[helmutcheese]

So I got the BTA30Pro and some Sennheiser Momentum 3's and I am trying to get them connected but havent had any luck so far. The BTA keeps trying to connect to other devices. How do I make it try to connect to the M3s?

It has a habit of doing that even connecting to another device's when you disconnect/reconnect it could be far better but seems abandonware updates wise.

I had to move my MTW3's (no longer have them) really close and then pair them.

 

[Gamerlingual]

It has a habit of doing that even connecting to another device's when you disconnect/reconnect it could be far better but seems abandonware updates wise.

I had to move my MTW3's (no longer have them) really close and then pair them.

So the BTA30 Pro isn’t the most reliable hardware?

 

[helmutcheese]

More the firmware needs work, they tried to fix one issue after initially denying it, but it is the same with the new firmware (the freezing at times, unplugging it fixes it).

From my use of it (hardly use now since I got my aptX Adaptive USB Dongle) it is even a PIA to reconnect the last connected device as it can decide to connect to another device not used for a time even if that device is in another room.

 

[Gamerlingual]

Doesn’t sound like it’s worth the 19,000 yen asking price, then.

 

[EniGmA1987]

I ended up getting my Momentum 3's connected. I had to drive to a park and plug the BTA into my car charger for power, then connect the headphones there. This way there were no other bluetooth devices in range so it finally connected to the headphones. I had to resort to this as no matter how many times I tried to do the pair on the BTA30Pro it just wouldnt go for the M3's. My house has too many other TVs and audio devices with bluetooth that simply cannot be turned off, no options to. So I had to go somewhere that would be out of range of other devices to finally make it work.
So far they have been working well, just tested it a bit tonight after getting it all hooked up to a TV. Pain in the butt to get it to connect to what I wanted though.

@FiiO it would be nice in the next version of the BTA product line to have a small screen of some sort with arrow keys up and down so that when connecting to a device it shows the available ones and you select which one you are trying to pair. The screen could also be used to show the mode it is in other currently connected devices when not pairing something new.
Not having any way to make the BTA30Pro connect to what I wanted was a serious drawback.

 

[helmutcheese]

Jesus that was extreme LOL.

 

[FiiO]

I ended up getting my Momentum 3's connected. I had to drive to a park and plug the BTA into my car charger for power, then connect the headphones there. This way there were no other bluetooth devices in range so it finally connected to the headphones. I had to resort to this as no matter how many times I tried to do the pair on the BTA30Pro it just wouldnt go for the M3's. My house has too many other TVs and audio devices with bluetooth that simply cannot be turned off, no options to. So I had to go somewhere that would be out of range of other devices to finally make it work.
So far they have been working well, just tested it a bit tonight after getting it all hooked up to a TV. Pain in the butt to get it to connect to what I wanted though.

@FiiO it would be nice in the next version of the BTA product line to have a small screen of some sort with arrow keys up and down so that when connecting to a device it shows the available ones and you select which one you are trying to pair. The screen could also be used to show the mode it is in other currently connected devices when not pairing something new.
Not having any way to make the BTA30Pro connect to what I wanted was a serious drawback.

Dear friend,

Thanks for the kind feedback. We will report to the product manager about your feedback.

Best regards

 

[Irura]

Hi,

I've been a fan of Fiio for some time and the E10K has worked great for me for years. Because of this, I bought a BTA30 Pro when I was looking to make the switch to wireless headphones. I am using Sennheiser PXC 550-IIs and first had some crackles and pops when first using the aptX LL codec with the BTA30 Pro, but a firmware upgrade to the 1.12 version seems to have fixed those issues.

Unfortunately, even after the firmware update there seems to be a noise gate active or something that causes a “cut off” of quiet sounds. It is very noticeable when watching quite scenes in movies or during streams with quiet BGM. I’ve read that this is a power saving feature on some bluetooth transmitters, but I would not expect this to be the case for a hi-fi bluetooth transmitter.

I have plugged the BTA30 Pro into my PC via the USB cable and tried all the bluetooth codecs my headphones support, the noise gate is always there. I have also tried the Sennheiser headphones directly on my phone and connected my bluetooth Jabra headphones to my PC via a dongle to check those components and they are not the cause of the issue. As a last check, I connected the Jabra headphones instead to the BTA30 Pro and the noise gate is present here as well.

