Are all Bluetooth dongles invented equal?

Soldato
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I seem to get much better range on my work laptop's inbuilt bluetooth versus my dongle on my desktop. Is there a "best" dongle to use in conjunction with wireless headphones?

Thanks
 
Soldato
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I seem to get much better range on my work laptop's inbuilt bluetooth versus my dongle on my desktop. Is there a "best" dongle to use in conjunction with wireless headphones?

Thanks

Bluetooth has a number of codecs from SBC to AAC to AptX to LDAC. Windows support is a bit crap but generally if you can get a chain where your transmitter and receiver supports AAC (about as good as you can hope for with windows) then you will get better sound quality.

It's a very complex ecosystem with Windows.
 
Associate
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In terms of the best PC dongle, although it's not actually a dongle, I came across the FiiOBTA30 earlier this year when looking for Bluetooth transmitters. Can be used as a BT transmitter and a BT receiver. Worked really well in my system, used it as part of a ghetto streaming setup from my PC to my HIFI as I already had a Bluetooth receiver on my amp
 
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Soldato
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Bumping this as I still haven't found something that gives me as good range as my built in bluetooth card in my laptop.

Are there any specific recommendations?

I took a look at the FiiOBTA but it is a bit more than I wanted to spend.
 
Soldato
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What sort of range are you after? Also need to consider if it's travelling through walls then it'll decrease potential ranges.
 
Soldato
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Laptop's Bluetooth will normally have a long antenna that goes around the screen which helps with the range, that's generally why.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tp-l...-6-bluetooth-5.0-pci-e-adapter-nw-222-tp.html

This is the one I was looking at. I expect the antennas are just for WiFi though?

What sort of range are you after? Also need to consider if it's travelling through walls then it'll decrease potential ranges.
It isn't anything nuts - my kitchen is a line-of-sight-no-walls 3m/4m max distance from the PC. It roughly gets there with a tiny mini USB Bluetooth dongle (TP Link) but it breaks up when I turn 180 degrees.

I'm tempted to just run a USB extension and "stick it" to back of my monitor with the mini USB adaptor in and see how I get on.
 
Soldato
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Thanks mods, I didn't even quote the link and you deleted my post lol.

This is the one I was looking at. I expect the antennas are just for WiFi though?

As per my deleted post, it'd be a complete guess, one would assume they were for bluetooth as well though, as the signal would be terrible without the antenna.
 
Soldato
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https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tp-l...-6-bluetooth-5.0-pci-e-adapter-nw-222-tp.html

This is the one I was looking at. I expect the antennas are just for WiFi though?


It isn't anything nuts - my kitchen is a line-of-sight-no-walls 3m/4m max distance from the PC. It roughly gets there with a tiny mini USB Bluetooth dongle (TP Link) but it breaks up when I turn 180 degrees.

I'm tempted to just run a USB extension and "stick it" to back of my monitor with the mini USB adaptor in and see how I get on.

Ah it should easily easily do 3/4m without dropping. My new Jabra headset can get upto 15ish meters through 2 walls and only suffers minor loss. My old Plantronics headset could easily do 50-100 meters through several walls, although quality was significantly lower than the Jabra so less bandwidth needed.
 
Soldato
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Ah it should easily easily do 3/4m without dropping. My new Jabra headset can get upto 15ish meters through 2 walls and only suffers minor loss. My old Plantronics headset could easily do 50-100 meters through several walls, although quality was significantly lower than the Jabra so less bandwidth needed.
With the PCI-E device I linked?

What Jabra headset out of interest? My Plantronics headset (BB Pro2) mic sucks bad.
 
Soldato
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With the PCI-E device I linked?

What Jabra headset out of interest? My Plantronics headset (BB Pro2) mic sucks bad.

Sorry i mean all modern bluetooth devices should easily do 3/4m.

I've got the Jabra Evolve 65 with the base station. It has a dongle for the bluetooth though (specifically chose this so i could undock the laptop and still use the headset).
 
Caporegime
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It's probably antenna related. The laptops Bluetooth chip will almost certainly use the WiFi antennas.

My motherboards Bluetooth was awful until I connected the WiFi antenna and now it's brilliant.

The little USB dongles haven't got a decent antenna so range will suffer.
 
Soldato
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Thanks chaps. I'll give the TP Link a go and see if it solves my immediate bother.

Then I'll get a Jabra Evolve 65 like @Semple has I think. Providing it has Bluetooth 5?
 
Soldato
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Soldato
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Just a small bump on this. I upgraded the dongle to an ASUS BT 5.0 one. It made no difference (maybe even marginally worse). However I have now moved the device so it is more 'antenna' like placement on a USB extension... seems to have got me that extra foot or so that was frustrating me.
 
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