Bluetooth dongle

[David Gorman]

Would anyone know if the B2 would work using a Bluetooth aptx hd dongle such as the Creative bt-w3

Thanks

[Mark Fishman]

Daniel, the RT5370 is a wifi chipset. David's question is about Bluetooth -- and I don't know the answer either.

On Saturday, May 22, 2021 at 2:42:32 PM UTC-4 Daniel Taylor wrote:

I can't say about that one in particular.  But generally, the B2 requires a dongle that is RT5370 compatible and does not require any drivers to be installed.

[Mark Fishman]

Having checked https://us.creative.com/p/speakers/creative-bt-w3, I think the answer is maybe:

it's a USB Type C device; the B2 has only USB2.0 Type A jacks, but the bt-w3 comes with adapters.

It doesn't appear to need drivers, but if it depends on the PC or Mac having appropriate software built-in then it probably won't work with a Raspberry Pi.

David, it's $40 at Amazon (US); why not buy one and solve the mystery for all of us?

[Daniel Taylor]

I wonder if the aptx capability (is that also called level 5.0 ?) will work regardless of the thing it's plugged into.  And I hope it's backward compatible to whatever level the device it's talking to is at.

[David Gorman]

I have ordered the dongle should arrive tomorrow. I will feed back as to whether or not it works. I ordered from Amazon so if it doesn’t It is easily returned. Just for some background information, when I bought the B2 I also bought a bluetooth transceiver which was aptx hd/LL compatible along with a pair of PSB headphones which were also aptx hd. I connected the transceiver via its optical output to the spdif on the Brennan. Very happy with the sound quality (although I am no audiophile and my hearing isnt as good as it used to be). I then decided to add an amp and git the NAD 3045 as it has aptx hd in/out bluetooth built in. With respect to bluetooth performance I was very disappointed at the sound quality it was way inferior to that from the stand alone bluetooth transceiver and I had to crank the amp volume up almost to max. The other issue is that the nad forgets what it has been paired with when it goes into standby so you have to pair again every time! So if this new dongle doesn’t work I will revert back to the separate bluetooth unit. I can plug it in to the nad headphone port but I could also just use the b2 but that would mean having to swap the connection when I go between headphones and speakers. Is there any way of connecting 2 mini optical plugs into the single spidif on the B2

[Jeff. M.]

I have seen some sdif spitters available, on eBay, but not clear on whether they have 2 inputs, or outputs, I would like to have my Chromecast connected to my amp, and BE to amp as well, then pick and choose. May have to take a punt and try them, not too much money.

[Daniel Taylor]

Hi David,

I am surprised to hear about the poor Bluetooth performance of the NAD unit.  Have you called their tech support line to make sure the unit is operating properly?

[David Gorman]

Hi Daniel

I haven’t  as yet but did some searching on the net and found several reviews from users who were very critical of the sound quality from bluetooth 

[Peter Lowham]

Hi David,

I've had a look at the Creative Bt-w3 and aptx HD and this device and functionaility requires a CSR5  device.  The Brennan BT is a CSR4 unit so is likely not going to work in this situation.

On looking at CSR5 requirements, the Bluetooth device drivers are not present in the GNU/Linux 4.19 version which is what the B2B software runs on.  The CSR5 device drivers are only present from GNU/Linux 5.8 onwards.

There is some discussion on webites about back-porting the CSR5 code but I could only find references to doing this on earlier versions of GNU/Linux 5.x.  I haven't found any information on back-porting to GNU/Linux 4.x

Keep us posted on progress!

Regards,

Peter.

[David Gorman]

Hi just to update the situation. I ordered the unit and it arrived yesterday except it didnt! Amazon sent me the BT-W2 not the BT-W3 which I ordered so it was sent back. Not sure if I will re order. I need to take a step back as for the past few days I have been messing with bluetooth on the Brennan, my stand alone unit, playing around with the graphic equaliser going back to connecting my headphones to my iPod touch etc etc. The only result has been several headaches. I need to spend some time just enjoying the music rather than trying to analyse every nuance!