Installs Bluetooth input for gymnasium sound system

I was at the school today and met the Athletic Director and finally got the whole story on the Bluetooth request. The girl's basketball coach wanted to play music from his phone during warm up before the games so he strung together a bunch of adapters from Amazon until he got something that fit in the mic jack on the rack. It sound like crud so he then cut up one of his cables and tied directly into the rack mount mixer (terminal block inputs). It still sounded like crud (line level going into a mic level mixer) so they decided they must need new speakers. When I was up there over a month ago I properly hooked up to the mixer and played some music so they could hear that the speakers were not dead. So then they wanted a proper Bluetooth connection which is why I started this thread. After explaining all the issues which were raised here they have now said they don't want Bluetooth and to get them a direct box that they can plug the phone into.

So this bad idea is thankfully dead. Of course now they'll lose the direct box or the cable . . .

Thank you to everyone chipped in.
@Butch! There's also this:
From Radial, an 1/8” stereo DI that fits in a 1 gang wall box with level control, ground lift, mono switch and a pair of RCA’s for luck.


Possibly worth a look if you haven’t seen it.

http://www.radialeng.com/stagebugsb5w.php


Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
I'll add that apparently Rapco now makes a bluetooth box that boast line of sight range of 75 feet and an xlr output like all of their other boxes. Haven't tried it but its apparently a new addition.
https://shop.bmisupply.com/ProductDetail/51RH0001
Anyone have any experience with this? I'm tired of all the garbage stuff out of the Amazon catalog that my board brings to me so they can use their iphone with the sound board.
 
I don't know if it was that exact model because the one I tried was black and not blue.

For reference, I was testing this in a huge ballroom as a solution for events whos only requirement was background music, no mic, no mixer, etc. So we would just plug directly into the wall jack.
The wall jacks didn't have phantom power so we had to run a USB power cable.
There's no screen so you have to remember, explain, and have printed instructions on how to pair.
The audio quality seemed horrendous, like 128k mp3 quality. Tried on both an android and iPhone.
Ultimately it was easier for us to just setup a little mixer with an 1/8" jack.

Alternatively, you could use an Airport express or AppleTV and let people airplay to it.
 
Anyone have any experience with this? I'm tired of all the garbage stuff out of the Amazon catalog that my board brings to me so they can use their iphone with the sound board.
I have no experience with this particular device, and the Rapco website is short on information on their own product (marketing fail), however, the video on their website does offer some additional useful, yet conflicting, information. The web page says 75 foot range, the video says 100 foot range; and the website says 6-8 hours runtime on batteries while the video says 'up to 12 hours'. The good part is that the video says (as does the BMI product page) the device can charge the internal battery via the phantom power on the XLR, so it can operate pretty much as long as the board its on (assuming the board has phantom power).

Note that the Rapco device mono-sums the stereo Bluetooth. For a stereo Bluetooth connection, look at the Radial Engineering BT-Pro V2 (https://www.radialeng.com/product/bt-pro-v2) which uses Bluetooth 5.0 in lieu of the Rapco's BT v4.2. As usual, you can probably drive a Catapillar D9 Bulldozer over the Radial device without damage.
 
I don't know if it was that exact model because the one I tried was black and not blue.

For reference, I was testing this in a huge ballroom as a solution for events whos only requirement was background music, no mic, no mixer, etc. So we would just plug directly into the wall jack.
The wall jacks didn't have phantom power so we had to run a USB power cable.
There's no screen so you have to remember, explain, and have printed instructions on how to pair.
The audio quality seemed horrendous, like 128k mp3 quality. Tried on both an android and iPhone.
Ultimately it was easier for us to just setup a little mixer with an 1/8" jack.

Alternatively, you could use an Airport express or AppleTV and let people airplay to it.
We just had a tester event where I was subject to all of the horrible devices. The best option was a SmartBean that wasn't so smart and had issues with pairing. The Apple TV option was less than ideal because the only output was S/PDIF, which I wasn't prepared for. Honestly, some of these people can't hear (or don't care) the difference between uncompressed audio and a 128k mp3, so I shouldn't worry, but the issue is that they have "everything" on their phones and either refuse or forget to give me files in advance. I'd be fine with the 1/8" jack, but the new iPhones don't have that, so it's another adapter that looks so flimsy that I'll need to keep 20 in stock. If I was smart, I'd design something, but I'm just the end user.
 
We just had a tester event where I was subject to all of the horrible devices. The best option was a SmartBean that wasn't so smart and had issues with pairing. The Apple TV option was less than ideal because the only output was S/PDIF, which I wasn't prepared for. Honestly, some of these people can't hear (or don't care) the difference between uncompressed audio and a 128k mp3, so I shouldn't worry, but the issue is that they have "everything" on their phones and either refuse or forget to give me files in advance. I'd be fine with the 1/8" jack, but the new iPhones don't have that, so it's another adapter that looks so flimsy that I'll need to keep 20 in stock. If I was smart, I'd design something, but I'm just the end user.
I get your frustration in the 1/8" jack lacking on iPhones but the upside is it's the #1 cheapest thing you can buy from apple at $9. I have a whole bunch of them in my dongle bag along with HDMI dongles.

The downside of using an iPhone as music for your event, especially when it's a client's is notifications. You don't realize how loud a PA can get until you hear your client's personal phone ring through it, followed by them scurrying over to the console and unplugging it while it's hot. I do my best to never let a client use their personal phone as the source for music because of that.
 
Goes back to my desire to have things provided to me in advance. I understand that's not always possible, but at least a dry run before would be nice. Saves the "Why isn't this working..." comment in the middle of the presentation.
 
I have a Switchcraft branded device, the model designed to work on phantom. I have not used it much, but it does work. When the phone is not playing, there is some low level electronic noise. Powering the unit from USB eliminates the noise issue. I couldn't see buying one of the rechargeable ones and having to maintain a battery. The Switchcraft only connects to media, not phone calls.

The Angry Audio device is likely to be very good. That one is designed to make two-way connections for phone calls.
 
Goes back to my desire to have things provided to me in advance. I understand that's not always possible, but at least a dry run before would be nice. Saves the "Why isn't this working..." comment in the middle of the presentation.
"Because we asked you to get us your material in advance of show day, and you didn't."

If they're getting *really* obstreperous with you, you can replace that with "and you couldn't be bothered."

Yes, yes, I know; "they're the customer".

Tough. This is what Tom Clancy's Russians called "objective circumstances"; politics don't matter.

[ I was in the booth today prepping video playback for a dance thing Fri/Sat; *our* people listen. :) ]
 
Jay, you got the thumbs up for " obstreperous ".
 
Jay, you got the thumbs up for " obstreperous ".
Why'd you think I gave Jay the WOW! Clearly you, and your Funk & Wagnal's are rubbing off on Jay, and that's not a bad thing.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
My phone allows you to turn BT back on in Airplane mode, and it's probably not alone...
Also, if the client is using a streaming service for their music (Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube Music, Amazon Music) they will need - at least - Wifi enabled. If wifi is enabled, they will still be able to get iMessages and phone calls. (I assume Android has wifi calling, not sure on wifi texts.)
 
I have a Switchcraft branded device, the model designed to work on phantom. I have not used it much, but it does work. When the phone is not playing, there is some low level electronic noise. Powering the unit from USB eliminates the noise issue. I couldn't see buying one of the rechargeable ones and having to maintain a battery. The Switchcraft only connects to media, not phone calls.

The Angry Audio device is likely to be very good. That one is designed to make two-way connections for phone calls.
What happens when there is a phone call? Does the music just stop?
 

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