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This year Sony have released a number of personal entertainment Bluetooth
devices, today we’re looking at the TMR-BT10, a Bluetooth Audio Transmitter.
There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight for the growing popularity of Bluetooth devices, now commonplace in computers, mobile phones, PDAs, stereo systems and even your car. It seems if you don’t have some sort of Bluetooth device hanging off you, you’re just not ‘with it’. This year Sony have released a number of personal entertainment Bluetooth devices, today we’re looking at the TMR-BT10, a Bluetooth Audio Transmitter.
The TMR-BT10 has a RRP of AU$149 - not exactly the cheap end of the market – and is able to transmit audio from any source with a 3.5mm headphone jack (such as MP3 players, PDAs, Laptops etc...) and transmit it to Bluetooth equipped audio receivers such as Bluetooth speakers, headphones, headsets etc... The receiver must be compatible with the A2DP Bluetooth profile, which thankfully - for the sake of good music quality - counts out most cheap Bluetooth mobile phone headsets.
A2DP stands for Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, and allows for CD quality stereo music to be sent over a wireless Bluetooth connection, so long as both transmitter and receiver support the profile.
The TMR-BT10 comes with an AC adapter and desktop charger base included as standard and the Lithium-Ion battery inside the unit will last for up to 11 hours of music playback/transmission.
The transmitter unit is very nicely styled, with a sleek polished silver over gloss black appearance making it something you wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen wearing, and it’s only about the size of your thumb anyway. A coiled connection lead allows for connection to devices between 20-50cm away, perfect for connecting to something in your pocket without getting the cable all tangled up.
I’ve been using the transmitter today to listen to my iPod on my Logitech Freepulse Bluetooth Headphones and the sound quality is just as good as when I use my Sony headphones (MDR-Q66) that attached via a normal cable, except these Logitech headphones give much better bass, which always surprised me considering they’re receiving a signal over a limited bandwidth Bluetooth connection, but that’s really not relevant here, just shows that good quality audio is possible over Bluetooth.
Pairing the devices was straight forward, and the TMR-BT10 included detailed and easy to follow instructions for the pairing process. The transmitter is locked to a Bluetooth pairing password of 0000 and will only pair to devices with the same password. This is fine for most devices as the default password is 0000, but if you’ve changed it, you’ll have to change it back to pair with the Sony.
Moving around the office the sound will drop out when I get about 8-10m away, or even closer if there’s an obstruction such as a desk or partition wall. This is to be expected and is in no way a fault of the Sony transmitter, just a limitation of Bluetooth, and it is thanks to the Bluetooth transmission that the audio quality was constant until it started to drop out, no static or line noise etc, unlike an RF signal. I would think that people would mostly have this transmitter and the receiver in close proximity, mostly on their person at the same time, when this is the case, the signal quality is great and no dropouts should be experienced.
Conclusion:
A good looking device which is easy to use and has a long lasting battery, the sound quality is excellent and pairing with your Bluetooth headphones is hassle free. The only downside is the rather high asking price, it can be bought at online stores for around AU$125 which does help a bit, but consider that the Logitech FreePulse headphones I tested with sell for as low as AU$138 (RRP AU$180) and come with a similar Bluetooth transmitter already, albeit not as advanced as the Sony, it’s still food for thought.
Is there anyone in Australia that can offer me the Sony TMR-BT10 or the Miccus Blubridge BBMJ-02, any assistance would be appreciated.
Thank You.