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Introduction :

Using some binaural beat meditation, the vendor claims that their sound frequency goes down to 5 Hz to get better meditation quality. Even though the human ear can't hear 5Hz, the brain responds to it.

The vendor advised using wire headphones because the Bluetooth frequency response is from 20Hz.

Question:

Why can't Bluetooth decode 5Hz frequency? I thought the audio is transmitted in binary raw data, and the headphone will decode wherever it receives.

JRE
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bouqbouq
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4 Answers4

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The vendor is clueless.

Ignore their recommendations.

Binaural beats generate the beat in your mind. They use audible sounds that are close together in frequency (say, 1000 and 1005 Hz.) Your hearing generates the beat from the difference. Playing the 1000 and 1005 Hz will cause you to perceive a 5Hz "beat" that exists nowhere physically - it is literally all in your head.

It doesn't matter if the speaker, headphone, or audio system can convey a very low frequency signal because the low frequency isn't actually there. Only the normal audio frequencies need to be conveyed. Bluetooth should do just fine. Hifi systems may go down to 20Hz while others may cutout the low frequencies below 100Hz.

Bluetooth and other audio systems usually filter out low frequencies. Your ear can't hear them and the speakers can't effectively reproduce them, so they are filtered out. It saves bandwidth and power when you don't transfer sounds that no one can hear anyway.

Binaural beats are a thing.

Whether they have any influence on your meditation or whatever is an entirely different question that can't be answered here.

JRE
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  • they claim that the lower the carrier frequency, the more energy it carries and the deeper the meditation. what I mean here is that they generate carrier frequencies of 10hz and 5hz to get a very powerful low frequencies with 5hz difference – bouqbouq Aug 08 '22 at 15:14
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    Then the vendor is doubly clueless. Typical headphones and stereos won't convey a 5 or a 10Hz signal, so their "more energy" argument is BS. You can't generate a beat if the two original signals are inaudible. – JRE Aug 08 '22 at 15:17
  • good point. this is why they sell their special meditation headphones too !!!. BTW, the product is called Holosync – bouqbouq Aug 08 '22 at 15:18
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    Right. Then the website says to "try it out" using your own computer and headphones - live, right from the website. No mention of special headphone. No mention of any technical specifications. Just loads of glowing "OMG. I love my Holosync!" – JRE Aug 08 '22 at 15:26
  • https://www.centerpointe.com/products/cri-300-headphones/ – bouqbouq Aug 08 '22 at 15:28
  • And more gushing testimonials. They do claim the headset goes down to 5Hz on that page. Still no technical details about the signals that Holosync produces. – JRE Aug 08 '22 at 15:31
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    And again, they ignore the elephant in the room: Audio amplifiers will typically remove such low frequencies. It doesn't matter if the speaker can do it if the signal can't get through the amplifier. – JRE Aug 08 '22 at 15:34
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Bluetooth audio is compressed in order to fit into the very limited available bandwidth. As part of the compression process, the encoder uses a model of human hearing to decide what to transmit and what to discard.

As you pointed out, human hearing is not very sensitive at 5Hz, so the model may decide to discard those frequencies. Or it may not. This will depend on the details of your specific device.

user1850479
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Binaurals are usually created by using two frequencies differing by (in this case) 5Hz. Each frequency is fed into a different ear. It only works with headsets. Having said that, the two frequencies are usually only around the low hundreds Hz, eg 250Hz and 255Hz. Bluetooth ought to be fine.

In my experience 4.7Hz difference produces a good effect.

Try this one on YouTube I think the pure tones are better, because at 4.7Hz the more bored you are the better it works

Dirk Bruere
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  • they claim that the lower the carrier frequency, the more energy it carries and the deeper the meditation. what I mean here is that they generate carrier frequencies of 10hz and 5hz to get a very powerful low frequencies with 5hz difference – bouqbouq Aug 08 '22 at 15:16
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    Sounds very dubious. Try the cheap option first. Have you tried the online YouTube stuff? – Dirk Bruere Aug 08 '22 at 16:08
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I use holosync and I feel the difference between Bluetooth and wired headsets. I bought a pair of Koss headphones for the lower levels. For the first 4 or 5 levels it makes no difference but the deeper levels do use deeper carrier frequencies that Bluetooth seems to not handle as well.

Bob Powers
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