Muso Bluetooth

Posted by: Emil Kozlowski on 13 September 2015

Hi Everyone

 

First post here. Got myself a Muso some months ago. I use (want to at least) it with bluetooth but the connection is terrible. I already got one unit switched via Apple Store but still not happy.

 

Yesterday I had my HTC One on the floor one meter in front of the Muso - a lot of lagging/skipping. Surprisingly bad. Tried my laptop 2,5 m to the right of the Muso - lagging.

 

I have no other bluetooth devices in my home. I know bluetooth is known for it's bad range but I find this extreme (yesterdays experience at least). Normally I can get maybe 5 m if there's no obstacle (like as if I hold my phone and turn my back to the Muso).

 

Anyone else with experience of bluetooth playback? Being the second unit I guess that's just how it is but still interested in what others think.

 

Posted on: 13 September 2015 by Super

I used my i-pad and mac on bluetooth with long distances with the muso, never had any problems. I have a Astell & kern DAP ak240 which is rubbish with the muso, which only works about 3ft away, but thats the poor output of the AK not the muso fault.

Posted on: 14 September 2015 by nudgerwilliams

I've not used Bluetooth with the Muso very much, mostly just to see if it works etc, but have not experienced any problems.  That was with iPhone, iPad, iMac.  The iMac worked fine from 3m away.

 

What is the music source on your HTC device?  It is files stored locally, or are you streaming from something like Spotify?  Do you have another device you could try with Bluetooth?  Might be an issue with the HTC not having the horsepower to receive a stream from one place and push it out over Bluetooth maybe?

 

David

Posted on: 15 September 2015 by Emil Kozlowski

Hi

 

Thanks for your input.

 

I use Tidal and playback works fine directly from laptop or phone. 

 

Your iMac worked fine from 3m away. Are you happy with such a short range (obviously the iMac is stationary so doesn't matter but you know what I mean )?

 

The other day I sat in the couch 3 m away with my laptop in my knee, nothing between me and the Muso. On occasion I had my phone in my hand above the keyboard, and holding it in certain positions would disrupt the bluetooth signal from the laptop. It was very obvious. But couldn't really tell if the same happened just holding my hands in some way above the keyboard. Bluetooth on my phone was off.

 

Can other devices interfere with bluetooth signals? If yes, how? I ask because the instance before (when I had my phone one meter in front of the Muso), I had friends over and some of them were using their phones, texting and whatever. That time the signal was terrible, usually it's fine at one meter.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

Posted on: 15 September 2015 by ChrisSU

If you can't get things working with Bluetooth, it might be worth trying to do it over WiFi to see if that gives you a more robust connection. Obviously, this would be simpler if you had iOS devices, but there are some 3rd party apps which will apparently allow Android devices to stream to Airplay, e.g. Allcast,

Doubletwist/Airsync. It's frustrating when these things don't 'just work' but this might do it if all else fails.

Chris

Posted on: 15 September 2015 by nudgerwilliams
Originally Posted by Emil Kozlowski:

Hi

 

Thanks for your input.

 

I use Tidal and playback works fine directly from laptop or phone. 

 

Your iMac worked fine from 3m away. Are you happy with such a short range (obviously the iMac is stationary so doesn't matter but you know what I mean )?

 

The other day I sat in the couch 3 m away with my laptop in my knee, nothing between me and the Muso. On occasion I had my phone in my hand above the keyboard, and holding it in certain positions would disrupt the bluetooth signal from the laptop. It was very obvious. But couldn't really tell if the same happened just holding my hands in some way above the keyboard. Bluetooth on my phone was off.

 

Can other devices interfere with bluetooth signals? If yes, how? I ask because the instance before (when I had my phone one meter in front of the Muso), I had friends over and some of them were using their phones, texting and whatever. That time the signal was terrible, usually it's fine at one meter.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

Hi Emil

 

As I said in my post I don't use bluetooth day-to-day.  Have just tried it a few times to check it works and as part of Beta testing. But it works fine for me.

 

So I would assume that the Muso is working fine and the issue is something else until you can prove otherwise.

 

Things I would try:

 

1. If you stream Tidal from your laptop over Bluetooth does that work any better than streaming Tidal from your HTC?

 

2.  If you have a music file stored locally on the laptop or the HTC does BT work better?

 

3. Also worth checking the dedicated Naim support section on the website if you have not done that already, and possiblye posting a query there.

 

David

 

 

Posted on: 17 September 2015 by nudgerwilliams

Hi Emil

 

Have just tried streaming Tidal at hifi quality from my iPad to the Muso over Bluetooth.  Have been listening for about 20 mins now with iPad about 8 metres away and it has been flawless.

 

Appreciate that does not help you solve your issues, but does show that it should work.

 

David

Posted on: 17 September 2015 by nudgerwilliams

Sod's Law in action.  Just as I pressed post, it dropped out.  Stream just stopped, and I had to press play again to restart.  No idea whether that was a Tidal issue or a BT one - suspect the former, as it just stopped rather than being a dropout.

 

Davvid

Posted on: 17 September 2015 by nudgerwilliams

Hi Emil

 

This got my interest going and as I've been working from home today I've been using Tidal and Bluetooth on my iPhone. 

 

With Tidal streaming from the web, and then Bluetooth to the Muso, I did get some drops and freezes.  Not mcuh, but certainly enough to be annoying. 

 

With local offline Tidal content it was much better.  Listend for probably a couple of hours this way, and had 1 very short drop out in that time.  Certainly good enough performance.

 

So my conclusion from that is that the BT bit is fine, but either streaming content from Tidal is a problem, or the combination of streaming from the web plus the iPhone having to push the BT stream to the Muso requires more horsepower than the iPhone has.

 

David