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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

PS Vita connected to bluetooth headphones



So I've paired my PS Vita with my various bluetooth headphones... with mixed results. Generally the PS Vita firmware seems to be a work in progress-- basic functionality is there but everything feels unfinished and maybe subject to revision. Hopefully the bluetooth feature will get some upgrades soon.

I first paired my PS Vita with my Creative D100 bluetooth speakers. The Vita speakers--despite their poor placement, it's way too easy to cover them with your thumbs while holding the Vita-- have fairly good sound quality... but they aren't all that loud (also a common problem of all the iterations of the PSP, as many may remember)

So my Creative D100 bluetooth speakers are great for a volume boost, plus they sound good (though a bit bass-heavy)

It's very easy to pair bluetooth headphone devices with the PS Vita. But I find that whatever bluetooth profile Sony has equipped the Vita with, it's very basic, probably low-power to save battery.

There is a noticeable at least 1 second audio delay with both my Creative D100 speakers and my HeadRush Adrenaline bluetooth headphones. It's a longer delay compared to using my HTC Legend phone (no delay) and my PSPgo (no delay with the D100 speakers, possibly slight delay with the Headrush Adrenaline headphones )

PLAY/PAUSE FF/RW controls on the bluetooth headphones will work on the PS Vita *only* during music playback, and the music has to already be playing-- pressing the PLAY button on your bluetooth headphones won't start the music if the PS Vita is in a music list, for example.

Also, all my other devices, PSPgo, phone, netbook-- use their native volume output PLUS the bluetooth device volume. As I've written, the volume in bluetooth headphones can boost the PSPgo volume quite a bit. But the PS Vita DOES NOT use its own volume when connected to a bluetooth device, if you press the volume buttons on the Vita while in bluetooth mode they don't do anything. It ONLY uses the volume on the bluetooth headphones itself, so that means whatever volume power the bluetooth device pumps out, that's all as high as it goes. Often I have to crank up my bluetooth headphones full volume to get decent sound, whereas with my other devices I use maybe half volume on the bluetooth headphones themselves. That will suck up more power of the bluetooth device, making it provide all the volume all the time.



There is one saving grace: the PSPgo Bluetooth remote PSP-N270. There are 2 modes for that Bluetooth device, regular and a low-latency mode which takes up more power but provides a more stable connection to reduce audio delay. Using the PS Vita with the PSP-N-270 low latency DOES reduce/eliminate the audio delay.


Overall, I hope that a lot of these issues can be fixed via firmware rather than a hardware limitation. I'm not sure.



later
don

4 comments:

newandroider said...

Is the sound quality that good?

Anonymous said...

Write a email to sony i have thr same problems

'Nay said...

I had some Sony xba-bt75 earphones which sounded good with my HTC phone, hp laptop, and whatever else I paired them with.
I bought them for play on my vita, but the sound quality was so bad I had to reluctantly force myself to endure... (i sold headphones recently because they were effectively, due.to poor sound quality when paired.with.the vita, useless)

The big issue was the nitrate the vita pushes over Bluetooth. a running stream of water in say 'uncharted' became a tinny metallic mess, very far from 'natural'.
these same $400 aus earphones sound fine with a range of other sources, but on the vita, the low nitrate made any playback that was sound rich loose so much quality.
basic/simple music styles with a few instruments could sound okay,, but anything actually sounstaged and complex was just Shi te

besides the vita has nice Wolfson dacs and drives low impedance headphones.beautifully.
go analog for major sound upgrade!

'Nay said...

Soz written from fone; nitrate = bitrate

vita sucks for Bluetooth, but analog output sounds sweet, decent digital audio player if audio playback software wasn't so bad.

yes I like the vita, Sony not so much...

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