Windows Phone Thoughts: IOGear Bluetooth Stereo Headphone Kit Reviewed

Now, With the Supplied B/T Transmitter...
OK, so now I’ve had my bit of exploratory fun – let’s do this the way things were intended to be connected!


Figure 10: The IOGear Bluetooth Audio Transmitter.


Figure 11: A shot of the Transmitter’s Pair/Connect button and LED.

Pairing with IOGear’s supplied bluetooth audio transmitter is much simpler. Press the power button on the headset for a couple of seconds, until the blue LED starts flashing, then press the Connect/Pair button on the transmitter for a second or two and wait for both blue LEDs to go solid, indicating that pairing has completed. Then, you plug the transmitter’s audio plug into an available jack, and voila – sound emits from the headphones. And I have to say WOW! WHAT A DIFFERENCE IN QUALITY!

The hiss is completely gone, replaced with beautiful, full-fidelity stereo (to use an antiquated, but accurate term). The sound quality is easily equal to that of a corded headset (and in many cases, much better than some of the less expensive headset/earbud combinations). My guess is that this is the difference between using the basic audio headset profile vs. the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP). Now the headsets are running at the frequency response shown in the specifications. Generally, the sound is quite listenable and frequency response is fairly flat through the audible range. My ears are getting a bit old, so I miss stuff above about 15Khz, but few if any musicians produce sounds above this threshold anyway.

One of the great advantages of using the Bluetooth Audio Transmitter (aside from much better sound quality), is that it instantly provides Bluetooth capability to anything with an audio output jack. This would include radios, MP3 players, TV sets, etc.

Range was pretty much the same as with the direct pairing – about 35 feet (10m). It’s not quite the 20m in the specifications, but the building I was testing in is notorious for killing radio frequencies in any band (FM Radio is almost impossible in here).

And.. the extra bonus...I was able to pair the headphones with my Dell and my phone at the same time! Pretty cool being able to listen to music, then interrupt it to answer a phone call when it comes in.

On the headphones, there are also forward/back buttons on the right side of the headset for using the Advanced Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) to control your music/video device.


Figure 12: Back of the Headphones, showing the selection buttons around the edge.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those luddites who uses his Pocket PC to play music, so I don’t have an iPOD to test out these capabilities.