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This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Hi there,
I'm brand new in this forum and the issue I'm about to describe sounds so bizarre that I hope you wont think I'm just crazy (also pls pardon my English):
My H8's BT connection to my iPhone 6S doesn't drop out as described throughout this forum, no - it crashes!
It does so - reproducably(!) - when playing specific songs. It might play different albums for hours without issues. When playing a certain song it crashes. It doesn't matter if I choose this song on the phone, or if I select a different song on that album and select the song by the swipe gesture on the headset. Once it starts, it crashes within 3 seconds. There are other songs prone to this behavior, but one particular song crashes it 90% reliable.
What do I mean by "crash"?: it stops playing and the icon on the iPhone that allows me to toggle between speaker and BT disappears. But the icon in the top row, showing the BT-connection as well as the battery status is still there. So it's not just disconnected, it's crashed.
The cure is mostly to switch off/on BT on the headset. Sometimes I have to re-pair the headset. In one case I even had to restart the iPhone.
I have several other BT-headsets (I'm a real freak ;-)) and none of these have any issue, so it's 100% a problem of the H8.
Firmware is 8.0.2
Anyone else with a similar problem?
This is so unacceptable to me that I'll do everything to convince my dealer to take it back and return cash, but I'm afraid he wont, although it's brand new. Do you believe it's reasonable to wait for B&O to provide a new firmware anytime soon? Apparently they haven't been very responsive with the original drop-out issue :-(
Regards,
reach
Hi and welcome to Beoworld,
if you do a little search on this forum, you'll find the main topic of the Beoplay H8 headphone which shows that you are not alone with your problem. The Bluetooth H8 seems very unreliable and problematic but as I know that the iPhone is not that unproblematic regarding Bluetooth connections and e.g. a phone name with special characters it may be a bad combination. The mini Coopers bluetooth services where frozen after pairing it with an iPhone that has special characters in its phone name... As Bluetooth is such an old standard I'm shocked about nowadays products... However: If you are that unsatisfied you should have it replaced by your dealer. Here's the H8 thread:
http://archivedforum2.beoworld.org/forums/t/13370.aspx
Hi,
as I write in my post, I have well read through the forum, but not found any issue similar to my problem. Most people are talking about dropouts related to distance, not to the song playing.
For the record: my iPhone's name is 7 standard letters without spaces.
Unfortunately where I live you only have the right to return against cash when you've bought something online, but not in the store. Luckily I can report that this morning I went to the dealer where I've bought it and he fully refunded it.
Case closed for me. But I'd still so much love to have a working H8. I just love the looks and the sound so much.
Hi Reach,
I have the exact same problem as the one you referred to in your post. I just contacted my dealer and he will contact Struer to see if their will be a fix soon. I love B&O so much, but these issues gotta stop.
Good that you sold your problem with a full refund.
Roy
BeoVision Horizon ● BeoLab 14 Subwoofer ● B&O Play A9 ● Beolit 15 ● B&O Play H8 ● B&O Play H5
You should share the tracks you are playing to see if others can recreate the problem on theirs.
Ah, you know... A little B&O here, a little there
Well, I dont need to bother any more, but being a nerd I'm of course very interested if this song does the same on your side.
So... Great idea!! Here you are:
http://www.filedropper.com/01slippinawayii
What's a bit special about this song (and all the others that were causing the crash) is the way I ripped them:
It's from one of these fancy digitally remastered Gold-CDs. First I created a lossless FLAC file using "Exact Audio Copy", then I mp3-ripped it with a free converter at highest quality setting.
I didn't want to say this in first place, because it might sound esoteric, but maybe these special CDs really produce "more" data which the H8 can't deal with.
I'm veeeery curious - please let me know!
Cheers,
@ reach
If you like the look and the sound, why not use your H8 with the cable included ?
reach:I have several other BT-headsets (I'm a real freak ;-)) and none of these have any issue, so it's 100% a problem of the H8.
Just a thought - do your other headsets also support AAC over A2DP (as opposed to the standard SBC over A2DP)? If not it's probably not as simple as that to rule out the issue being caused elsewhere.
Kind Regards,
Martin.
Hi, fair point, I guess almost no headset does that.
But if B&O chooses to use BT-features that don't work with iPhones I don't care if technically the headset is doing something wrong or the iPhone - it just doesn't work for me as a user. And part of the decision to move from Android to iPhone (which meanwhile I regret badly) was not to have to care about technology any more.
If B&O's strategy is to have their products not working with iPhones until Apple fixes their BT-stack - good luck. Do they know that Apple owns it's own headset company?
If I wanted the looks plus a cable, I would have gotten a H6.
That would have saved me ~200bucks and that rubbish, foolish, awkward touch control.
Supplement: just found out: I have/had TWO more headsets featuring AAC over A2DP: the Sony MDR-1ABT which I've sold and the AGK Y 45BT which I still own. Never had the slightest BT glitch on them.
reach: Hi, fair point, I guess almost no headset does that. But if B&O chooses to use BT-features that don't work with iPhones I don't care if technically the headset is doing something wrong or the iPhone - it just doesn't work for me as a user. And part of the decision to move from Android to iPhone (which meanwhile I regret badly) was not to have to care about technology any more.
Yeah, I wasn't trying to dismiss the fault, merely pointing out that, depending on the other factors involved, the testing with other headsets might not be sufficient to conclude that "it's 100% a problem of the H8".
reach: Supplement: just found out: I have/had TWO more headsets featuring AAC over A2DP: the Sony MDR-1ABT which I've sold and the AGK Y 45BT which I still own. Never had the slightest BT glitch on them.
