Denon 4500 Bluetooth Specs

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So, I just got my 4500 and stumbled upon an offer for 3 months of free Tidal HiFi from Best Buy (no purchase necessary btw). I'm frankly trying to catch up on many years of ignoring what's been happening in audio and now with Tidal Masters MQA thrown into the mix unexpectedly I'm really searching for a few answers. I appreciate anything that can be contributed to my search. I've been searching every way I can think of.

Basically, I've been downloading the MQA Masters to my phone (not streaming them) and the only way I can currently play them is via Bluetooth connection to the 4500. My phone is a Samsung S8 and I gather it has 'aptX HD' that can encode up to 24 bit 48khz over Bluetooth - this is news to me found in my search. I have experienced LDAC with my phone on a Sony bluetooth speaker that I have and I can definitely hear the difference, but it's a little portable speaker so it's not too dramatic.

The only thing I'm finding is that the Denon 4500 might be Bluetooth 3.0 + EDC? The new 3600 has Bluetooth 4.1 I gather. So, what is the Denon capable of on the receiving end? Bluetooth 3.0 EDR as cited here? https://www.zkelectronics.com/receiver/denon-avr-x4500h/usa/ That has a pretty decent potential of data rate transfer, huh?

I'm really curious about what is technically going on because it sounds amazing imo and I know it has to be pretty far from what the MQA files have to offer if they were properly supplied to the 4500. I'm only guessing that whatever is being transmitted benefits from having the highest quality source possible with these MQA files, but what exactly is the best case scenario of what the Denon is able to receive on its end from my phone or otherwise?

My head is swimming from digging into this MQA playback situation. Any help is appreciated. Any suggestions on the most economical Tidal MQA playback for the 4500?

 

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This is one of the pages that I found for information on Bluetooth codecs.

Details of the various Bluetooth codecs

I know my little Sony LDAC capable speaker has awful range when set to the highest quality setting of LDAC. It breaks up if the phone is moved more than about a foot away. Based on that I'm guessing the Denon must be designed with a priority on range vs ultimate quality, but I'm still curious what's happening with it. I see that Denon has headphones that are aptX HD capable. I'm frankly not even sure if aptX HD is specific to Bluetooth 4.0+ or what.

 

[everettT]

Why not wifi?

 

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Why not wifi?

The 4500 will only play the 16/44 flac files over wifi. Plex with Tidal integrated won't play the Master 24/96 either, but it will playback my rips of my DVD-Audio surround sound mix flac files so that's pretty cool since no multichannel preamp inputs on the 4500. I guess it's a licensing issue.

The Denon built in Tidal 16/44 playback is itself pretty phenomenal imo and I'm sure it exceeds the Bluetooth playback fidelity, but I'm serious that it really has made me question it. At least with a few albums that I've played back from CD vs. Tidal HiFi vs. Masters over Bluetooth... I haven't yet really seriously done back to back comparisons.

I'm questioning too if possibly the Masters copy of like Ariana Grande's Grammy nominated album, 'Thank You Next' isn't somehow juiced up in the Masters copy possibly? I can't speak with authority on it, but they claim some recordings suffer from 'loudness wars', 'compression', etc. I wonder if the Masters copy is opened up and my perception of the quality over Bluetooth is a result of the source being a just vastly more dynamic version of the same recording. IDK. It must be mind blowing to hear the difference with a direct MQA feed.

I've just been really impressed by how good the Bluetooth sounds with the Master files fed over it. That initial webpage states that the Denon uses SBC and that may be the answer that I'm looking for. It just sounds really pretty amazing for Bluetooth.

Bluetooth Codec Comparisons <<< this guy thinks SBC gets a bad rap for quality.

 

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Ok, turned on developer mode to see what it connected with. SBC 16bit/44kHz playing a Master MQA file. I'm surprised.

 

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Just FYI.... the connection specs with my phone connected to that Sony bluetooth speaker with LDAP enabled. When set to quality priority the range is almost unusable. It chokes mere inches away from the speaker without it set to the adaptive bitrate. I'm guessing this has a lot to do with why consumer receivers don't have the higher bitrate options available, but it would be nice to have the choice.



I moved on from the Bluetooth connectivity and just pulled an old laptop out and ran HDMI into the receiver. I honestly don't recall if I ever actually used the HDMI connection from one of my laptops to my television in the past. I probably tested it out at some point idk. The most recent old laptop has WiDi and that was the point of selecting it in the first place. High Def audio was never a part of the equation.

I'm also a little stunned to have gotten somewhat brushed up on the current network streamer/DAC scene this week. I guess they're really cashing in on folks with older systems that want to bring higher resolution streaming to their older systems. There are some ridiculously expensive components on the market for this.

I'm guessing a Dragonfly might be the least expensive option to pair with my old laptop to really unleash the most potential from the Tidal MQA files. I LOVE the idea of these high resolution audio formats being on tap, but it's going to be a tough call to not go with the built in Amazon HD service for $12.99 and just ditch the noisy old laptop from the equation. No way I'm spending $500+ for a network streamer just to bring Tidal MQA into the mix when it's already got everything but that. I'm going to give Tidal a fair shot to see if it's worth the hassle to use the laptop and possibly add a Dragonfly to it as some point. I've got Atmos speakers and other concerns taking a priority at this point.