Fact:
Microsoft's A2DP implementation in WM5 is incompatible with certain headsets.
Certain headsets, such as many Nokia and Logitech ones, sound incredible (as good as wired headphones), whereas others, like i.tech or Jabra, don't.
This has been a subject of much confusion to WM enthusiasts, since these headsets sound great when paired with other devices, however when used with a WM device, a high pitched ringing/hissing and slight distortion is heard when certain frequencies of sound are played.
Some Pocket PC users have temporarily solved their problem by porting the Widcomm Bluetooth stack over from the Dell Axim series, however it is generally buggy and not available for all devices.
Fact:
Windows Mobile 6 Beta was released, and had even worse A2DP than WM5
When the beta/demo roms starting floating around, many of us who experience the problem had a glimpse of hope that maybe it would be fixed.
But alas, the A2DP support had many people re-flashing back to WM5. It was even worse.
Fact:
THE FINAL RELEASE OF WM6 SUPPOSEDLY FIXED THE QUALITY BUGS OF A2DP!
There is a write up about this here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=310438
Basically, the new devices shipping with WM6 seem to be more compatible with a wider variety of headsets than its predecessors.
Headsets with the static, popping, hissing, etc... finally sound good even with the Microsoft bluetooth stack.
Some of the new cooked Roms are starting to use this new A2DP support as well.
Problem:
WM5 still sounds bad with A2DP!
Those of us who don't have WM6 upgrades available, or don't want cooked roms or beta versions, are stuck with the poor A2DP of WM5.
Solution:
SOMEONE NEEDS TO MAKE A NEW A2DP PATCH using the WM6 drivers!
Remember when someone first made the A2DP support for Tornado available in WM5? If your device didn't have A2DP to begin with, all you needed was AKU2, and this patch would install the signed drivers and make the appropiate registry edits and like magic we all had A2DP (albeit crummy with some headsets)!
Over time, other patches were made, some using AKU 3.5 and other later releases that promised the possibility of better sound. But all of them failed.
What we need now, is for someone who has an official WM6 device (or someone who has access to a decent cooked ROM with the new A2DP support) to help make a NEW patch for those of us who need it!
Anyone out there willing to help?
Has anyone taken a look at the differences between the A2DP drivers in WM6 versus WM5??
I'm thinking about rolling my device back to WM5 because it responded faster on my device (Titan), but the only feature that I really need WM6 for is the A2DP quality.
Some of you may recall that WM5 had awful hissing noises and distortion using certain A2DP headsets (while others were fine). The final release of WM6 dramatically enhanced the sound quality, and now you can't even tell its wireless.
So, I've poked around a bit, but I can't seem to figure out what exactly needs to be changed to bring whatever was fixed in WM6 into WM5.
does anyone have any suggestions or helpful insight?
I think someone here has actually extracted the A2DP files from WM6, but it was back when the beta was leaked. The beta version didn't have the fixed A2DP. Although, its possible that the extracted files weren't able to fix the problem in the first place...
Does anybody know how to improve sound quality for playing music over A2DP profile with Parrot handsfree? On Rhodium i applied some tweaks for quality improve and it was clear and nice to listen, but Leo is not so nice to hear
Thx a lot
I had to tweak my diamond too, looked for tweaks on the HD2 but couldnt find them, but the sound quality is way better on my HD2. I dont think it needs the tweeks tbh.
If i take both, TP2 and HD2 to my car, let play the same song and im switching between HTC's then has got TP2 much more clear and brilliant sound, without any quiet cracklings from tweeter speaker like it is on HD2 :-(
Same problem here, sound quality for a2dp is not what it should be. I tried adding the LineSpeed registry setting, it did improve the overall quality, but did not remove the cracking noise - and in my case I still have frequent skipping and gaps in the audio playback. Have not yet had a reply for Tech Support, and if/when I do, I don't think it'll be a very intelligable one...
Yop, i think too, that the answer will be unusable, or maybe they tell you that u should do a Hard rst :-D
First time i connected it to HF and let music play i thought that is a bad quality song, but it isn't :-(
Anyone idea?
