Dear all,

I had a very strange expreience yesterday.

I was an idea to add a Belkin Bluetooth receiver (http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=508754) to my Beocenter 2500+Beolab4500 system via the AUX connector, but it had the most strange behaviour I've ever seen. The sound turns on, but it sounds like DIGITALLY JAMMED, just like if You try to listen to a very badly scratched CD, or an extraim wrong digital connection, some data is missing, some frequency are missing, and it's sounds totally fake! Unfortunately, I was not able to record it, but imagine the sound like this (noisy!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzvvk9BBC30 with some bad quality music in the background.

Of course, my first thought was, that the digital link or the receiver is wrong, so I tried to use the receiver and the dongle in just inches away, but there was no difference. After this, I started to test the items, and:

- The receiver works absolutely fine with my notebook, so there is no problem neither with the receiver, nor the transmission,

- I replaced the music source with a different bluetooth source (mobile phone -> PC), but there was no change, the behaviour remained the same,

- I changed the source and the destination computer - the system worked just perfect.

There was only one strange thing: The 5 pin connection to the Beocenter seemed a little bit grounding problem (there was the usual deep growling sound), but as I was used a brand new 5 pic connector, it can't be the problem, so I thought, maybe the connector is wrong inside the Beocenter 2500. So to check it, I was tried the bluetooth system in my other Beosystem 2300, and...

... IT WAS ACTED THE SAME WAY!

So, the only part I was not replaced was the 3.5 jack-5 pin connector, BUT the problem seems totally different, as the sound is not bad - with for example a huge noise in the bacground - but JAMMED, just like a real bad digital sound!! How can it be, as an audio connection can not act this way?

OR, is it possible, that BEOCENTERS use DIFFERENT connectors, as all the other 5 pin DIN connectors?!

Have You ever had an experience like this? Do You have any idea on what else can I try?

Thank You for reading, and in advance!

Hi,

This is a puzzling problem!  The first thing to say is that you should not get any grounding problems with the lead from the Bluetooth receiver to the 2300, so I would suggest changing this (although this won't solve the garbled data, it should prevent the grounding hum).

With regards to the digital noise, this certainly seems to be caused by digital transmission errors over the Bluetooth link, caused probably by one of the two Bluetooth devices (either the phone or the receiver) not pairing correctly, or with link dropouts occuring.

If you connect the phone directly to the 2300 using the direct cable (assuming that the phone has a headphone socket), then you should be able to get good quality sound, with no hum or data noise (assuming that the files you are playing were encoded at a reasonable bit-rate).  If a direct connection give you a poor sound, then you need to check the file format and quality, plus the cabling.  There is nothing special about the socket on your Beocenter by the way, so as long as you have the correct cable, you should be fine.

Once this is sorted out, you can move onto checking the Bluetooth link.  My own experience with these links is that they can be very temperimental, with links of even a few cm giving problems in some situations (I think this can be due to other radio frequency signals in the vicinity).  Please bear in mind that I am a Cable Engineer when I say this (so I have a vested interest in cables!), but I firmly believe that for good quality music, you should physically connect the devices via a cable wherever possible (ideally a good cable!)

Some phones seem to be particularly poor at sending music over Bluetooth, so if you need to use this link and you can't get the phone to perform, the best option may be to change to a different model of phone.

Ultimately, a good (ie. music-biased) phone, loaded with high quality MP3 or lossless music files, should give you virtually CD-quality sound when directly connected to your audio system using a good cable.  I think that the performance of this setup far outweighs the minor inconvenience of plugging the phone into the B&O system!

Hope this helps,

Steve. (enjoying Roxette's "Rarities" album on MP3, encoded at 192kb/s onto an iPhone 3Gs directly cabled into a Beosystem 3500 and Beolab Penta 3's as I type this - just in case you were wondering!)

First of all, thank You for the reply

I will try tomorrow the phone directly, and will inform You as soon as I will check it

Sorry for the late reply. I tried my phone, but it was not worked, as it has a 2,5 jack for the headphone , but I tried my notebook's headphone out with the direct cable, and the result was absolutely the same: A jammed digital sound .

Very strange, as this way there was no Bluetooth in the system, but the sound was the same on BOTH Beocenters...

Is there any option to change the AUX port behaviour? Is it possible that for some reason the data line disturbs the analog  line? I'm clueless on why I'm not able to use a simple AUX input...

Problem solved

Believe it or not (think about the cables behaviour...), the problem was, that the Bluetooth adapter was installed in a different AC connector, than the Beosystem. After I made a special cable to connect the adapter into the same connector, where to the Beosystem is plugged in, the problem completly disappeared, and now everything is working fine

I think this experience could be useful for everybody