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BT stereo, streaming audio and audio dropouts

F

FortWorthMac

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 29, 2008
708
36
the parched earth of North Texas
Hello,

I picked up the new Motorola S9-HD stereo BT headphones yesterday. While listening to music on the iPhone while mowing it worked pretty well.

Tonight, while sitting here at my desk I am attempting to stream music via Pandora, Slacker and SimplfyMedia and I'm getting so many audio dropouts that it became impossible to listen to. And the kicker is/was I was streaming over Wifi.

Any tips? I'm wanting my next car to have built in support for A2DP but with audio dropouts like that it may not be worth it.

Thanks
David
 
I've been looking into stereo bluetooth headsets lately. Almost all of them now and then say there are drops. People usually say it happens when say the phone, or iPhone is in their front pocket, so the body kind of gets in the way of the signal. Now, I don't know how true that is, or how powerful most headsets are, but some claimed putting it on their wrist with a band help remedy the problem.

So I got to ask, when you were at your desk, was your iPhone somewhere different than before that might have caused the audiodrops? Further away, different pocket?

Also, do these types of devices begin to drop when the battery is low, or just stopping working?

The Motorola S9 seems to be a popular choice.
 
i've not had any problems with A2DP dropouts, although i only have 1 device paired with my phone - the car stereo (could it be the more devices paired - even tho not connected at the time could cause then dropouts if it is searching for those other devices).

Slightly OT - i've noticed that pop type songs are played nicely but classical music tends to sound a bit rough, switching over to aux input it plays beautifully - must be a bandwith issue of bluetooth or something!
 
TimothyB said:
I've been looking into stereo bluetooth headsets lately. Almost all of them now and then say there are drops. People usually say it happens when say the phone, or iPhone is in their front pocket, so the body kind of gets in the way of the signal. Now, I don't know how true that is, or how powerful most headsets are, but some claimed putting it on their wrist with a band help remedy the problem.

So I got to ask, when you were at your desk, was your iPhone somewhere different than before that might have caused the audiodrops? Further away, different pocket?

Also, do these types of devices begin to drop when the battery is low, or just stopping working?

The Motorola S9 seems to be a popular choice.
Click to expand...

No what was strange was last night the phone was simply sitting on my desk. No pocket or anything.

I did take the advice of the next poster and remove 2 other devices that I no longer need the phone paired with. I'll see if that makes a difference.

I also just turned BT OFF on my iMac. Maybe somehow that was making a difference.

David
 
i have had zero dropouts using bt audio w/ my car stereo which has it built in. i even keep the phone in the center console.

i just ordered the s9-hd so i can use them at the gym. i'll report back once i get them and see if there are any problems.
 
I have tried two different bluetooth stereo headphones since 3.0. I have experienced "drops" with both of them. It works really well indoors or in my car, outside it seems to depend on factors that I can't figure out. One day it will work perfectly, the next it will drop repeatedly. Outdoors I need to keep the iPhone in my front shirt pocket to have the best chance of it working, indoors I can keep it in the case on my belt. I have never used bluetooth stereo headphones before, so I am still learning about the technology by trying it out.
 
I have zero drop outs with my Motorola HT820s. The only drop outs I get, are when I turn my head to the right, but that's consistent with the headphones and not the phone.
 
Now this is strange. I was noticing that when I connected and started streaming my wifi signal would drop considerably and in turn I was getting the audio drops on my headset. So I turned off wifi and tried streaming Pandora over 3g and didn't get a single audio drop.

Hmmmm.
 
I've got a pair of Sony BT-50's and they work perfectly. Good range too, I can get 20-30 feet away from my phone before I get drops.
 
Has anybody experienced delay in voice/video sync when viewing movies using the stereo bluetooth functionality. I had a panasonic bluetooth setup which uses a dongle for a transmitter. I removed it and paired directly with the iphone, it works, but there's a delay in the audio when viewing video.
 
FortWorthMac said:
Now this is strange. I was noticing that when I connected and started streaming my wifi signal would drop considerably and in turn I was getting the audio drops on my headset. So I turned off wifi and tried streaming Pandora over 3g and didn't get a single audio drop.

Hmmmm.
Click to expand...
Both WiFi and Bluetooh are 2.4Ghz frequency. Now, I don't know what channel either of them run at, but that could be the reason.
 
I have the same headphones and had the same problem. If you turn the wifi off the signal drops will go away.
 
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