I know there are some settings to definately improve the sound of A2DP. I've added them on my previous HD, and worked perfectly after that! I just found some things you might try (I just applied them myself as well, but havent tested them yet; I'm almost sure they'll work):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=308752&highlight=A2DP+settings+bitpool
If I'll find the previost post which I applied in the past on my HD, I'll let you know. If the one I just posted will work, I'll let you know as well of course, because the litteral and figural crappy sound of A2DP is something I hate as well...
Edit:
Take a look at those settings as well from J-A-J-O at page 6:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=1677577#post1677577
Again, I don't know exactly if it were those settings, but they sound familiar to me. I'm also busy trying to get the best sound quality via bluetooth out of my HD2
More info about the settings:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=310438
Kind regards,
GreenFrog
The XDA tweaks are rubbish and do not work. I currently have a call out with HTC.
I have removed all reg tweaks from my HTC and now can get A2DP working on my parrot ONLY in the following situation:-
(1) Reboot HD2 (hold end key and select off. then switch on)
(2) Allow to connect to Parrott (will connect handsfree first)
(3) Open bluetooth from settings and select stereo audio and select connect.
(4) select handsfree and select disconnect.
(5) Press PLAY on the parrott kit
By doing this I get no skipping at all and the quality is good. I have no tweaks running.
This is obv crap and is why I have been speaking to HTC all week.
Steps 1-5 have to be strictly followed for this to work.
The BT tweaks mentioned on this forum do not work. They only appear to work as you have rebooted. After using the HD2 for a while and then connecting A2DP, skipping will occur again.
Try steps above and it will work.
Interesting! I'll try that on mine. Greenfrog all of those links and bitpool settings relate to the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. However the HD2 uses the Widcomm stack so those registry settings can't be made.
I too am fed up of the bluetooth sound quality. How can they assume we'll be happy with this mediocre sound?! I can't see why with a 1Ghz processor it skips.
Have you guys tried the A2DP with the latest 1.61 ROM? I'm still on 1.43....
When I find my 'goldcard' that I made I'll try it on 1.61 and let you know
We'll get there in the end....this is really my only bugbear with the HD2, so it would be good to get it fixed!!!
There got to be a way!
I, too, am really p***ed off by the bad audio quality i get using stereo blutooth. It's really an issue with the HTC HD2 and apparently no pro reviews pointed it out!!! I use it with the sony DR-50 which are one the best A2DP headphones out there, but the sound is horrible Please help...
I'm too suffering from the A2DP situation...
The Linespeed registry hack helps me on some devices ( HKML\Software\Widcomm\Plugins\AV add DWORD Linespeed with value between 64 and 512, the higher the better sound but higher probabilty for skipping).
With Linespeed = 320 sound is great and I have no skipping with a Sony DR-BT160AS. But: My Motorola S9 badly skips unless I have it very close to the HD2. Linespeed = 256 is working ok with both devices...
BUT:
I also have a blueLino A2DP Receiver which has a bad quality on both settings, at least on some songs. That's really disturbing.
Just a quick update, I've just flashed to 1.61 and it makes no difference. Default A2DP sound quality is unacceptable. Grr
purnelld said:
The XDA tweaks are rubbish and do not work. I currently have a call out with HTC.
....
The BT tweaks mentioned on this forum do not work. They only appear to work as you have rebooted. After using the HD2 for a while and then connecting A2DP, skipping will occur again.
Try steps above and it will work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
-----------------------------------------------------
Well, first I have to say I don't have the 'skipping' issue at all. I have my HD2 connected via bluetooth to my Pioneer DEH-P7100BT car radio. I have a clear connection when calling, but when playing music via bluetooth, I have the 'hissing' issue.
Next is that I have to admit that when I changed the settings according to my previous solution, did work a little, but not as it supposed to. When I had my previous Touch HD if found a link which worked perferctly for me! When I changed to those settings, the hissing were gone completely and the sound quality improved to CD level. Although, I'm still searching those ones again for my HD2 at the moment....
So, conclusion this far is that it totally depends on the hardware which you are connected to as well.
Regards,
GreenFrog
@Greenfrog:
I guess the bitpool settings which worked well on my HD as well, only work when using the MS Bluetooth stack. The HD2 uses the WIDCOMM Bluetooth stack, I haven't found a noticable difference.
The LineSpeed registry setting does improve overall audio quality, but I still have skipping and playback gaps. Very poor performance for the performance beast the HD2 is. I urge everyone to report this to HTC (I did) - this is really unacceptable.
