sebaz
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2011
- Posts
- 59
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- 19
The Pioneer VSX-935 is excellent in many ways, but Bluetooth is not one of them. In fact, the Bluetooth implementation is absolute garbage. Not only the amount of steps that you have to go through to get to actually pair anything, but more than anything, how buggy and unreliable it is. If it had a decent headphones output, I wouldn't really care, but while the speakers sound fantastic, the best headphones in the world will still sound flat and boring with it. So I need Bluetooth for when I'm watching a 4K Blu-ray at night, for example. For streaming I can pair to my Apple TV 4K, which is reliable, but only AAC.
The Pioneer has aptX HD, which would be great if it worked reliably, but it doesn't. With my Qudelix 5K it pairs, but then at some point minutes later it will make a loud pop and go silent for a moment, then come back with the sound 1 second off from the video. So it's useless, so much that the other day I just watched the digital version of a movie I have on 4K Blu-ray because I didn't want to put up with that anymore.
Then yesterday Amazon recommended me the Fiio BTR15 for about 100 bucks, and I figured, let's give it a try, if it doesn't work, uncle Jeff will take it back, but if it works fine with my Pioneer, it pairs fine and I can get the aptX HD codec, then it's 100 bucks well spent, since I do a lot of late night watching.
But it turns out it's even worse than the Qudelix. And this is not to criticize neither the Qudelix nor the Fiio, because I know the Bluetooth implementation in the Pioneer is atrocious. But I wanted to ask here to see if anyone that has a Fiio DAC with Bluetooth and a Pioneer receiver more or less recent came across this same problem and figured out a solution. If not, it will have to go back to uncle Jeff, but I would really like to find a way to keep it, because it's a very nice device, and unlike the other Fiio DACs I tried, this one has a 10 band EQ, so that makes me really want to keep it.
I know the first question you will ask is if I updated the firmware, so yes, I did, as soon as I connected it to my iPhone and installed the Fiio app, it prompted me and I updated it, which took an absurd amount of time, about 25 minutes, which is too long for this kind of thing. My two Qudelix 5k and the T71 update in less than 5 minutes, and every other device I can remember never takes this long. But it is updated.
The only way I can get the Pioneer to even see the Fiio is to unplug it from power for a few seconds (I even tried like ten minutes), then turn it on and go through the menus to enable the Bluetooth transmitter, and once I start searching it will show Fiio BTR15, at which point I have to press OK on the remote. That's when, seconds later, it pairs with the device, but in the case of this Fiio, it never did, not even once. It stays doing nothing for like 5 minutes until it says "Connection Failed".
Even if this Pioneer receiver is royal PITA with Bluetooth, it pairs fine with Bluetooth ear buds and headphones. It seems to have a problem with DACs perhaps, but I can't say that for sure.
So, does anyone here have a Fiio Bluetooth device with a Pioneer receiver, and what's your experience with them?
The Pioneer has aptX HD, which would be great if it worked reliably, but it doesn't. With my Qudelix 5K it pairs, but then at some point minutes later it will make a loud pop and go silent for a moment, then come back with the sound 1 second off from the video. So it's useless, so much that the other day I just watched the digital version of a movie I have on 4K Blu-ray because I didn't want to put up with that anymore.
Then yesterday Amazon recommended me the Fiio BTR15 for about 100 bucks, and I figured, let's give it a try, if it doesn't work, uncle Jeff will take it back, but if it works fine with my Pioneer, it pairs fine and I can get the aptX HD codec, then it's 100 bucks well spent, since I do a lot of late night watching.
But it turns out it's even worse than the Qudelix. And this is not to criticize neither the Qudelix nor the Fiio, because I know the Bluetooth implementation in the Pioneer is atrocious. But I wanted to ask here to see if anyone that has a Fiio DAC with Bluetooth and a Pioneer receiver more or less recent came across this same problem and figured out a solution. If not, it will have to go back to uncle Jeff, but I would really like to find a way to keep it, because it's a very nice device, and unlike the other Fiio DACs I tried, this one has a 10 band EQ, so that makes me really want to keep it.
I know the first question you will ask is if I updated the firmware, so yes, I did, as soon as I connected it to my iPhone and installed the Fiio app, it prompted me and I updated it, which took an absurd amount of time, about 25 minutes, which is too long for this kind of thing. My two Qudelix 5k and the T71 update in less than 5 minutes, and every other device I can remember never takes this long. But it is updated.
The only way I can get the Pioneer to even see the Fiio is to unplug it from power for a few seconds (I even tried like ten minutes), then turn it on and go through the menus to enable the Bluetooth transmitter, and once I start searching it will show Fiio BTR15, at which point I have to press OK on the remote. That's when, seconds later, it pairs with the device, but in the case of this Fiio, it never did, not even once. It stays doing nothing for like 5 minutes until it says "Connection Failed".
Even if this Pioneer receiver is royal PITA with Bluetooth, it pairs fine with Bluetooth ear buds and headphones. It seems to have a problem with DACs perhaps, but I can't say that for sure.
So, does anyone here have a Fiio Bluetooth device with a Pioneer receiver, and what's your experience with them?
