Blue Tooth Headphones for "Bag". Use

[TomBoisseau]

I've seen a few blue tooth transmitters for sale on eBay and it got me wondering about the possibility of using wireless blue tooth headphones with my bag rig.   Eliminating the headphone cable seems very desirable.  Has anyone here tried this, what  components did you use, and what were the results?

Thanks,

Tom

[ProSound]

Blue Tooth is very low quality and I would not trust it for critical listening nor would i want to introduce 2.4 spectrum into my audio bag

[Solid Goldberger]

7 hours ago, ProSound said:

Blue Tooth is very low quality and I would not trust it for critical listening nor would i want to introduce 2.4 spectrum into my audio bag

I'm not so sure that is true anymore.  The apt-x protocol is generally considered pretty close to lossless, and there are several audiophile equipment manufacturers making excellent BT receivers for home Hi-fi's. 

I'm also assuming you mean you don't want to add more 2.4ghz spectrum to your bag, since there are several manufacturers (SD/Zaxcom/Ambient) that are already incorporating these into bags quite successfully.

As to the original question, I would be very curious to know if you came up with any solutions that didn't introduce perceivable latency, and if there were any bluetooth cans that would be considered flat enough for reference audio, and could stand up to the rigors of production audio.  I have a feeling its going to be very difficult to find a 12v-powered transmitter that has low enough latency for our type of work, but I'd love find one!

 

e.

[Lancashire soundie]

First you'd have to get past the inevitable delay that Bluetooth transmission causes.  Standard latency is around 150ms.  I know there's no way I could stand that.  Best is around 40ms with aptX, but that's a frame of video and still far too much.

Infra-red headphones might be a better bet.

[Ty Ford]

Last time I tried infrared headphones outside, they didn't do very well on a sunny day. That was a long time ago, but I remember thinking, "Oh, yeah, the sun generates a lot if IR,"

17 hours ago, Solid Goldberger said:

I'm not so sure that is true anymore.  The apt-x protocol is generally considered pretty close to lossless, and there are several audiophile equipment manufacturers making excellent BT receivers for home Hi-fi's. 

I'm also assuming you mean you don't want to add more 2.4ghz spectrum to your bag, since there are several manufacturers (SD/Zaxcom/Ambient) that are already incorporating these into bags quite successfully.

As to the original question, I would be very curious to know if you came up with any solutions that didn't introduce perceivable latency, and if there were any bluetooth cans that would be considered flat enough for reference audio, and could stand up to the rigors of production audio.  I have a feeling its going to be very difficult to find a 12v-powered transmitter that has low enough latency for our type of work, but I'd love find one!

 

e.

The Audio-Technica and Rode 2.4 GHz wireless both use APT-x compression. I think it's 2:1. Sounds pretty damn good to my ears. Here's a clip using the Audio-Tehcnica System 10 and their MT830 omni wav.  

 

[TomBoisseau]

 

1 hour ago, Lancashire soundie said:

First you'd have to get past the inevitable delay that Bluetooth transmission causes.  Standard latency is around 150ms.  I know there's no way I could stand that.  Best is around 40ms with aptX, but that's a frame of video and still far too much.

Infra-red headphones might be a better bet.

Why I admit I would rather not have a noticeable delay, I could probably learn to tune it out.  Certainly that was the case when listening to the confidence/playback heads on reel to reel recorders, and even not so uncommon today when listening to the confidence return of some video cameras.

Tom

[Solid Goldberger]

3 hours ago, Lancashire soundie said:

First you'd have to get past the inevitable delay that Bluetooth transmission causes.  Standard latency is around 150ms.  I know there's no way I could stand that.  Best is around 40ms with aptX, but that's a frame of video and still far too much.

Infra-red headphones might be a better bet.

I have a pair of Sennheiser wireless headphones (the RS-220, discontinued) that sound amazing, have great range (through walls as much as 50-75 feet in my experience), and have no perceivable delay--I use them with my "home theater".  These are definitely built for home use, as they have a massive base station and are an open-back design, but the technology is definitely there. 

http://www.cnet.com/products/sennheiser-rs-220/

 

On a separate note, I believe the Arri Amira has a Bluetooth monitoring feature. I wonder if anyone here has checked that out and can confirm the audio fidelity there. I would assume that the latency on that system would be excellent, because I'd assume that it would be unusable for camera operators if the audio was perceivable behind the pictures in the viewfinder. 

E. 

[Lancashire soundie]

Considering the input problems people have experienced with the Amira (including myself) it probably doesn't work...