[Stomps01]

I have a BlackBerry gateway that works with BT and even transmits over FM through the device it is attached to and it sounds phenomenal in my vehicle.

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[SpamHammer]

1st, what kind of cheap headphones are you using?
2nd, read this article. Blackberry Passport Review Part 2: So how does it sound? ? Audiophile on

The guy touches on bluetooth.
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I linked that article in the original Passport audio issues thread. He doesn't mention anything useful, only that he prefers headphones that support a specific BT audio stack.

1st, what kind of cheap headphones are you using?

I'm using LG A2DP stereo Bluetooth headphones, which I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread work fine on my other devices.

take some be cool meds

So this thread is full of trolls, but I'm at fault? Super sound logic, bro.

[Stephen Severino]

Attempting to move in a more productive direction:

1. Could you borrow Bluetooth headphones from a family member or friend and verify that the issue is duplicated on the Passport across multiple headphones?

2. Can you test your headphones with the standard Blackberry music app and a native app from Blackberry World and report the results?

I know neither of these are convenient, nor do they represent the way you ultimately want to use your device. But having more data might help us to better pinpoint the issue.

As for others who want to disparage Android or Samsung or just generally be unhelpful, please remove yourself from the discussion so maybe we can help the OP.

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[shawnreum]

Back to my question....
Do your headphones have an independent volume?

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[mad_mdx]

OP:
If you have a bit of time, do a full backup of your device and reload your OS, and then try the headphones again before restoring.

This would give a SURE answer whether it is related to your OS, or something else.

Best of luck. Like others have mentioned, lots of bluetooth headphones work great so it's an uncommon problem as far as I can tell...

[Beakman]

For the OP: You describe all your music as coming from streaming sources if i read correct. Perhaps something is getting lost in the translation as I have found streamed audio found very wanting. Also, for bluetooth broadcasting I have found my current BBs, Z10 & Passport to be very good at this.. I haven't used bluetooth with BT headphones though, only on a couple different Bose BT speakers and the big az sony model BT speaker. The one time I have had issues with BT broadcasting were when using the Neutron app with all the DSP tricks running on the Z10, got distortion and crackle due to high processing resource demand, and attempting to broadcast from my FiiO X5 using an aftermarket BT transmitter - that resulted in muddy krap sound.
Why not take a look at what other apps you have runnig that may take up resources or outright conflict/compete with the sound processing on the phone or try a different pair of BT headphones.
Also test the performance with a high bitrate mp3 or FLAC in order to benchmark your streaming sources.

[SpamHammer]

OP:
If you have a bit of time, do a full backup of your device and reload your OS, and then try the headphones again before restoring.

This would give a SURE answer whether it is related to your OS, or something else.

Best of luck. Like others have mentioned, lots of bluetooth headphones work great so it's an uncommon problem as far as I can tell...

Well luckily, I have very little on my phone, so this shouldn't be too big of a problem. I'll try Serino's suggestions and then if that doesn't help, I'll work on wiping my phone.

[glamrlama]

BT has been fine on my Z10. Has linked fine to my cars and I have rented about 20 vehicles in the last two years with no issues. I had some issues with early 10.1 builds. Has been rock solid on .mp3 .flac .wma files since 10.2. I have the BB music gateway; rock solid to about 40 feet then it starts to drop out.

[aha]

Every BB10 devices sounds like that over BT.

Even with aptX enabled BT headphones like MDR-1BT MKII its still questionable at least, plus there is that bottleneck present on BB10 for higher fidelity files.

Now if mid-highs are crackling most of the time maybe your Passport has some software issues, I wouldn't recommend restoring OS just because of it but if its important to you.

My music over BT sounds great.

PassportSQW100-1/10.3.2.680

[zeelob]

My music over BT sounds great in my car and on my stereo at home. It is curious that you would not be listening to your music through the built-in music app. Why reinvent the wheel?

[Jaredius]

This thread is now about pizza. I like pizza.

[wasabiGT]

I'd have to disagree.

I use Bose OE Bluetooth headphones and the music sounds really good. Then again most of my files are high bit rate mps and flacs.

I have used lined earphones and Beats, but right now the Bose wins for me.
Clean sounding from bluetooth streaming.

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[anon(2325196)]

I've used the included ear buds, work great, no problems whatsoever. Could be a faulty headphone jack. I use the Sony MDRZX550BN bluetooth studio headphones now and they're friggin' awesome! They have noise cancellation, NFC, and a compatible android app that works perfectly with BlackBerry 10. I also carry the Sony SRS X3 bluetooth stereo speaker system that also has the same NFC / android app functionality and it also sounds great too, works flawlessly.

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[Leatherfacez10]

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[vladi]

By the way BB10 most likely downsamples high quality audio files anyway so when you are ripping FLAC just go easy on encoding maybe its audio processor/CPU that are having the issues while transcoding it.

I can't prove it but I can hear it

[Zolti]

Hey guys...

