Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor
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I recently bought a pair of Sennheiser PXC 550 wireless headphones and I'm getting a bit sick of dealing with the 3.5 mm audio cable when listening to things on my PC, so I'd like to buy a Bluetooth adaptor of some kind.
Looking online, there seems to be wide range of Bluetooth adaptors, from a $9 USB dongle to a $40 Intel PCIe card or a $55 MSI PCIe card with antennas on the back.
Is there a significant difference between the cheap USB dongles and the more expensive PCIe cards? The headphones apparently work best with A2DP, would all of these adaptors support that?
The MSI PCIe card apparently includes a "USB cable that supports the USB 2.0 pin header", but I don't really understand what that means and none of the pictures I've seen have enlightened me. Is it for connecting something with a USB port to the card? I don't know why you'd need that. Is it for connecting the card to the PC? This seems unlikely as it's already connected via the PCIe slot.
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@Choonster said in Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor:
I recently bought a pair of Sennheiser PXC 550 wireless headphones and I'm getting a bit sick of dealing with the 3.5 mm audio cable when listening to things on my PC, so I'd like to buy a Bluetooth adaptor of some kind.
Looking online, there seems to be wide range of Bluetooth adaptors, from a $9 USB dongle to a $40 Intel PCIe card or a $55 MSI PCIe card with antennas on the back.
Is there a significant difference between the cheap USB dongles and the more expensive PCIe cards? The headphones apparently work best with A2DP, would all of these adaptors support that?
A2DP is just a protocol, and an old one at that. Literally any dongle supports it so long as your Bluetooth stack (basically, the drivers for the driver) supports it (and it will). The primary difference is mostly quality of the build and power output/range (if memory serves).
The MSI PCIe card apparently includes a "USB cable that supports the USB 2.0 pin header", but I don't really understand what that means and none of the pictures I've seen have enlightened me. Is it for connecting something with a USB port to the card? I don't know why you'd need that. Is it for connecting the card to the PC? This seems unlikely as it's already connected via the PCIe slot.
It's probably just an extra USB port you can use for something inside the case (or, if you have a drive bay of something of that nature). Sounds like a gimmick unless you're stressing for internal ports...
Edit: and the two $40+ ones you linked are actually double-purpose cards, they have WiFi in them too.
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@Choonster said in Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor:
The MSI PCIe card apparently includes a "USB cable that supports the USB 2.0 pin header", but I don't really understand what that means and none of the pictures I've seen have enlightened me. Is it for connecting something with a USB port to the card? I don't know why you'd need that. Is it for connecting the card to the PC? This seems unlikely as it's already connected via the PCIe slot.
The USB may be for the Bluetooth and the PCI-e for the Wifi.
If you don't need the Wifi, there's no benefit to spending extra on a card with Wifi.
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@Choonster said in Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor:
Is there a significant difference between the cheap USB dongles and the more expensive PCIe cards?
Given the data rate of Bluetooth isn't spectacularly high, no, not unless you want a lot of range.
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@Choonster said in Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor:
cheap USB dongles
I got this. So far, it works perfectly fine...
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Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up buying this Onvian Bluetooth dongle and this Volans PCIe USB card (because I don't have any open USB ports left).
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@Choonster said in Recommend me a Bluetooth Adaptor:
(because I don't have any open USB ports left).
I cheated on that - and just got a USB3 hub.
