So after I got them to the office, removed the packaging and all that good stuff, I decide to sync them up with the laptop’s on-board bluetooth adapter. Not thinking much of it, and not properly doing my homework, I found out that Microsoft’s Bluetooth stack doesn’t properly support A2DP. A2DP is the protocol used for distributing Audio (both stereo and mono) over Bluetooth. It’s not new technology or anything, and has been around for years. The main reason it had been gaining popularity was because of devices like the iPod and iPhone which support bluetooth, but have the built in iPod MP3 player support. Users of these devices wanted to have the ability to listen to their music in stereo without having to use the mono ear-piece style bluetooth hearing device. I don’t blame them, those are horrible for CD quality sound. As such, A2DP gained popularity.

Link to A2DP Bluetooth Profile Wikipedia Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2DP#Advanced_Audio_Distribution_Profile_.28A2DP.29

Alright great, so A2DP. Decent sound quality over Bluetooth. Getting these to work won’t be so bad, right? Well, not until I realized the major flaws with Microsoft’s Bluetooth stack. The headphones would skip and cut out every 8-15 seconds, and sometimes wouldn’t come back for 30 seconds. Not only that, but it drained all the bandwidth allowable for the on-board laptop Bluetooth adapter causing both my MX 5500 BT keyboard, and MX Revolution BT mouse to slow down and chop around as well. It was terrible! I finally found a good article explaining the issue, and I followed most of the directions. All of which still didn’t help the problem. Why? Because Vista doesn’t support Bluetooth A2DP natively!

After trying a handful of solutions from disabling the Microsoft Bluetooth Service, to changing some registry keys, to attempting Broadcom’s own stack, I gave up, downloaded (with the help of my little blue friend) and installed IVT BlueSoleil Bluetooth Stack for Windows Vista (I believe it works for Windows 7 and XP as well).

To me, Microsoft’s Bluetooth stack is a waste of time, and doesn’t compare to IVT BlueSoleil. Maybe they should take some tips? Let’s consider that fact because it was supported natively in Windows 7 betas up until the Release Candidate. I shouldn’t have to pay money to a 3rd party for something you could have easily added natively to your software. OSX 10.5 has A2DP support natively (along with a myriad of other emerging technologies). If Apple would release their OS for PC I would probably buy it. I’m tired of Microsoft and their inability to provide the home user with something worth using. I’m aware it was originally created as a business-friendly platform under the idea that 3rd parties would add the much needed functionality for new stuff down the road, but really, no native A2DP? It’s ridiculous and it’s what is killing them with the end-user community. OSX can do a lot of things natively, but Microsoft can’t. I am not an Apple fan boy either, I’m just making the points clear here. But there’s a whole lot more for another article where this comes from.

I conclude by saying, after installing the 3rd party IVT bluetooth stack, these headphones are awesome for the price! Best part of all: no wires and 10 hour play time! Kudos Motorola for making a very affordable set of Bluetooth stereo headphones!