Hi SpamHammer,

Could you test your gear on another PassPort (you wrote everything worked fine on Android devices), just to narrow down the number of solutions?
Hope you can sort this out soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[anon(9169048)]

I use both tethered and BT headphones and never have had an issue with either one. I either rip directly to FLAC or purchase music in FLAC format, I NEVER use Standard MP3 files or streaming services, there is always far too much compression going on.

[PKPDBERRYADDICT]

no matter what bluetooth will compress the quality

[anon(9169048)]

no matter what bluetooth will compress the quality

This is true, but when you've already lost 70% of the sound quality due to compression (MP3), adding more through BT headsets doesn't exactly help.

[DeRedder]

nobody was ever able to distinguish 320kbps MP3 vs cd audio in a double blind setup btw

[-Puck-]

Try locally stored music files that have been downloaded. Run a speed test and check you down speed.

Most streaming apps will test your connection speed and severely compress audio if it deems your connection too slow to stream at higher quality.

I play to BT headphones every day and have no sound quality issues, but my music is stored on a high speed 32gb Samsung UHS card.

 Posted in CB10 from my amazing SQUARE OG Passport 

[anon(9169048)]

nobody was ever able to distinguish 320kbps MP3 vs cd audio in a double blind setup btw

There is most definitely a discernible difference between lossless and compressed audio formats and most people would be able to tell if they heard the same files back to back, played on mid to high end equipment. Exactly who is this "nobody" you refer to?

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[BigAl_BB9900]

Hey guys,

I found a similar thread a few days ago where a user was complaining about the sound on the Passport. My Passport having arrived, I have a similar issue.

Music on the Passport sounds like crap over headphones. It gets really distorted and "scratchy" for lack of a better word. Turning off my bluetooth headphones, the music sounds fine on the speakers - no distortion at all.

I know it's not the headphones as they work great with my Android phone and my laptop. It's only when using the Passport.

Phone call clarity is fine on the Passport, for the record.

I'm thinking this has something to do with the Bluetooth stack used, or the system's EQ settings, which I haven't been able to find a way to change (note: I am NOT using the Music app - I use Pandora, Rhapsody, YouTube, etc.).

Can anyone shed some light on this?

For testing, I'm using La Roux's "In For the Kill (Skream's Let's Get Ravey remix)" (the version used in the Judge Dredd trailers) as the test, if anyone wants to repeat the test.

On low quality versions of the song, listening on a good pair of headphones or desktop speakers, you can hear her voice crackle ever so slightly at higher pitches.
On high quality versions of the song, it's unnoticeable.

On the Passport, across multiple music apps and multiple versions of the song, her voice is basically crackling static. is almost white noise. Same with the bass - completely flat and lacking punch, just converts to white noise. This is with decent A2DP headphones and to a lesser, but still noticeable degree, desktop gaming headphones.

It's completely untenable to listen to.

And, I've tried it with several other songs too! Pop, rap, etc. All have the same issues.

So, can someone please provide some feedback?? I've never heard such crap sound in my life.

I'd love to find a system-wide EQ, but so far my searches in BlackBerry World have turned up either nothing or questionable apps.
I don't think Android apps would work because they'd either have to be always open or they wouldn't affect the phone's EQ outside of their instance.

When you say that the music sounds fine on speakers, do you mean:

• the phone's built-in speakers?
• wired speakers?
• bluetooth speakers?

The reason I am asking is that I regularly listen to music (most often opera, but also jazz and 80's pop) on Jawbone Jambox bluetooth speakers and don't get any crackling at all. These aren't the greatest bluetooth speakers in the world (I actually purchased them to use as a mobile conference phone gizmo) and nowhere near as good as a friend's Bose bluetooth speakers, but the sound is okay, and there is certainly NO CRACKLING.

However, my Jawbone Jambox is now more than 2 years old and I have never updated it, so maybe it runs on an older bluetooth stack?

Does this theory sound sensible to you chaps?

I haven't noticed any difference in speaker sound quality using these Jawbone Jambox bluetooth speakers with either my old Q10 or my current Passport - however, there is a difference between the two phones, in that people on the other side of the voice-conference say that they can hear us more clearly since I have been using the Jawbone Jambox with the Passport (as opposed to when I used it with my old Q10).

Hope this helps.

[DrBoomBotz]

First off, the passport audio output is among the best ever.
It's completely flat. Attach some actual good monitor headphones and you will know.
As for you music, well, sucks to be you I guess. My music sounds perfect. You can access the equaliser by swiping down.

Android does not even have realtime audio. We are talking +100ms delay.

1. The delay doesn't matter much when using A2DP because it is uni-directional.
2. The audio delay on a Android devices is all over the map from 70ms up to horrible.
3. What is the delay on the BB10 audio path? If you don't know then you are just making barnyard animal noises.
4. Realtime does not mean low latency it means predictable latency.

Sucks to be you I guess.

[Trauma Surgeon]

nobody was ever able to distinguish 320kbps MP3 vs cd audio in a double blind setup btw

Nobody was a deaf mute listing to compressed dance music?

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