I will also report this to HTC. I am so frustrated by it tbh
As Moses posted...I had linespeed set up on my TP2 and the sound was great, but now i have no time to test it now, can someone other test regitry key?
Bluetooth settings
Can be found here HKLM\Software\WIDCOMM\
A2DP Tweak Provided by R_phAn (Please note this will not work with all devices)
As we know from the past, each device has it's own preferences and capabilities (So you'll have to play around)
Managed to improve soundquality by adding DWORD 'LineSpeed' to HKLM\Software\WIDCOMM\Plugin\AV\ with a value of 320.
it is posted here for TouchPro2: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=524655
Edit: I tryied it tomorrow morning and it is still the horrible quality, poor music quality and during the call skipping :-/
jonboyuk said:
...all of those links and bitpool settings relate to the Microsoft Bluetooth stack. However the HD2 uses the Widcomm stack so those registry settings can't be made.
Have you guys tried the A2DP with the latest 1.61 ROM? I'm still on 1.43....
When I find my 'goldcard' that I made I'll try it on 1.61 and let you know
We'll get there in the end....this is really my only bugbear with the HD2, so it would be good to get it fixed!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Okay, thanks a lot for this update! I was really unaware about the different stack, so I don't have to look further for the the previous links anymore... I'll try to add linespeed as well to see if it works with my Pioneer car radio. I hope it will...
There should be an answer for sure for this issue. I also cannot understand why it have to be this difficult. The previous solution did work very well. Why have they changed to the other stack anyway? Does someone know that?
I'm running the 1.48 ROM btw.
GreenFrog
I found one thing, i'm using SPB Radio for online streaming, when im listening in my car streamed radio then the sound quality is excelent...? How is that possible?
That's a very good question.
I experimented a bit with different quality settings during mp3 encoding. I found out that there indeed is a connection between the quality settings of the mp3 file and the badness of the sound quality, at least to a specific degree.
The most important setting seemed to be the stereo setting. If I set a song to "Joint Stereo" its by far better than normal stereo, although not perfect, yet. That's very confusing.
Do you know the settings of the radio channels you can stream with good quality? Maybe that would be worth a test.
--Update--
So I had a predictably useless response from HTC. Namely 'have you tried unpairing and repairing' and 'your device may not be fully compatible, please check our website for a list of compatible devices'.
Useless indeed. Their compatible devices amount to 3 items! The phone is either A2DP or it isn't. There are no compatibility options - it's happening to us all.
So, I haven't mustered up the energy to continue onto the next pointless exchange of basic trial and error possibilities. No doubt their next reply will be "have you tried rebooting the phone"...
Anyway, I digress. I noticed something today. I put on a new album to my SD card and out of nowhere the skipping was worse than ever. Audiomanager is always on the lookout for new songs as you may have realised. When you have music playing, a small circle rotates to show the player is searching. During searches whether or not you've introduced new mp3's to your device, it always makes the skipping far worse. When my circle had come to a stop, then the audio was fine....with very rare pauses and skips.
Still there but much less obvious.
Well that's my latest update and I will continue my investigation. I wonder if this skipping occurs in other music programs? ie wmp or pocket player? Has anyone tried?
Great work, guys. Nice to see a lot of people looking for a solution. I REALLY want to get this A2DP thing working right, it is bugging me a lot, and I'd like it to be fixed when I'm going on vacation (I'll be driving to two straight days, and would love to listen to my own music then). That'll be in about six weeks, so there's still some time left.
I'll try SPB radio myself, see if that causes the same amount of skipping. It could be that it is not the BT link causing the skipping and pauzes, but the audiomanager itself. That would be a bummer, because fixing that is probably way beyond what we can do here, and we'll have to hope for a HTC fix or a custom rom with an older and better working version of the audiomanager.
In my search for possible solutions, I found the priority of the A2DP can be altered. I've added the reg Dword value "Priority256" to HKLM/Drivers/BuiltIn/BtA2dpSnd, with different values. If the value is too high (150+), nothing changes. Set it too low - I tried 60 - and BlueTooth fails to start altogether. I've now set it 149, and it seemed to work, but haven't done extensive testing to see if the skips/pauzes don't return. Will get back on that.
jonboyuk said:
--Update--
(...)
