Nokia HS-12W or SE HBH-DS970 Bluetooth Headset?

[markw996]

Hi,

Has anybody tried using the Nokia HS-12W headset with their TyTN?

I'm trying to decide between the Nokia HS-12W and the Sony Ericsson HBH-DS970.

Can you scroll through your contacts and make a call without actually touching the TyTN i.e. just using the headset? I think this is possible with the DS970 but I don't know if this feature is supported by the HS-12W... :confused:

I'll mainly be using it as a headset rather than listening to MP3's so I'm more interested in that aspect.

All comments welcomed :)

Thanks,
Mark

[Will_Plaice]

just nudging this, as I would be interested, I understand that the Sony will pair with 2 devices at the same time, and the Nokia won't...

Which has the best headphones ?

thanks, Will

[Sleuth255]

I have the Nokia headset and it's awsome. My only complaint is A2DP range which is limited to about 3 meters. Headset functions work just fine and there's full handoff support from A2DP and vice versa.

Contact scrolling isn't supported to my knowledge with this headset however.

[tricky911t]

I've just got the HBH-DS970 today and the sound quality is ok, although there does seem to be a drop out of noise every 15-20secs with my T Mobile TyTn which I got early Oct 06 so am just checking for registry tweaks of BT upgrades.

One point to make about the HTC Tytn it doesnt fully support BT 2.0, becuase it doesnt handle the EDR the Enhanced Data Rate which is the ability to transfer data faster although I've yet to find out if it will affect the other protocols in BT2.

I'm used to the Sennheiser CX 300 (basically they are same type of in ear canal headphones) becuase these are great for the gym as they dont absorb sweat, the in ear canal is also the cheapest form of noise cancelling headphones becuase its like sticking your fingers in your ears so it blocks out a fair amount of sound like crappy gym music or a fair amount of noise when on long haul so you dont have to look silly with ear plugs on the plane when sleeping! :-)

In all I would say the ds970 is a little bass heavy which would suit most people because headphones dont have lots of bass normally, but actual quality is ok ie its not as good at the CX 300 which some Musicians use as monitor headphones.

BTW a good test is to turn the sound up, good amps dont emit a hissing sound when playing nothing, same goes for devices like this.

[hacqua]

tricky911t, are the song titles shown in the headset display when used with the TyTN?

[mikblizz]

Just bought the HBH-DS970 BT and it is not quite soo good as I expected. There is background noice with voice and it sound like I'am in a can. Also when lissening to mp3 (A2DP) the sound is 85% good and some hack in the music every ca 30 sec.

EDIT: Works fine now thanks to fit4cat Hermes Tweaker v1.1a (http://www.fit4cat.de/thread.php?threadid=56) also read thread UTILITY: fit4cat Hermes Tweaker for HTC Hermes (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=274251) , Hermes_Registry (http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_Registry) :) Thanks BongoUser

I've tried BT with PC (A2DP) mp3 and that sounds great no problem at all. Tried also with old SE T630 phone without any problem only voice.

I found thisHBH-DS970 and Dell PDA (Axim X50v with WM5 and Widcomm drivers)
Next on the list is my PDA, a Dell Axim X50v upgraded with Windows Mobile 5.0. I had already downloaded and installed an upgraded Widcomm Bluetooth stack (1.7.1 build 3400) to replace the crappy Microsoft one. With this stack, the A2DP and Headset profiles worked fine! I was able to use the headset to make calls with Skype, and to listen to music with TCPMP. The remote control buttons on the headset didn't work (next/previous track), but this wasn't very surprising.

When reciving a call the TYTN does NOT ring only in BT earplug. Only with earplugs from BT in ear, I will be able to take incomming calls because of no sound.

EDIT: Solved, think it was Hermes Tweaker that fixed this. :)

When BT is connected with SE T630 phone the display on BT shows both number and name (swithing between) for incomming call. On TYTN only number is displayed.

Can you scroll through your contacts and make a call without actually touching the TyTN i.e. just using the headset? I think this is possible with the DS970 but I don't know if this feature is supported by the HS-12W...

I can't do that on my DS970.

DS970 has AVRCP The Audio/Video Remote Control Profile specifies the features and procedures that ensure interoperability between Bluetooth™ devices with audio/video control functions. so with TYTN I can change song forward/back, pause, sound (2 modes one for voice and one for A2DP mp3) and loop songs.

tricky911t, are the song titles shown in the headset display when used with the TyTN?

Not on my DS970 when using Win Media player maybe on an SE phone? :(

EDIT: See also SE HBH-DS970 bluetooth headset (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=278306) thread.

Thanks. :)

[tricky911t]

tricky911t, are the song titles shown in the headset display when used with the TyTN?
No with and without the JET Extensions add on which incidentally only supports the Widcom BT so no good for Hermes as its a MS BT stack.

I've spent all day playing around with the various reg settings, and mp3 players and this is what I have found so far.

The DS 970 headphones emit a very high pitched whistle which you can notice most if you have the phone volume on low say 1st or 2nd notch, the volume on your audio player of choice on low and headphones on max., so logical thing to do is have the audio player on loud (but not so the music distorts) and the phone volume on loud with the headphones adjusted to suit although in periods of silence you can still hear the high pitched noise (could this a MS BT Stack problem?)

The Reg Settings, basically you can put any reg settings you like in your WM5 phone becuase like windows normally, if its not recognised windows will just ignore it, so I have been playing around with the various settings but in all instances I still get the odd drop out of noise.

