending on country, mobile provider, phone hardware, and distance/geography). But of course also due to mobile data volume capping and possible higher costs when these caps are reached.
If you are not concerned with data caps and such, you might as well go with the highest possible bandwidth setting.
If you don’t use some kind of high-end headphones or thousands of dollars speakers, particularly when mobile, you might not be able to actually gain the benefit of lossless or even high-res music though.
There are a whole range of factors involved here, and you should do your own experimentation.
Keep also in mind that a lower bandwidth setting may result in more fluid operation and longer battery life of the whole phone. Simply because it doesn’t have to download, cache, and convert such a high volume of data.
For desktop computer use in a non-mobile environment I’d personally use a high bandwidth setting.
For maximum audio quality, you should avoid wireless connections and use a wired DAC and speakers.
(I mean, there are WiFi-connected speakers which claim to deliver the same quality as wired tech, but you can bet that you will pay through the nose for the added convenience of no wires.)
