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Music Media

Blue Tango Classic Bluetooth MP3 Player Reviewed 86

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-play-with dept.
VL writes "Looking to broadcast your tunes around the house? We look at a product that does that without the hassles of wires. The theory behind this sound card is very interesting, that of wireless audio from a computer to a speaker system in another room. The downside to this is that it is a class II Bluetooth device, which suffers from short range for the signal, 12' isn't really that great for a wireless device."
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Blue Tango Classic Bluetooth MP3 Player Reviewed More

Blue Tango Classic Bluetooth MP3 Player Reviewed

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  • Fair Use? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Saturday August 13, 2005 @02:43PM (#13312484) Homepage Journal
    12 feet seems like fair use. Lots of people use FM transmitters in their car to do that. How far is copyright infringement? If you broadcast your music 200 feet are you still ok? 20000?
    • 12 feet seems like fair use. Lots of people use FM transmitters in their car to do that. How far is copyright infringement? If you broadcast your music 200 feet are you still ok? 20000?

      I believe the case
      you are looking at is one
      of "Far Use". Ha Ha!

    • Re:Fair Use? (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Sparr0 ( 451780 )
      My first FP and I didn't even realize it, I just assumed there was plenty of stuff already buried under my threshold/filters.
    • Seems pointless to me. 12 feet isn't too long to run a cable. I was hoping for more like 150 feet, so I could listen to the stereo [or the tv's audio] downstairs in the garage.
  • Wireless, but less space than an iPod. Lame.

  • bluetooth headset? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ctar ( 211926 ) <christophertar@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Saturday August 13, 2005 @02:45PM (#13312490) Homepage
    12' isn't really that great for a wireless device.

    It is if your receiver is a wireless headset - I've been trying to find a good solution to receive bluetooth audio from my powerbook into some sort of wireless headset (last time I researched, the cel-phone ones worked, but supposedly with limited quality)
    • And exactly the sort of thing that Bluetooth is intended for, to work the speakers on your desk without wires, but without burning up batteries or interfering with other, more long range, wireless devices.

      But I guess a one line shell script isn't done until it can send and recieve email.

      KFG
    • Check out the Icombi AH10. [nanzzang.com] It's a Bluetooth headset capable of receiving audio streams and includes remote control buttons on one of the earpieces. They also have some transmitters for iPods and other devices.

  • You mean (Score:5, Informative)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday August 13, 2005 @02:46PM (#13312491)
    Looking to broadcast your tunes around the house? We look at a product that does that without the hassles of wires

    Like an FM transmitter [griffintechnology.com]?

    • ...an 802.11 hub that plugs into your receiver, so that you can pick receivers from your computer: Airport Express [apple.com].

      • That's what I immediately thought of... seems like a real hardware-intensive way to do the same thing, for more money and less functionality. I read the FA, am I missing something? (emoticon denoting my comment as snark-free)
    • Like an FM transmitter?

      Try to get one of these to work well in a large city with lots of radio stations. Good luck, you'll need it, or a Faraday cage for a house.
      • At 12' it really doesn't seem like much of deal. I've connected my stereo and computer before with a long headphone jack extension -- invisibly. Look at the place where the floor meets the wall -- chances are there is carpet and moulding at that corner. Using the blunt end of a butter knife, push the extension wire under the moulding between your computer and stereo -- at the stereo end, use a headphone to RCA adapter, at the computer end, plug into audio out. I've strung together two 25 footers so I'd
        • on nicer stereo equipment i notice quality loss with the cheap 15 dollar 25' digitla jack extension i bought. Difference is most notable on my headphones. Buy some nice shielded wires and that should be fine though..
  • iPod! Griffin Technology's iTrip [griffintechnology.com]. And it does F.M, so no funny business like being tied down by distance! From the Apple Store [apple.com] - "...the coolest iPod accessory in the world."
    • And it does F.M, so no funny business like being tied down by distance!

      I don't know what you did to your iTrip, but mine certainly has range limitations. If I take it more than about 5 feet from my car antenna, it starts to get a bit crackly, and if I go even farther, it cuts out entirely to static.

      FM may go farther than Bluetooth, but it still has distance limitations.

      • Re:Bleh. Just use your... (Score:3, Informative)

        by e2d2 ( 115622 )
        From the ITrip website:

        Operating range: 10-30 feet, depending on the quality of the FM radio receiver (limited by FCC regulations)

        • i would trust someone who owns it over their website, the grandparent clearly has one and gets less range from it than that
          • Agreed. The web site is gonna use the range under best conditions using the standard DB isotropic antenna ("perfect", for mathematical purposes). But I've used one of these, they are made for inside the car so they _seem_ to work ok as far as signal goes.
    • Highly NOT recommended. I sell retail in the summers, and we get nearly as many of these back as we sell. Perhaps a later rev. of the hardware will be more reliable, but between the low power signal and high failure rate we see, I say stay away for a bit...
    • Yeah I bet you get hardly any attenuation with that powerful FM IPod transmitter! No distance limitation what so ever :P

      Seriously though, even "low-power FM" transmissions are regulated by the FCC. What's considered low-power to the FCC? It means Effective Radiated Power (ERP) maximum of 100 watts! I might be crazy but I doubt the IPod can generate this much power (5v x 1A = ucantdoeeet).

