Bluetooth Headphones

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lilfiend

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I'm looking for a pair of decent bluetooth headphones, nothing that will break the bank but i don't want shit either, any recommendations?

EDIT: to clarify i'm look at anything between $30 and $120ish, money is an issue for me just now so cheaper is nice but i do have a pair of bose ie2's and honestly if i could get something like that but bluetooth for around $100 i'd much rather wait and save up.


Thanks in advance!
 
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The problem is that Bluetooth audio is fairly heavily compressed, so regardless of the quality of the output device the best you can reasonably expect in terms of fidelity is not that great. I have never heard Bluetooth headphones that made me happy.
 
So you'd prefer IEMs over on ears or bigger headphones? Plantronics BackBeat Go are pretty solid. The problem with Bluetooth is it has inherent limitations so most serious audio companies don't bother at all with it, any pair of IEMs costing more than $80 or even $50 would inherently be held back by BT'scompression. If you're very critical you might not stand it at all but personally I think it has it's uses.

The other alternative is to simply keep using your current IEMs and just get a BT receiver to make them wireless. This has been my approach, the downside is that you obviously still have to either clip on the receiver or slip it in a pocket... So there's still some amount of wire management to deal with.

The upsides are many tho, if the receiver runs out of battery you can just plug in directly, something you can't go with most BT headphones (some larger models do allow for it). You can also pair the receiver with IEM with much better drivers than what you'll get with any BT product, even if they do end up held back by the compression codec.

The receiver can have a larger battery, better controls, and even a display (compared to something like the Plantronics which has to house everything on your ears and the cable). The Samsung HM-3700 and Sony MW600 are two nice receivers.
 
Bluetooth gets a bad rap. Really. Then there's some junk out there. Nothing BT is going to be "studio monitor" quality. I use Stereo BT audio all the time.

There was a time when devices (BT v1.0-2.0) had the BT audio bit rate to low to transfer sound with ANY quality as well as the codec's used in those devices were designed for voice and not full range music. During the BT 2.1EDR and BT 3.0 era better data rates and codec profiles were introduced that when used can make BT audio fairly decent.

Sony/Ericson makes a fairly decent BT receiver (about the size of a finger) for about $60. (MW-600) Even has an FM radio and will pair with 3 devices. (I use this one at work all the time) Bring your own pair of 3.5mm head phones. The battery lasts ~10hrs.

Sony makes a fairly decent OTE set that runs $80-100. Sony DR-BT22 (I used to use this one)

Beats Audio has a very expensive OTE BT set that costs a few $100. I can't really tell the difference between it and the other two listed.

I'd stay away from the Motorola "Rockr" and any Bestbuy house brands. Junk in my experience. I'd also stay away from any of the older BT v1.0-2.0 devices.
 
I compared HTC's apt-x enabled adapter against a standard CBR BT 2.1 w/EDR adapter (using my EVO 4G LTE which should be able to use CSR's apt-x) and frankly I couldn't hear the difference... Granted I didn't compare them using a hifi system, but that was on purpose, I compared them with my car's stock stereo system and with a pair of $100 powered monitors (Samson StudioDock 3i, 3" woofers). I did so because those represent the kind of scenarios where I'd actually bother using Bluetooth and the adapter itself.
 
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