[How to do instruction] Moode 8: Add bluetooth codec support for AAC, aptX & aptX-HD to bluez-alsa package

[jenzd]

Hello,

I followed your clear guide however when I connect my aptX HD/LDAC capable POCO F5 Pro to moOde it defaults to AAC codec. I removed AAC from the rules source file, repackaged bluez-alsa-utils and reinstalled it and it defaults to SBC.

Note, that my phone successfully negotiates the LDAC codec with my SMSL SU-9 PRO DAC.

Did I miss something to get LDAC or AptX HD instead of ACC or SBC by default ?

Thanks in advance,
Romain

This issue is discussed in bluez-alsa issue #581. Apparently this build links to a library which supports aptX encoding but not decoding (issue #581 discusses LDAC, actually, but the situation is the same). I don't know if such a library exists for Linux in general and Raspberry Pi OS in particular.

Regards,
Kent

I forgot about that.

If there is no decoding for LDAC and AptX then what usage scenario if any applies?

ETA: OP states "The following guide shows how to additionally include support for the bluetooth codecs AAC, aptX and aptX-HD (each for receive & playback)"

Very confusing :-0

Hi all,

Sorry for the late answer, I was off for a few days. I can reproduce the issue with aptX and aptX-HD and it seems to be caused by a change introduced with bluez-alsa version 4.0.0.

Support for aptX and aptX-HD via libopenaptx (both for playback and receive) is avaiable since version 3.1.0 of bluez-alsa and used to work perfectly together with Moode. I actually used this configuration quite often in the past with several versions of Moode (at least since Moode 7) where my Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact reliably connected via the best available codec (aptx-HD in this case). Unfortunately, I did not test aptX again when writing the guide, but only used an AAC capable device instead. (And didn't expect negative surprises due to the stable behaviour in the past.)

With the current version of Moode (8.3.2) I get the following test results with the Sony Xperia phone:

• bluez-alsa 4.0.0 installed as a package (following the guide) => connects via AAC only
  
• bluez-alsa 3.1.0 installed from source code configured with "--enable-aptx --enable-aptx-hd --with-libopenaptx" => connects via aptX-HD
  
• bluez-alsa 4.0.0 installed from source code configured with "--enable-aptx --enable-aptx-hd --with-libopenaptx" => connects via AAC only
  
• bluez-alsa 4.1.0 installed from source code configured with "--enable-aptx --enable-aptx-hd --with-libopenaptx" => connects via AAC only
  

So currently only bluez-alsa 3.1.0 seems to work properly. I will try to dig deeper into the issue when I can find some more time (e.g. install and test bluez-alsa on a clean Rasperry Pi OS Lite image to see if I can reproduce the issue there as well).

Sorry for the (unexpected) inconveniece.

Best regards
Jens