looking for a good bluetooth headphone adapter
Oct 14, 2012 at 11:52 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 2

JIreland

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Basically, I bought a new android phone recently, selling my ipod thinking "I can have one device for everything". 
However, the phone (a Sony Xperia Tipo) has an unbelievably terrible internal amp. Im now in the process of trying to salvage a useable MP3 player from it.

At first I looked into plugging a USB DAC into it, as apparently u can plug flash drives in using a special cable.
It turns out that, while entirely possible on some phones, my one is too new and ****ty for anyone to have bothered to compile a custom kernel with the linux usb audio driver (and I definitely have no clue about any of that stuff).
 
So my second choice was a bluetooth headset. I dont really want to buy some bluetooth earphones, I like my current headphones (Sennheisser CX500 and Shure SRH840), and i would like to be able to upgrade in the future, so Im looking for a decent portable bluetooth audio receiver with a 3.5mm jack.
 
Basically, I want a Fiio E7 style DAC, but which connects via bluetooth instead of USB. Anyone have any idea what I might buy?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
 
edit: I live in the UK
 
looking at amazon, etc, i have come up with the Sony MW600 as a possible "cheap" one, but it has a pitiful battery life of 7hrs music streaming. Not sure what the standard is because I cant seem to find very many
 
Oct 18, 2012 at 6:46 PM Post #2 of 2
[size=small]I went and bought a "Sony wireless headset pro" and it solved the problem better than I could have imagined. I knew it had a wolfson DAC inside, so I knew the amp would be good, but the bundled earphones actually work well! Im using them instead of my £40 IEMs at the moment. They are quit bass-heavy, but it is still clean, with a touch of emphasis on the highs and a decent amount of detail - better than my sennheisser CX500 but nowhere near my Shure SRH840 "big" headphones. They are very comfortable, and come with 4 sizes of silicon tips. The soundstage is the best I have heard on any IEM (although I havent heard so many :frowning2: )[/size][size=small][/size]
[size=small]The sound isolation is very good too. It rivals my shure headphones[/size][size=small][/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small]The audio streaming via bluetooth is much better than I expected too. There are a few small audible compression artefacts audible in the high frequencies (esp. cymbals), but it still sounds as good as half-decent bitrate mp3 (180ish), which is more than enough for me out and about.[/size]

[size=small]The battery life isnt great at 8 hrs, but it lasts a few days if I dont leave it paired to my phone all day (if i do, it lasts 1 day barely)[/size][size=small][/size]
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[size=small]Build quality seems ok so far. The headphones have a durable looking aluminium casing, although I would prefer an angled jack instead of the straight one these came with, and the cables are the ribbon type which seem sturdy enough, although they catch a lot of vibrations - the included clip helps, but not enough. The actual device is made of one solid piece of plastic which looks as though it could survive a bit of a tumble.[/size][size=small][/size]
[size=small][/size]
[size=small]Value for money: I would say yes. I would probably pay £40 just for the IEMs if they were released on their own (with a proper length cable).[/size]
 
[size=small]I am amazed at how much more comfortable it is as well, I am no longer attached to my jeans pocket by a cable, and i feel so free :)[/size]
 

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