I was ogling the stretch jeans at the local Best Buy, a voyeur's
paradise, and went by to see if anything was new at the Sellular
department, yesterday. I stumbled upon something I'd been looking for
since I got my Motorola S9 stereo Bluetooth headset ($79 at RatShack
when they noticed it didn't sell at $130).

The S9 is a fantastic behind-the-head headset. It's fidelity is great.
It's tolerable to wear. It's soft rubber earplugs fit nicely and seal
the earcanal well enough you can even cruise WalMart listening to what
YOU want, completely blanking out the Walmart Network spam spewing from
the suspended TVs from the ceiling. It recharges from miniUSB and will
play all day, as long as you can stand to wear it, on a charge. It
supports both A2DP and handsfree so the phone can use it, but the
designers screwed up because the phone only talks through the left
earset, instead of both like it should, its only fault. Made of soft
plastic and rubber, it passes my stringent NO TOLERANCE FOR MECHANICAL
NOISES TEST. I will not wear a headset that clicks, creaks, or makes
any other noise when you move your head...you know, like the $150 Bose
plastic crap headsets do. The S9 is totally silent unless you tap on
it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2099334,00.asp

What I found was the Sony TMR-BT10 Bluetooth Stereo A2DP transmitter.
They had another unit I may get later that's an AC-powered transmitter
OR receiver, but I wanted it portable so I could use it with portable
MP3 players I've had a long time and, of course, my Nokia N800 internet
tablet. It has a standard right-angled mini phone plug that will plug
into anything not made by Apple, which, of course, requires a $30
"adapter" nonsense.

I unpacked it and it was D-E-A-D, its Lithium-Ion battery pack
discharged. So, I charged it for 30 minutes of is dead-to-full 3 hour
recharge time just to get some juice into it for testing. It's been
running over an hour with no sign of going dead, so far. It's playing
streaming audio from my Linux tablet. The PC Mag review says the range
is too short, but that's not true with the Motorola S9. My house is
70' long and I can ALMOST use it to the other end. Put it in the middle
of the house and it works all over, especially if it's clipped (has
pocket clip on back) to something higher up.

Pairing is with any device as long as its code is 0000, which is all it
supports. I turned off the Motorola Z6m Alltel phone to pair it without
interference it was already paired with. Turned on the S9 then held
down the power button on the Sony for 7 seconds and it paired
immediately. I then turned the phone back on....AND THE PHONE PAIRED TO
IT, TOO! With the Sony paired with the A2DP stereo, the Z6m Sellphone
paired with the handsfree, simultaneously! When you press the phone
button on the S9, it mutes the audio from the Sony, just like it does
with the A2DP stereo music player in the phone, during the phone call,
then the S9 restores the audio from the Sony when the phone call is
done. The phone ringing also interrupts the A2DP just as it should.
The Sony ignores the mute button on the S9, though, so you can't mute
the stereo if someone wants to talk to you....a small deficiency.

The audio is fantastic through the Bluetooth link. Plugged into the
tablet it sounds as good as my Sennheiser DJ headphones plugged into the
tablet...without the wires....or being tied to the tablet while
listening.

I moved it to the headphone jack on the front of my Emachines/Gateway PC
and booted Winamp with some MP3s. Again, it worked great and had great
fidelity and separation. It'll work, I'm sure, with my stereo when I
find my mini to 1/4" stereo phone plug adapter...??..somewhere...??

Sony's webpage:
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...roductDisplay?
catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665262083&storeId=10151

says it's a discontinued item, probably because BT is just too expensive
with all the licensing for it to be affordable. $80 for the transmitter
and $130 for the S9 is just too much for a headset, BT or otherwise. It
came out in 2007 and they've already stopped making it. Best Buy has
new ones for $72, off a little from the $79 retail.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...0108_120708-20
Amazon has the transmitter for $54 and the S9 for $72 from one of their
dealers. The transmitter is a refurb, it looks like.

Caveat Emptor. My S9 utility just went way up....(c;



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