I did some research online and found a reddit thread where one user commented this:

“When using BTA30 with firmware up to version 1.1 (or BTA30 Pro with stock firmware), it will apply a noise gate on coaxial and optical inputs that mutes audio when it gets too low (e.g. quiet scenes in movies). Upgrading to the latest firmware version 1.12 beta as of the writing of this reply solves such problem.”

This scenario is a bit different as this is about just the BTA30 and my input is via USB, but it is also about the noise gate, which the firmware update unfortunately didn’t solve for me.

My question is, is @FiiO or anyone here aware of this issue and knows a fix for it? Is it a hardware issue, or is this something software could solve?

Frankly, as much as I think the sound quality is great otherwise, having the noise gate cut in and out makes the listening experience not enjoyable for me and I might have to return the BTA30 Pro if there is no fix for this.

Thanks all.

Dear friend,

I haven't got this feedback when using USB input mode. Does your issue happen when playing the sound in low volume as well? And please check whether there is other interference may cause this problem?

Best regards

Can you please fix this issue. This noise gate is a total deal-breaker for this device and I would have returned mine instantly if I'd realized the issue existed when I first got it. Unfortunately I blamed my headphones, which I intended to upgrade anyway, so I ignored the issue. Turns out it was the BTA30 Pro's fault the whole time and now I'm stuck with a device that is essentially useless to me. And yes, it happens with USB input mode as well as TOSLINK (haven't tried coax).

 

[Irura]

For anyone who wants a Bluetooth transmitter that doesn't have the noise gate issue, I just bought a Sennheiser BT T100 and it's completely noise gate-free. I could only find one very blurry photo of the internals, but if I'm reading it correctly it seems to use the CSR8670 SoC. FiiO uses the CSR8675, so either the noise gate is a "feature" specific to the CSR8675, or it's configurable on both SoCs and should have been fixable by FiiO. I found a reply on their forum claiming that they couldn't do anything about it, which was why I purchased the BT T100.

Shame to have a promising device be undermined by such a major flaw.

 

[SilverEars]

Transmitter can't do AAC? Why is this? I mean AAC is much more common and it's more efficient than AptX, so it's better.

Can you guys update it with AAC for transmission mode? I rather not use SBC over AAC.

 

[helmutcheese]

If you actually read the release info you would know there is not enough space on the Chip for all the Codecs, so they had to choose AAC or aptX LL on the output, so the latter makes more sense as many will use it for Games/Movies so need no Lag/Lip-Sync issues.

IMO aptX is better than AAC esp. on Android and on Apple devices it is only 250k (that is how you get longer claimed better life), Windows 10/11it is up to 320k AFAIR (variable).

SBC was a very advanced codec before QUALCOMM cripped it on their chipsets to promote aptX.

You can see all this info about SBC/AAC if you run Bluetooth Tweaker and all the features scored out that SBC does actually support.

The BTA30 Pro was only made due to a Chip shortage during the pandemic causing the BTA30 to be out of stock all the time.

We got a better chipset with more features but ideally if not, we would have seen a BTA40 someday with aptX Adaptive etc.

 

[alivejamie]

This device doesn't seem to allow me to output both Bluetooth and coax from USB. It's either/or. Is that by design or is there a better way to do what I'm trying to do?

 

[Irura]

This device doesn't seem to allow me to output both Bluetooth and coax from USB. It's either/or. Is that by design or is there a better way to do what I'm trying to do?

I never tried that combo, but if you were willing/able to use TOSLINK instead of USB, then the optical bypass will let you take that TOSLINK source and output it via Bluetooth and the TOSLINK (or Coax) output on the BTA30Pro simultaneously, from what I can remember.

Most motherboards/sound cards have TOSLINK out, otherwise USB-to-TOSLINK adapters are cheap.

 

[alivejamie]

I never tried that combo, but if you were willing/able to use TOSLINK instead of USB, then the optical bypass will let you take that TOSLINK source and output it via Bluetooth and the TOSLINK (or Coax) output on the BTA30Pro simultaneously, from what I can remember.

Most motherboards/sound cards have TOSLINK out, otherwise USB-to-TOSLINK adapters are cheap.

Cool I can try that, it won't degrade the quality going from USB to Toslink to the Fiio?

 

[helmutcheese]

Technical no but the Optical is 24/192k (their website is back to 24/96k so needs work like their software/support) and the USB is 32/384k, you can also control the Volume of the Optical once you enable this setting in the FiiO Control App on your phone after you pair and connect in RX Mode.