I wonder if this skipping occurs in other music programs? ie wmp or pocket player? Has anyone tried?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried PocketMusic, qualitywise no difference. I don't remember if it had the same skipping / pauzes problem, but the problem for me was it doesn't work with the AVRCP, so I can't play/pauze/ff/rew with my remote, and having to use the screen while driving is a pain - I've mounted my device quite high. I was really hoping to use the inbuilt musicplayer
All,
Does anybody have any fixes regarding the sound quality when using Bluetooth A2DP protocol? I use my Evo to mate with a Bluetooth receiver so I can listen to Rhapsody over my home stereo. The sound quality is flat. The high frequencies are not present. It sounds like a bad quality MP3. I know that its the A2DP causing the quality issue as directly connection (through 3.5 jack) is awsome.
The Apple 3GS A2DP sound quality was awsome. I am not sure why the Evo is not sounding good. Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks,
Lance
use the cyanogen rom--this uses a bitpool of 53 giving you the best bluetooth quality possible. the stock/sprint/htc bluetooth drivers are set for a bitpool of 32
Is there any other ROM that has the bit pool set to 53?
Lance
Nope all Sense roms use HTC's ****ty low bitpool setting. This is why I'm running CM as well it's the only rom I can A2DP to my Sony Head unit and get good audio. I attempted to contact HTC about this issue here's the juicy details
Here's my initial question
I have terrible static when streaming music over A2DP on my HTC EVO to my sony mex-bt2800 car radio. If I use CyanogenMod 6.0 which uses a open source bluetooth stack my A2DP is crystal clear to my radio. I have used logcat to look at whats going on I dont know if its a bitrate problem or a bitpool problem or if my radio isn't in your acoustic database.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708265&highlight=bluetooth+bitrate
Here's the response I received
Although the android software has been updated to be more compatible with Bluetooth headsets and car kits. Most of the time a Bluetooth manufacturer will have a list on there website stating devices they have found compatible, but this is not always the case. From the information on your issue it seems that your device is simply not fully compatible. The only thing we would be able to recommend would be to try another headset.
Then my response back
I would like an Engineer to read my question if possible since I don't think you fully grasp what I'm saying here. First My EVO's Bluetooth A2DP WORKS 100% clearly when using a Open Source ROM which implements Bluez Bluetooth stack http://www.bluez.org/
When I run your Sense UI ROM the Stock ROM you release which uses your own proprietary Bluetooth Stack I get static in the background so you cant really say its my phone now can you? Its your implementation that's not working properly. I'm not about to try every car stereo till I find one that works with the EVO when I know my stereo can work perfectly with my phone when using a properly coded open source Bluetooth stack.
Here is some extra info from a logcat that shows how your Bluetooth makes a connection through A2DP and what I believe is too low of a bitrate or bitpool setting
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708265&highlight=bluetooth+bitrate
PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME A ANSWER THAT YOU JUST READ FROM A SCRIPT. I would like a true response from someone who understands and can grasp my question fully like an engineer or a developer, when you give me a generic response of oh your Bluetooth headset isn't compatible keep buying new ones till you find one that works, that really makes me upset since you didn't even read my question it's a car stereo and there not cheap.
I await your educated answer.
And there final bull**** reply
We apologies for any inconvenience you may be experiencing. We will document your concern for review in development of our upcoming devices and future software updates. The situation is still an incompatibility with our device and your car kit weather on software or a hardware level. Unfortunately at this we have no further information beyond what has already been provided.
P_Dub_S said:
Nope all Sense roms use HTC's ****ty low bitpool setting. This is why I'm running CM as well it's the only rom I can A2DP to my Sony Head unit and get good audio. I attempted to contact HTC about this issue here's the juicy details
Here's my initial question
I have terrible static when streaming music over A2DP on my HTC EVO to my sony mex-bt2800 car radio. If I use CyanogenMod 6.0 which uses a open source bluetooth stack my A2DP is crystal clear to my radio. I have used logcat to look at whats going on I dont know if its a bitrate problem or a bitpool problem or if my radio isn't in your acoustic database.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708265&highlight=bluetooth+bitrate
Here's the response I received
Although the android software has been updated to be more compatible with Bluetooth headsets and car kits. Most of the time a Bluetooth manufacturer will have a list on there website stating devices they have found compatible, but this is not always the case. From the information on your issue it seems that your device is simply not fully compatible. The only thing we would be able to recommend would be to try another headset.