Adjusting the BitPool to 80 gave me almost constant drop outs/stutters (however you want to describe them), I found 58 to be best quality which backs up what I read elsewhere, and obviously knocking the value down to 20 or 30 gave me crappy sound quality. To see the changes you only need to disable the BT in the comms manager you dont need to go through a soft reset.

I've tried the Min/MaxBitPool and Min/MaxSupportedBitPool (havent established which is the correct registry entry but have kept them both at the same value) and found Min for 14 and Max for 80 gave me same quality as the BitPool at 58. I suspect the Max figure of 80 is wishful thinking.

Didnt notice any difference with the SampleRate reg entry but changing UseJointStereo from 1 (default) to 0 did give me proper stereo at least it sounded better.

I even installed the Widcom BT (0.50) stack from the Axim site but couldnt get that to work as kept getting insufficient memory for driver or something like that.

Long and the short, I think if we have Widcomm BT on the Hermes we wouldnt have half the problems we are experiencing now like stutters/drop outs et al. Whether MS will address this problem in an update I dont know.

I'm gonna live with this for now becuase I dont like the ear bud headphones like those on Nokia or the HTC wired versions and I want something for the gym and I could get it to do voice tag dialling by pressing the mike but for my car I'm waiting for the MK6000 which should be out later this month provided I can get TT6 audio over a my car stereo when its playing a CD not a one or the other situ.

The best freebie Audio player I found so far was a freebie version of TCPMP (now CorePlayer) but I preferred the Pocket Player on a free 30day trial becuase I liked the UI better than the TCPMP even though it had slightly more features. At the end of the day most people are gonna want an equalizer and a good UI which Media Player doesnt give us.

Incidently even though the Pocket Player is supposed to support the AVRP stuff, becuase of the MS BT stack you wont get track names et al on to the 970 headphone display but as mentioned above thats all becuase of the MS implementation. MS are well known for implementing their stds even if established stds already exist.

I will wait to see what the HTC S100 is like when its released http://www.expansys.com/htc/p_htc_item.aspx?i=140285

I suspect HTC and MS will be working together to resolve the shortcomings of their stack namely the stutter or drop outs but if you look at the picture we can see straight away we wont be getting any message display from the device so perhaps MS wont be providing this facility any time in the near future.

If this is the case then our only options will be to get a Widcomm BT stack for the Hermes to give us proper AD2P but as the Hermes doesnt provide EDR on BT2 is this becuase of a hardware restriction or software restriction, if the latter could this be another MS BT restriction?

BTW if you live in the UK and bought your headphones or whatever over the phone or online you can use the Distance selling act to get a refund if the product doesnt meet your expectation amonst other things. This means in theory the supplier should not only refund you for the cost of the product, but also your shipping costs (both ways) and not charge any restocking fee.

So you dont have to be left out of pocket if the product hasnt lived up to expectation.


_If_ I get time over Xmas I might have a chance to look at whats involved in providing a Widcomm BT stack for the Hermes, but I have a whole heap of apps to knock out at the moment so it might be wishful thinking. Food for thought. :-)

Edit:
I've been out this morning walking into town and gave it a field test!!! Well this beast should be tied down, becuase if you so much as walk fast, jog or run then you will have it flying around in next to no time if its loose outside of your clothing. When walking it was flying around bouncing off each of my shoulders and when I ran a little it cam close to having my eyes out a couple of times not to mention hitting me on the face. I have adjusted the length of the cord so that it should fly around less but it didnt help too much. If you were to put it inside a t shirt for example when running then your sweat will get into the device most likely through the power socket at the back of it.

So all in all.... I'm gonna send it back becuase its not functional for me. At least HTC S100 comes with a clip to attach it to some item of clothing and the nokia well I cant comment but if its not got a clip of some sort to attach it to clothing with then I can see that suffering from the same problem as the DS970.

I can see myself going for the HTC wired headset where its modded by cutting off the ear buds and putting in a 3.5m socket for the headphones and make do with a std BT headset until the carkit I'm after is out.

[jompao]

[QUOTE=mikblizz;1049166]Just bought the HBH-DS970 BT and it is not quite soo good as I expected. There is background noice with voice and it sound like I'am in a can. Also when lissening to mp3 (A2DP) the sound is 85% good and some hack in the music every ca 30 sec.

EDIT: Works fine now thanks to fit4cat Hermes Tweaker v1.1a (http://www.fit4cat.de/thread.php?threadid=56) also read thread UTILITY: fit4cat Hermes Tweaker for HTC Hermes (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=274251) , Hermes_Registry (http://wiki.xda-developers.com/index.php?pagename=Hermes_Registry) :) Thanks BongoUser
QUOTE]

I find this strange, I installed the A2DP hack with Hermes tweaker which gives better quality but and I'm still getting skipping every 30-40 seconds. What settings do you use??

[basilrsa]

I have the Nokia headset and it's awsome. My only complaint is A2DP range which is limited to about 3 meters. Headset functions work just fine and there's full handoff support from A2DP and vice versa.

Contact scrolling isn't supported to my knowledge with this headset however.

I have the same experience with my Nokia. The sound is great but I am running on the latest South African Rom.
Regards

[V J]

The DS 970 headphones emit a very high pitched whistle which you can notice
Same happens with my Nokia HS 12w... Bitpool was set to 48, but I'm not sure how the different volume levels (headphones/mediaplayer) were set. I wonder if the bitrate of the file has anything to do with it... (mine was encoded with Lame, with variable bitrate between 192 and 320 kbps).

I'll try the players mentioned here also, as Mediaplayer is hardly ideal.
I'd also like titles to show up on the display, but perhaps this will come in future versions (any thoughts?).


Jörg