Audio via bluetooth?

drunkenmaster

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Am I asking for too much???
Are there any bluetooth headsets that double as an audio headset.
I have the 6600 and as it plays in mono and plays mp3s via the handsfree headset, can the signal be used via bluetooth?
I know it sounds silly only listening to music in one ear but how many gadgets can i put in my ears at one time? :D
 
drunkenmaster said:
Am I asking for too much???
Are there any bluetooth headsets that double as an audio headset.
I have the 6600 and as it plays in mono and plays mp3s via the handsfree headset, can the signal be used via bluetooth?
I know it sounds silly only listening to music in one ear but how many gadgets can i put in my ears at one time? :D

You are certainly not asking for too much.

The technology is now in place to deliver exactly what you are requesting. The technology that alows the streaming of a Hi-Fi stereo signal over a Bluetooth link is called the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). There are several companies that are developing sets to operate using A2DP but the only ones that are commercially available at present are a set made by Logitech (but re-branded as HP), there is a second set made by a company from Taiwan Bluetake and finally there is a set made by a Korean company called Open Brain Technologies.

The HP set do not have a microphone and are not equipped with the 'headset profile' and so are therefore only suitable for stereo reception only - further they are only made to function with i-PAQ's.

Bluetakes unit is the i-PHONO BT420 EX this can receive i/c A2DP stereo streams and can also transmit to a mobile and so can be used as would a regular Bluetooth mono headset.

The last option by Open Brain is marketed under the SONORIX brand and is called the SONORIX OBH-0100 Audio Player (The BlueAnt set is in fact a rebrand of these). This unit functions in the same manner as Bluetakes i-PHONO allowing stereo audio streaming, regular phone conversation but is also supplemented with and integral MP3 player.
 
hp do a set targeted at their ipaq range but *should* work with other devices. They are about £60 from expansys.com and similar.
 
I recently purchased the i-PHONO BT420 EX & can not get it to work correctly. I can pair the headset to the dongle & listen to music from an audio media player, but when I pair the headset to my O2 XDAIIs cell phone, it then seems to be un-paired to the dongle as no music can then be heard through the headset when I revert back to the media player. It seems the headset can only be paired to either the dongle or the cell phone, but not both at the same time. The auto-switching function doesn’t seem to work. After listening to music media files, I then have to re-pair the headset back to the cell phone. This can’t be right?

When I play music media files through my O2 XDAIIs cell phone, the music doesn’t play through the headset, but through the O2 XDAIIs speaker. Does this mean I need to plug the dongle into the O2 XDAIIs cell phone phono jack?
Am I doing some thing wrong?
According to this review, it doesn't do what it claims!!!!!
http://howardchui.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=169
It says: One small con is that you can't have the iPhono connected to multiple devices at once. I tried to listen to music on my laptop while having my Nokia 7610 on at the same time to see if the iPhono would pick up when I used the 7610.

I intend to send the product back. I'm tempted by the Sonorix OBH-0100 bluetooth headset. Does anyone know if this product does what it claims?
http://www.sonorix.com/~tven/eng/product/product_bap.php#top
 
Koolstude said:
I recently purchased the i-PHONO BT420 EX & can not get it to work correctly. I can pair the headset to the dongle & listen to music from an audio media player, but when I pair the headset to my O2 XDAIIs cell phone, it then seems to be un-paired to the dongle as no music can then be heard through the headset when I revert back to the media player. It seems the headset can only be paired to either the dongle or the cell phone, but not both at the same time. The auto-switching function doesn’t seem to work. After listening to music media files, I then have to re-pair the headset back to the cell phone. This can’t be right?

When I play music media files through my O2 XDAIIs cell phone, the music doesn’t play through the headset, but through the O2 XDAIIs speaker. Does this mean I need to plug the dongle into the O2 XDAIIs cell phone phono jack?
Am I doing some thing wrong?
According to this review, it doesn't do what it claims!!!!!
http://howardchui.com/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=169
It says: One small con is that you can't have the iPhono connected to multiple devices at once. I tried to listen to music on my laptop while having my Nokia 7610 on at the same time to see if the iPhono would pick up when I used the 7610.

I intend to send the product back. I'm tempted by the Sonorix OBH-0100 bluetooth headset. Does anyone know if this product does what it claims?
http://www.sonorix.com/~tven/eng/product/product_bap.php#top

If you want to know anything in particular on the SONORIX OBH-0100 please list your questions and I'd be happy to answer them for you in open forum or via e-mail.
 
In the literature I've found on the Sonorix Bluetooth Audio player OBH-0100, it says: "With the Audio Player connected to PC and Bluetooth phone in 'Scatternet' mode, you don't worry about missing calls while streaming audio from PC. When phone call is received, the music stops automatically and goes into handsfree mode, simply pull out the high performance microphone and start chatting".
Does it actually do this? As the I-Phono claims to do it, but it doesn't.
Also, can it be used to listening to MP3's stored in the Bluetooth phone and automatically switch to taking the call on the handsfree headset?
I guess there is no real need to listen to MP3's in the phone, but the main thing is the auto switching facility to work 100%
Do you have experience of Sonorix Bluetooth Audio player OBH-0100 working 100% correctly?
The phone I have is the O2 XDAIIs.
 
