which bluetooth headset for a mac?

[posted earlier in comp.sys.mac.misc]

I'm looking for a bluetooth headset to pair with my G4 12" PB. I
remember reading about stereo BT headsets becoming available, but I
can't find any for purchase, in the UK anyway. I'd prefer it to have
more than a 10 metre range if at all possible. Basically, I'd just like
to have a headset which allows me to listen to mac around the house.
Mostly just internet talk radio, but also sometimes music- hence why
stereo would be nice.

David


--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

Moin,

Am Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:15:47 +0100 schrieb chancellor of the duchy of
besses o' th' barn:

> I'm looking for a bluetooth headset to pair with my G4 12" PB. I
> remember reading about stereo BT headsets becoming available, but I
> can't find any for purchase, in the UK anyway. I'd prefer it to have
> more than a 10 metre range if at all possible. Basically, I'd just
> like to have a headset which allows me to listen to mac around the
> house. Mostly just internet talk radio, but also sometimes music-
> hence why stereo would be nice.

Then you don't want a headset but rather headphones. Headset profile and
"Bluetooth Audio" basically mean 8000 kHz sampling rate at 8 bit
resolution, mono. This is what you get with ISDN phone lines and usually
not better than analog phone lines.

The other thing would be "Advanced Audio" and Advanced Audio
Distribution Profile (A2DP). These give you more or less CD quality
(stereo, up to 48 kHz sampling rate, 16 bit resolution) but with lossy
compression. I've got one of them myself and can't say I was able hear
any degradation in the sound quality because of the compression.=20

I've got the BlueTake BT420 EX i-PHONO and bought it at expansys. I know
you can get it in the UK because it got shipped from there (which took
awfully long, but that's another story). As for the range: No luck
there. The signal from the audio dongle that came with the headphones is
pretty weak, i can easily disrupt it with my hand. I think it might
reach 10 metres with direct line of sight. (And I can get about 4 metres
with a thin wall in between, as long as I don't get my head between the
antenna and the sender.)

Maybe your powerbook's Bluetooth would be stronger but that leads to yet
another problem: There are virtually no software implementations of A2DP
available. I know of some for Windows or Pocket PCs but even those must
be bought separatly. You can pair abovementioned headphones to any
device just as a normal headset and I successfully tried that with a
friend's powerbook. (Didn't test the range, though.) You will then get
the usual bad quality of headsets, but at least the sound is delivered
on both ears.

There are at least two other A2DP headphones (Aiptek Musicool 300,
Sonorix OBH-0100) available. But unfortunately, I've got no further
information on them, apart from that you probably won't like them either
without A2DP in your software. (Although the latter apparently supports
MP3, so it _might_ be possible to directly send a MP3 stream to it, even
without A2DP support in the Bluetooth stack.)

--=20
Henryk Pl=F6tz
Gr=FC=DFe aus Berlin
~~~~~~~ Un-CDs, nein danke! http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/ ~~~~~~~
~ Help Microsoft fight software piracy: Give Linux to a friend today! ~

Henryk Plötz <henryk.nospamplease@ploetzli.ch> wrote:

[]

This was all really interesting and informative. Thanks!

Reading what you write, I think maybe bluetooth isn't the way to go at
the moment, and I should just investigate cordless headphones. I don't
live in that huge a house, but I would need it to work in between walls
and floors. At the moment, when my computer (powerbook, so portable) is
upstairs in my study, my phone (T610) can 'see' it via BT in every room
apart from the kitchen, so even bluetooth won't work completely for me
unless it has a stronger reach. I _think_ the powerbook BT is pretty
strong, but obviously both devices have to have a similar capability.

David

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk

Henryk Plötz <henryk.nospamplease@ploetzli.ch> wrote in message news:<20041030232028.6a3e7a5b.henryk.nospamplease@ ploetzli.ch>...
> There are at least two other A2DP headphones (Aiptek Musicool 300,
> Sonorix OBH-0100) available. But unfortunately, I've got no further
> information on them, apart from that you probably won't like them either
> without A2DP in your software. (Although the latter apparently supports
> MP3, so it might be possible to directly send a MP3 stream to it, even
> without A2DP support in the Bluetooth stack.)

Actually, A2DP explicitly includes the ability to transfer MP3 over
bluetooth to the headset. Since Bluetooth does not have enough
bandwidth for 44.1kHz 16 bit stereo, aka CD quality, you'll normally
have to compress the audio in some way no matter what.

A2DP defines MP3 as well as a few other techniques I don't recall,
including the ability to add your own manufacturer-specific ones. I
don't recall if MP3 is mandatory, but it's definitely part of the
spec, so unfortunately you'll need a protocol stack with A2DP support
to make this work at all.

Moin,

Am 31 Oct 2004 19:23:50 -0800 schrieb gopi:

> A2DP defines MP3 as well as a few other techniques I don't recall,
> including the ability to add your own manufacturer-specific ones. I
> don't recall if MP3 is mandatory, but it's definitely part of the
> spec, so unfortunately you'll need a protocol stack with A2DP support
> to make this work at all.

I know, I know. ;-) Actually I have a printout of the specs right next
to me. (And yes, I have read it.) And no, MP3 (or rather MPEG 1 and 2
Audio) is not mandatory, neither are MPEG 2 and 4 AAC or the ATRAC
family (those are the other Optional Codecs). The only mandatory
A2DP-codec is SBC. And yes, the OBH-0100 probably includes support for
MP3 over A2DP. (I only know the Get Capabilities response of my BT420EX
and somebody elses Musicool 300, both only support SBC as codec.)

However, the A2DP explicitly does not prohibit the implementation of
other services (as long as that doesn't interfere with the A2DP
implementation) and so my BT420EX also supports a RFCOMM channel which
calls itself "Audio Sink" and seems to accept data which will be played
back on the headphones (I have not yet figured out in what format the
data is expected; it doesn't appear to like SBC or .wav).

I also know that the OBH-0100 has some extra spicy features (included
memory and a stand-alone MP3 player; I saw screenshots of the provided
software which had 'proprietary windows crap' written all over it in
invisible ink) for which there is no provision in the A2DP spec, so=20
obviously there is some other way to get at the MP3 decoder in the
headphones. (And yes, this is all mere speculation until somebody posts
more information.)

--=20
Henryk Pl=F6tz
Gr=FC=DFe aus Berlin
~~~~~~~ Un-CDs, nein danke! http://www.heise.de/ct/cd-register/ ~~~~~~~
~ Help Microsoft fight software piracy: Give Linux to a friend today! ~

Henryk Plötz <henryk.nospamplease@ploetzli.ch> wrote:

> Moin,
>
> Am Sat, 30 Oct 2004 21:15:47 +0100 schrieb chancellor of the duchy of
> besses o' th' barn:
>
> > I'm looking for a bluetooth headset to pair with my G4 12" PB. I
> > remember reading about stereo BT headsets becoming available, but I
> > can't find any for purchase, in the UK anyway. I'd prefer it to have
> > more than a 10 metre range if at all possible. Basically, I'd just
> > like to have a headset which allows me to listen to mac around the
> > house. Mostly just internet talk radio, but also sometimes music-
> > hence why stereo would be nice.
>
> Then you don't want a headset but rather headphones.

Just as a follow-up, I bought cheapish cordless headphones. (Thompson
WHP 460) Very happy with them. Sound obviously isn't as pure as wired
headsets, but it works suprisingly well- much better than expected, and
great reception throughout the house. Now that I can control itunes etc.
from my ericsson T610, this is all very useful indeed!

David

--
David Horne- www.davidhorne.net
usenet (at) davidhorne (dot) co (dot) uk