Then my response back
I would like an Engineer to read my question if possible since I don't think you fully grasp what I'm saying here. First My EVO's Bluetooth A2DP WORKS 100% clearly when using a Open Source ROM which implements Bluez Bluetooth stack http://www.bluez.org/
When I run your Sense UI ROM the Stock ROM you release which uses your own proprietary Bluetooth Stack I get static in the background so you cant really say its my phone now can you? Its your implementation that's not working properly. I'm not about to try every car stereo till I find one that works with the EVO when I know my stereo can work perfectly with my phone when using a properly coded open source Bluetooth stack.
Here is some extra info from a logcat that shows how your Bluetooth makes a connection through A2DP and what I believe is too low of a bitrate or bitpool setting
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=708265&highlight=bluetooth+bitrate
PLEASE DON'T GIVE ME A ANSWER THAT YOU JUST READ FROM A SCRIPT. I would like a true response from someone who understands and can grasp my question fully like an engineer or a developer, when you give me a generic response of oh your Bluetooth headset isn't compatible keep buying new ones till you find one that works, that really makes me upset since you didn't even read my question it's a car stereo and there not cheap.
I await your educated answer.
And there final bull**** reply
We apologies for any inconvenience you may be experiencing. We will document your concern for review in development of our upcoming devices and future software updates. The situation is still an incompatibility with our device and your car kit weather on software or a hardware level. Unfortunately at this we have no further information beyond what has already been provided.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I commend you for trying. This is something that makes me want to tear my hair out so I would love to see this resolved as well.
good on ya mate.
anyone know how to get another bluetooth stack on stock rooted 2.2?
I asked Flipz a while ago but I don't think he's looking into it. I also asked Netarchy he said he would look into it sometime but that i shouldn't hold my breath since he hadn't even looked at the code yet. HTC has released the source for their Bluez implementation so all we need is a dev willing to look into adjusting the bitpool setting.
This is a HUGE problem. I am flashing CM6 right now. HTC I am very disappointed with you..
The cyanogen rom also has great dsp equalizer
CyanogenMod will also make you a tropical island than transform your EVO into a jet plane and take you there ;-)
But in all seriousness, yeah, CM6 has BT fixed. One of my friends nagged Cyanogen about it last month, and he patched it right away.
I wish somebody could help us by increasing the bitpool on the Bluetooth driver. The Evo would be so much more enjoyable (for me at least) if the sound quality was better thru A2DP.
lancer123 said:
Is there any other ROM that has the bit pool set to 53?
Lance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be nice if there can be a patch of some sort...
Just an update today I got a call from HTC customer service since i gave a poor review of my experience on a survey they sent me. Talked in great detail about our problem with the Bluetooth stack told him about the bitpool setting how its 53 on CM and 35 on there roms. So hopefully on the next update well get a fix for the Stock Sense UI rom.
^^LMAO!!! dont blv the hype
I read that the CM6 ROM has this issue fixed. I have also read reports that the ROM email client doesn't support word wrapping (which I really do need). Can anybody confirm this?
Also,
Can anybody in ROM land please create a patch or an update to their ROM which increases the Bitpool to 53? I understand that the Bluetooth driver code has been released.
Thanks
bump............
any roms address this yet?
greenail said:
any roms address this yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
maybe:
* Added DSP Manager (Digital Signal Processing) to boost audio and equalize sound for Headset, Phone Speaker and Bluetooth devices.
wont let me post links, but you know what to do:
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=793471
I am using the latest OTA, rooted, along with the latest pandora and the bt audio quality is much better. I have the motorola t605.
With the initial 2.2 update bt quality sucked but now it's better.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
mchlwvr614 said:
I am using the latest OTA, rooted, along with the latest pandora and the bt audio quality is much better. I have the motorola t605.
With the initial 2.2 update bt quality sucked but now it's better.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was a streaming issue, not a bitpool issue.
The BT audio was a lot better on my TP2 when I updated the registry bitpool to 48 from 32.
I wish they would fix it.