Frustrations with Chord Poly
I love the Mojo and H2. Both are just amazing, and the real power of the Mojo comes through the longer I listen. My ears are weak, so the first 5-10 minutes, I don’t notice the difference between the Mojo and connecting directly to my old iPhone 6. But especially for classical orchestral music, if I stop trying to hear a difference and just enjoy the music, things start to emerge through the Mojo that I’d never noticed before. Not just details (though that too), but the balance between instruements becomes increasingly noticeable until I’m sitting there stunned at what I’m hearing. The H2 is more dramatic a difference of course and is instantly recognizable.
To me, at least, the Mojo and H2 are incredible pieces of technology and I deeply appreciate Chord’s and Robb Watts’ investment in time to bringing these products to market.
The Poly, on the other, is really one step away from junk in my book.
First, the good. BT works well and consistently. But who cares. The quality out of Poly's BT (connected to my iPhone 8+) is significantly more muted, loses a crap ton of detail, and frankly, isn’t better than listening to my old iPhone 6 through wired headphones.
Second, WHEN the SDcard setup works, the music is stunning. Too bad it only works under one condition.
It’s frustrating as all heck to use.
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I already know the Poly doesn’t connect to 5gHz APs, but it doesn’t connect to all 2.4gHz APs either.
-> Connects to my iPhone when iPhone is in hotspot mode.
-> Doesn’t connect to either my Fortinet or Sonicwall APs (Both in 2.4gHz mode)
-> Connects to cheap “travel” AP, Logitec L300
- Even when it’s working:
-> When connected to iPhone’s hotspot, everything works.
-> When connected to my Logitec L300 travel AP, it connects, but the DLNA server doesn’t work right.
So, the “amazing” streaming client functions are completely wasted because it will only connect properly to one out of the four 2.4gHz APs I have.
Great. Junk.
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Status light indicators aren’t that great. When trying to do any setups while charging, the charging lights supersede the mode indicators. Only way to get mode indicators to work right is to use the Poly in battery mode.
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No way to load music directly onto the Poly’s SDcard while the SDcard is in the Poly. Have to remove it, mount it on my desktop or laptop computer using a separate reader, manage files, and move the sd card back to Poly. Very inefficient. The ability to mount the SD card while it is inside the Poly should have been there.
In other words, the Poly should have had two micro-USB ports, just like the Mojo, and the data microUSB should have been pass-through + SDcard mounting. Or Chord should have it's own DLNA client with these features in mind.
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Even when I can access the SD card via the internal DLNA server (when the Poly is connected to my iPhone 8’s AP), the directory stops working while there’s a song playing. When I stop the song, the directories show up again. What’s up with that? Using 8 Player. Maybe 8 player isn’t good. But frankly, again, why isn’t there a Chord client.
Complaint to 8 Player and not Chord: Why can’t I easily create and manage and more importantly, sequentially order the songs in a playlist manually? While it’s an 8 Player problem, it doesn’t change my frustration at using this “system”
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And speaking of frustrations with this “system”, another irritation is the lack of physical buttons. I love DAPs because I can control ff/skip forward/play/pause/beginning of song/jump to previous song. Why doesn't Poly have physical buttons?
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Why do I need a physical pin to change the Poly between nw mod and ap mode? That’s annoying. It’s a pain in the butt to manage. Why not just a regular physical button or switch?
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Airplay only works for me when using the iPhone as a hotspot. Which goes back to my first frustration. I don’t always want to use my iPhone as the transport. Often I want to use my other smart devices, to free my iPhone of unnecessary duties to preserve battery power.
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For $700+ this device could have been a heck of a lot better.
As much as I love the Mojo and H2, the Poly is pretty darn close to useless for me. The slow-as-molasses N5ii is a better device for portability by far. At least that connects to any network and the streaming features work without a problem.
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At the very least the AP client needs to be improved. I’m stunned at just how crappy the AP client is.
Every other device I own connects to my 2.4gHz Sonicwall or Fortinet appliances with no problem. The Poly is the first device I have ever owned that doesn’t connect to it. Heck, even my 1996 Sharp Zaurus with wifi module attachment connects without problems to both of my home APs. What kind of hardware is Poly using that it won’t connect to anything but a portable wifi AP and my iPhone in hotspot mode?
Irritated to no end.
I’m sure a lot of people will disagree with me, and I apologize for venting so much, but my love of Chord products is somewhat exacerbating my frustration with the Poly.
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Venting done