Koolstude said:
In the literature I've found on the Sonorix Bluetooth Audio player OBH-0100, it says: "With the Audio Player connected to PC and Bluetooth phone in 'Scatternet' mode, you don't worry about missing calls while streaming audio from PC. When phone call is received, the music stops automatically and goes into handsfree mode, simply pull out the high performance microphone and start chatting".
Does it actually do this? As the I-Phono claims to do it, but it doesn't.
Also, can it be used to listening to MP3's stored in the Bluetooth phone and automatically switch to taking the call on the handsfree headset?
I guess there is no real need to listen to MP3's in the phone, but the main thing is the auto switching facility to work 100%
Do you have experience of Sonorix Bluetooth Audio player OBH-0100 working 100% correctly?
The phone I have is the O2 XDAIIs.

Hi Koolstude,

I'll try and answer all of your questions as clearly as possible.

I think to start out, and for clarity I'll try to define a few terms just in case you or anyone else reading is not familiar with the terminology associated with the technology.

'Scatternet' in Bluetooth terms is the ability of one Bluetooth device to connect to several other Bluetooth devices simultaneously.

'Piconet' in Bluetooth terms is the ability of one Bluetooth device to pair on a 'one to one' basis with another device.

'A2DP' stands for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile and is the advanced Bluetooth profile required to transmit a stereo signal over a Bluetooth link from a Bluetooth A2DP Source to an A2DP Sync.

An A2DP 'source' is any Bluetooth device capable of encoding and transmitting an A2DP signal. i.e. a PC/PDA/Mobile Handset/MP3 player/Bluetooth Dongle etc.

An A2DP 'sync' is any Bluetooth device capable of receiving and decoding an A2DP signal.

O.K. that done here we go.

The statement about the unit working in 'scatternet' mode is both true and false. The unit is capable of working in 'scatternet' mode with the addition of a firmware upgrade that is available as a download from the manufacturer. The reason the firmware upgrade was not applied to the original unit was there are issues associated to the rate the battery consumes power from the rechargeable cell in scatternet mode i.e. the power in the rechargeable cell is consumed at a commercially unaceptable rate.

You can use the unit to listen to an i/c Bluetooth A2DP signal from a suitably equipped handset to listen to CD quality music and if at the same time you receive an i/c call on that handset a ringing tone is heard over the track, at which point if you chose to accept the call, with the simple press of a key on the headset the music is paused so you can hold your conversation. On clearance by either party your music track is faded back in and restored. The headset works in the same fashion when making out going calls too and supports all the regular 'hands-free' profile features such as voice-recognition dialling etc.

The unit also has a 'built-in' MP3 player housed in the right ear-piece that can store MP3 tracks that can be played back in full stereo for users without MP3 playback in their handset or used in a stand alone form. Whilst listening to the integral MP3 Player and paired with your mobile the 'handsfree' profile of the headset works as per the paragraph above and in my experience works 100% of the time.

Finally, I'm not 100% sure but I would be suprised if the handset you quoted is currently A2DP enabled. I can tell you though that in the very near future SONORIX will also be releasing an A2DP enabled Audio Dongle that will enable you make any non A2DP enabled handset/PDA/i-POD/MP3/CD player or stereo audio source into an A2DP 'source'.

I hope this has helped to clear some of the issues you have. If anything is not clear or you need any further information please 'ask away' on here or feel free to drop me an e-mail.

If you want to see a unit up close I can tell you they will be in branches of The Carphone Warehouse from tomorrow (1st March 2005)
 
Slightly off-topic, but I have a NeoVoice USB which I have paired with my Logitech BT base station, and used to listen to music. More to see if it could be done than anything else, since the sound quality is pretty atrocious!

Anyway, the pairing procedure was very quick and simple, and I was streaming audio in a few seconds. However, I left iTunes on overnight with the headset running. Obviously the battery in the heaset ran down, and it turned itself off, ostensibly closing the connection to the computer.

The next morning we had a powercut, and when the computer restarted, there was no sound from the speakers (am using nForce onboard 5.1). After some fiddling, I found that there is no sound from the headphone stereo jack either. Going into the nVidia control panel, pressing the "Speaker Test" button, I get an error message which says "Creation of audio buffer failed!".

I charged up my headset again, and paired it, and I was able to listen to audio through that with no problems, yet still get no audio, except slight buzzing and popping when I mute/adjust the system volume from the wired jacks and an error message from the control panel.

I recently installed an audio codec to watch some DivX files, but had powercycled several times with the codec installed and had no problems. I have also tried uninstalling/updating my nForce software. It is almost as if the sound is disabled because the computer thinks it is connected to a BT headset all the time, even when it is disconnected an the icon is not showing in "My Bluetooth Places".

Any ideas?!?!??!
 
Problem now solved, and all i had to do was reinstall all my audio and bluetooth hardware :mad:

Hmm I'm starting to think that dropping over £100 on a new set of BT input devices was a mistake *sigh*
 
Hi Dan,

In answer to your question. Bluetooth Class 2 is designed to operate effectively within and upto a 10 Meter radius of the TX'ing source.

However, although Bluetooth utilises a RF medium and does not require line of site to opperate this range will be effected by the local suroundings. i.e. If you want to stream CDQ audio to the headset from a source it is advisable to carry that source in a bag or in a pocket on the same side of your body as the recieve module of the headset (The RHS). The reason for this is because Bluetooth opperates in the 2.05 -2.4GHz range and these frequencies are particularly suseptable to attenuation by moisture, and as the human body is made up of approximately 80% water, as you can imagine it makes for quite an efficient attenuator of any low power signal.

If you use the headset with a class 1 device the signal degredation caused by the effects decribed above become a lot less noticable as with Bluetooth class 1 the opperating range is quoted as a radius of 100M of source and hence the power dissapated by the source leaves a greater margin for attenuation before audio quality is effected.
 

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