Imaging - BT vs Analogue in

[RobL]

An interesting effect I’ve noticed on my speakers (iLoud Micro pro + iLoud sub) is that imaging changes on some material depending on whether I airplay from my phone to my Wiim pro (connected via optical —> RME adi2 dac —> analogue in on the sub) vs. playing Bluetooth from the same phone directly to the sub. An example is this track:

The male singer is clearly just left of center and the female center or maybe a smidge right. When they sing together you can envision them singing side by side. But only coming from the RME. The Bluetooth connection smushes them together making them sound like they are almost in the same place. Any idea why? I thought maybe the sub was playing in mono but when I compare it to mono from the RME it’s clearly not mono and has the expansive sound of stereo. Any guesses as to what’s going on here? The RME has clearly better imaging than the Bluetooth connection, everything else (tonality, dynamics etc.) is very, very similar. The RME has all EQ off, and RC is all handled by the sub.
If anyone can listen to the track, I’d be interested in how the singers are placed for you…

 

[Ellebob]

When listening to a compressed source like BT some information is lost in the compression process. That can affect soundstage and imaging.

 

[RobL]

When listening to a compressed source like BT some information is lost in the compression process. That can affect soundstage and imaging.

I rattled my brain trying to figure out what would be lost via Bluetooth that could affect imaging as drastically as I was hearing…I finally found the cause! The analog inputs on the back of the sub are reversed, lol. The left input is on the right side of the sub and the right input is on the deft side!
The same goes for the outputs to the speakers so the RME gets “corrected” (2 wrongs make a right, lol) but the Bluetooth doesn’t as it’s direct to the sub—->wrong speaker.
I “corrected” my wiring and voila! Everything sounds the same!

The photo is from the back so when you are in front looking at the sub the inputs/outputs are on the wrong side. I connected by feel the first time (kneeling in front of the sub).