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Both can be purchased through Amazon. For me, the beauty of the transmitter is that I can have the iPod right beside me at all times to benefit from its screen information, album artwork, artist, title, rating, progress bar, etc. Before the transmitter, I tried attaching the iPod directly to the stereo (headphone out to RCA in), but by not having the iPod in hand was a great loss, I felt. The Sony transmitter allows you to transmit ipod music from the comfort of your easy chair to a stereo system in the same room. If you use it on an older audio system, one that is not Bluetooth, then you need a Sony bluetooth wireless receiver on the stereo system as well. The transmitter does not transmit the iPod's volume control signal, so you must have remote volume control on your stereo's remote if that feature is needed.
The transmitter uses a lot of power from the iPod battery. The wireless transmitter works great with my iPod and Jabra headphones. Overall it is a good product
It was ridiculously easy to pair with my Motorola S9, and the range is actually better than the self-powered naviPlay. It's small, fits in the iPhone's docking port securely (my naviPlay didn't always keep a good connection), and uses the iPhone's battery for power. I've tried out numerous other adapters, and have been underwhelmed with most of them. As is the case with other solutions, there is some occasional dropout when outdoors. Of course, using the iPhone's battery raises concerns about having to charge the phone more.
So far, I've been able to use my 1st generation iPhone and the adapter all day, without having to recharge. Although good compared to many of the others I've used, its sheer bulk and the need to constantly charge it (with it sometimes "forgetting" that it had been charged) made it a far-from-perfect solution. I've been using this adapter for less than a week now, but I have to say that this is by far the best stereo bluetooth solution I've used with my iPhone (come on, Apple - what's the holdup with native A2DP). Sony's offering, on the other hand, is about as close to perfect as you can get. This is more a limitation of A2DP, and not the device itself.
Previous offerings have been so poor that I've returned a large number of them after less than a day of use.Before I bought the Sony, I had been using TEN technology's naviPlay adapter (no longer manufactured). Its black color makes it very unobtrusive, and its small profile makes it easy to use with a number of different case solutions (something I could not achieve with the naviPlay).All in all, until Apple finally decides to enable A2DP natively, this is the best stereo bluetooth solution out there for the iPhone.
This Sony Bluetooth Wirelessdoes not work with iPhone and this is not stated in their product brochure.
It suggests putting your iPhone into flight mode. I used it with a Windows Mobile phone and loved the headset, but hated the phone.My new iPhones lack of bluetooth stereo headphone support really ticked me off. However I've found if I want to use the bluetooth adaptor with any other software (pandora, last.fm, tuner, etc) that I have to start and stop the native iPod app first.This adaptor is fricken TINY. just click no to this dialog box.
When first plugging in this adaptor you get a warning about it not being designed for iPhone use. This is your basic bluetooth headset, except you have the option of plugging in a second speaker for stereo music use. That's a good thing when using it, but I'm not looking forward to the first time I misplace it.I sure as heck wish I could charge the phone at the same time I'm using the adapter.Overall, this Sony adapter does exactly what it was designed to do, and darn near perfectly. it works exactly as advertised. Using this adapter while also using WiFi is a no-go.
Mostly. So what are those kickups.
Wifi signal drops to almost nothing the moment the music starts streaming (however this doesn't happen with the Edge data network). My headset allows pairing with two devices, which is good since the iPhone and Adaptor will take up both slots.
It switches rather smoothly from music to a call and back. A year ago I picked up a Jabra BT8010 headset.
Sound quality is perfect, pairing is fast and easy, it appears to have very little impact on battery life, and playback starts very quickly (virtually no buffering).I expected certain hickups with the iPhone though (this adapter was really intended only for ipods). It's dumb, the phone already has a bluetooth radio, I wasn't excited about spending money on adding a dongle to my phone.
If I had to, I wanted the best and this Sony unit appeared to be it.And. But it sure would be nice if Apple would get with the program and add the one feature to their phone that nearly every smart phone offers as a standard.
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