      Even these can only broadcast about 3.5 miles with a 100 ft. antenna: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/lpfm/index.html [fcc.gov]

  • 12' is a joke! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    12' (without walls!) doesn't even reach into the garden.

    Seriously, this hardware is more of a cheap rip off than worth being submitted here as news!

    How small is the label on the package that says it's only 12'?
  • What's the bitrate of this device? If it's less than 1536 kbs, is the audio compressed? Is this compression lossy?
    • The A2DP encoder, even at highest quality, is well below 700kbps (the bluetooth 1.x baseband rate). And yes, it's a lossy codec that is not as size efficient as mp3 but is supposed to be have greater cpu efficiency.

      You cut the complexity and bitrate in half when using A2DP's 4 subband rather than higher quality 8 subbands. I have a sort of tinny sounding headset (iTech) so I prefer the results when using 4 subbands.
    • Except I think the Blue Tango sucks, by comparison.

      The Airport Express [apple.com] is 802.11g, so it has range much longer than 12 feet, you can use it to wirelessly network your printer as well as your stereo, and is cheaper.

      • Yes and no.

        The Blue Tango is essentially a wireless soundcard output. It will play music from iTunes, but also from Winamp, a videogame, a movie, or the email notification sound.

        Airport Express plays music from iTunes. Period. That music is streamed to the airport express as an encrypted Apple Lossless Audio Codec stream. Jon Johansen (of DeCSS fame) managed to crack the method used to establish that stream, but his crack was simply intended to allow a user to play Apple Lossless Audio files from someth

  • Airport Express? (Score:2, Informative)

    by AnnualSparrow ( 807796 )

    Odd that TFA doesn't mention Apple's Airport Express, which has been doing something like this for a year or so. It's wifi, so the range is good, and it'll connect to a stereo with digital-optical or analog inputs. You don't have to replace your soundcard, either.

    But you do have to use iTunes. Anyone managed to send audio to an Airport Express from an open-source application, yet?

  • I just crank the volume up.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ... problem solved.
  • Class III ~1M( 3' )
    Class II ~10M( 30' )
    Class 1 ~100M( 300' )

    YMMV since if you put one end of this in a 6'x6'x6' metal cage, your actual range will be 6'.

    LoB
    • my bad, I commented on the article headline and didn't read the article before posting. The article spec's what I said but said that they were only able to get 12' in clear space and this is an obvious flaw in the system design and spec. Most likely an antenna design problem in one of the devices.

      this is a massive error in design for this kind of product.

      LoB
  • Give me a break, my bedroom is bigger than 12' - much less the rest of my house. What exactly is the point of a wireless device when I can comfortably get a wire the same length. (I say comfortably because obviously I COULD stroll around with my laptop...)

    I'm all for useful technology... but this will set me back $140 - more than a mini ipod, which I can carry anywhere, and which holds 1000-2000 songs (meaning I wouldn't have to refill it often even if listening almost constantly)
    • What if you want to, for instance, dance while listening? Wireless headphones with 12' range are extremely useful. This kind of device I am not so sure about, but I guarantee there will be a market for it.
  • WiFi is becoming very common and it doesn't seem to get along very well with BT v1.1.

    I'm told that BT v1.2 works better in WiFi environments, so I will wait for something that supports 1.2.

    Are there any other products like this (that might usee 1.2)?
  • 12' audio cable: $1.99

    The feeling of getting ripped off by purchasing a wireless device that cant even reach as far as your own arms and legs: priceless
  • "Blue Tango" is a splendid Leroy Anderson musical composition, and although few know the name of the song, many would recognize the melody. As an appellation for this technology, the name resounds with postmodern irony.
  • This brings up a question I've wondered for a while now...

    Is there a Windows equivelent of Airfoil, the Airport Extreme audio sender... ?
  • Since the 2.0 specification should indeed make MP3 (or even better, Ogg) stereo sound possible, I am eagerly awaiting digital headphones. I would not mind an additional mike either, as long as it does not mess up the distance that the thing should work. Applications: normal in house use, but also use with laptops, PDA's and MP3 mobile phones.

    WiFi does not work for this due to the amount of energy that is needed, the problem of setting up the connection and the lack of standardisation on the application leve

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