Top External Bluetooth Audio Receivers on Pro Acoustics Tech Talk Episode 14

On this week’s episode of Pro Acoustics Tech Talk, Nathan and Coltin are talking about how Bluetooth works and discussing a few of their favorite Bluetooth audio receivers from Harman Kardon and Hosa.

Everybody. Thanks for joining us for another edition of Pro Acoustics Tech Talk. I'm Nathan, I'm Coltin and we are back in studio. I'm back from InfoComm. Back in black. Back in beautiful Salado, Texas.

Yes. Yup. Showing off our new Pro Acoustic shirts. Yep. We're back here today to talk to you a little bit about Bluetooth, Bluetooth receivers, some of our favorite flavors, what they can do for you and how we can integrate Bluetooth into your audio.

All right Nathan. So, we have a lot to talk about with this Bluetooth thing I guess. So, tell me a little bit about what we have in front of us. It looks like we have a Hosa and then a Harman Kardon Bluetooth adapter. So, what are the purpose of these guys? I mean, you know, tell me a little about them.

Sure, sure. So let's talk about Bluetooth real quick. Yeah. Bluetooth is a complicated term. When a lot of people think of Bluetooth, they just think, you know, my audio from my personal device going into my car, going wherever I want it to stream, whether it's my home receiver, whether it's my powered speaker. Bluetooth is kind of the way that most people know wireless communication to your device.

Bluetooth has a few different ways it works now. There's different actual types of Bluetooth. There's Bluetooth like type two. There's Bluetooth type four. There's a lot of complicated different ways that each of these work. To kind of let you guys know on these Bluetooth versions, I am not an expert in that and nor do I proclaim to be, but I am going to talk to you a little bit about how Bluetooth works.

In Bluetooth, technology is always growing. There's always more and more ways that their developers are working on making the audio as crisp as possible, transmit as far as possible, as fast as possible. Yeah. And as much data as possible. There's actually information transmitting from your device to these little receivers. Gotcha. And that's where we're going to kind of start here. These a little Bluetooth receivers, the BTA 10, and then the Hosa IBT-300. These can be added to any kind of audio system that you might want. Just small little standalone Bluetooth receivers. They have first to power connection and then also an audio connection. Most of them ship with cables, you know, USB charger cable like this one so that you can pop that in there, plug it into a USB wall outlet or a charger, you know, and then you're able to either run it in real-time while it's plugged in or some actually have built-in batteries like this Hosa, the one that's flashing actually is connected to my personal device currently.

But then from there, we don't want to just turn these on. We want to do something with them. So yeah, you're also, most of the time going to find a 3.5-millimeter connection that normally is adapted to an RCA, a stereo RCA. Sometimes you can adapt that into a couple of a stereo quarter-inch inputs on your mixer wherever you need. Gotcha. But what that means is with either of these fairly cost-effective devices here, I can add Bluetooth to any system that I want. All I gotta do is plug it in, plug it into the outlet, connect it to my standalone sound system, whether that's a powered speaker, whether that's a 70 volt mixer amplifier, whether that's a desktop mixer sitting on the desk, a up at a football stadium or at a concert. Bluetooth can be added to any kind of system just by adding these parts and pieces here.

And each one of these on the table, we're talking about, you know, 60 bucks or so at, at time of filming. So, you can add Bluetooth to any system that you need. Now we also, correct me if I'm wrong here, Coltin, we also have Bluetooth built into what, into mixers now. Into our line of Pure Resonance Audio mixer amps. MA120s. We also showed you the Bose S1. It's got built-in Bluetooth in it. So, you don't always have to add these, but these are a great way to bring Bluetooth into your standalone audio system and give yourself some wireless connectivity.

So yeah, we're trying to save you the hassle of y'all having to, or thinking you have to go out and purchase this whole new fancy mixer that has built-in Bluetooth or you know, things of that nature. So, hopefully, we'll be able to save you a little money with this solution. Right.

And so, there are also some limitations of Bluetooth we need to make sure and talk about. From your personal device, all the content comes from your device. There's not music built in here, there's no data, there's nothing in here. It all comes from your device streaming into that little box. Which is actually data going into the box, out of the box, into your audio system, just like it works in your car. So, if you get a phone call and you're paired to Bluetooth while you're streaming audio, it’s going to come through your sound system. So that's important to know that. Other thing is that Bluetooth, you know, is sometimes compared with a near field communication, NFC, which has its own definitions and terms. But what's important here is that Bluetooth is not limitless. Most Bluetooth, like what we're talking about here is going to get you 40, 50-foot range or so.

But if I walk out that door, I'm going to drastically cut the range that I have here. Because of the walls, we've got concrete, we've got metal studs, we've got all kinds of stuff that's in between. And Bluetooth signal is not necessarily like wireless RF signal. It's not designed to throw through all of that just by its own electrical nature. Once again, if you think back to cars, this stuff was designed to, you know, five feet project, five feet, three feet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We do have Bluetooth receivers that can do a hundred feet, have external antennas, all kinds of cool stuff like that. Yeah. These are not particularly those units, but we'd be happy to talk to you guys all about that.

Just as always, reach out to us to find out more. Nathan@proacoustics.com. Now, I'm Coltin. That's Coltin with an I - coltin@proacoustics.com. Check out our site - www.proacousticsusa.com linked down below. You can also give us a call on the 800 number – (888) 256-4112, and Coltin or myself or any of our talented reps would be happy to talk to you about your Bluetooth needs, your audio needs, and what we can do for you. Don't hesitate to let us know how we can help. Like our videos. Subscribe. Check out our Amazon store and all the systems we have for sale on our site and let us know what we can do to help out.