Thanks, that's useful to know, and obviously further supports your original conclusion.
I've tried the file you made available, and can't reproduce the issue either from my laptop (which has an old bluetooth chipset and therefore uses SBC) or from my phone (which is Android and uses APT-X). I'll see if I can prise my partners iphone 6s out of her hands long enough to try with that once she's back from her travels as I am genuinely interested to see whether the issue can be duplicated.
Just an observation (unrelated to your original issue) - I examined the mp3 files' header and frame structure to ensure it wasn't corrupted (it looked fine btw) and noticed it's sampled at 48kHz. Given the original source was a CD (44.1kHz) I thought I'd mention that it doesn't make much sense to increase the sample rate if you're looking to maximise quality. Modern re-sampling methods are pretty good so the potential losses are small (this wasn't always the case), but there's nothing to be gained here and there is potential to lose quality above and beyond that lost during the conversion to mp3, so sticking to 44.1kHz throughout the process would probably be the way to go in the future (it should also result in slightly smaller files).
I'm pleased to hear you managed to obtain a refund. I know it was not your ideal outcome given that you would have preferred a working pair of H8s, but I would have been disappointed if you had met resistance from your dealer regardless of what your legal rights might be in you your location.
Kind regards,
Hi, thanks for that hint!
I had all my CDs converted with EAC to FLAC because that was (and AFAIK still is) the highest possible quality you get in high end. When I abandoned my high-end hobby I converted all of them to the best mp3 quality the converter offered.
But clearly changing the sampling rate wasn't a good idea. I should have spent more thought :-(
Regarding that file of death - pretty sure it makes a huge difference if you try it on Android or iOS.
Hi, Reach
I try the Specific Song download file : 01 Slippin Away II
Model :6S
Tested Condition with H8 Firmware is 8.0.2
Using default iphone, Turn on BT ( A2DP ) and then Song play back for 30min, no crashes as described. Strange.
Regards
Stevenson
hmm, perhaps, if the issue would be so easy to reproduce, B&O would have already fixed it.
But BTW: when playing this song first, it doesn't always crash. The more critical case is to play other stuff first. Maybe 2 or 3 songs and then switch to this one. I don't think it ever survived this procedure in my case.
Thanks for your feedback anyway.
BTW: While typing these lines I'm wearing the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless on-ear. This could be a worthy replacement, even if it's ugly complared to the H8. Less bass than the H8 (which has too much anyway) but still funny and still lots of detail in the upper range.
And super handy!! I didn't mention in this thread that the touch operation of the H8 was driving me mad. The Momentum has a kind of joystick that doesn't give good haptical feedback, but works 99,9% accurate. And while B&O struggles to get one BT-connection stabile the Momentum can connect to my iPad and iPhone at the same time. That's super handy in many cases. Talking about cases - unlike the H8 it comes in a case! :-)
If only it was prettier :-/
Any updates on how to fix the problem?
This also happens to me. I just purchased a pair of black H8 two days ago from the B&O showroom and the bt drops out issue has started to surface.
I visited the showroom again today and after much discussion, they reluctantly gave me a new pair. I then charged my new H8 and the same problem occurred again.
I don't know the extensiveness of the problem, but with the YouTube app I downloaded for my iPad, the two H8s seem to crash regularly with the same songs. The problem is that with some songs, after a few seconds into play, the music stopped and the H8 is obviously disconnected even the bt connection indicates my iPad is connected to it. I have to re-pair the two devices again and everything seems to get back to normal. This is really troublesome to get the iPad out from my bag from time to time to pair up the two repeatedly. Does anyone have any suggestions what I could do so?
I don't know the extensiveness of the problem, but with the YouTube app I downloaded for my iPad, the two H8s seem to crash regularly with the same songs. The problem is that with some songs, after a few seconds into play, the music stopped and the H8 is obviously disconnected even the bt connection indicates my iPad is connected to it. I have to re-pair the two devices again and everything seems to get back to normal. This is really troublesome to get the iPad out from my bag from time to time to pair up the two repeatedly. Does anyone have any suggestions what I could do?
well, yes and no. I have returned mine so I don't really bother any more.
But I was still curious so I wrote to B&O support and surprisingly they answered without any hassle that the problem is known but solved with a recent hardware (not firmware!) update.
I quote:
"We have started to distribute the new units now, but not all stores have them in stock yet.
You will be able to tell it from the serial number, however if you order directly from us via www.beoplay.com, then I will make sure that you get one of the brand new units.
I know that the Gray Hazel models sold from our website are the brand new version. "
I then asked for the "good" serial number range and if it can't be fixed through firmware and the answer was:
"I can not say if the problems will be solved through a firmware update in the future, but I know that the new hardware changes have made a major improvement to both the Bluetooth and the ANC unit.
The serial numbers is not something I can inform you about, but I would be surprised if it was not mentioned on an internet forum already."
If you say you've got a black one, I'm rather surprised that it's still rubbish. Thanks for letting me know. Given the surprisingly honest answer from B&O I really thought they've solved it for good.
Good luck!
I bought a pair of H7's two days ago, and they definitely have the same issue, and after spending a couple of nights trying everything I could think of to troubleshoot the issue this is what I've found.
What's weird about this issue is that once it presents itself, only the media playback functionality is actually effected. The icon that allows me to toggle between audio output through the iPhone speakers or bluetooth disappears, but the icon in the menu bar at the top indicates that the phone and headphones are in fact still paired. Answering calls still work, as well as double tapping the right can to redial the last number, and the audio from the phone call plays fine through the headset. However, the gestures to lower or increase the volume or to start or skip a song does nothing, and of course any audio besides phone calls, be it music, audio from a movie, or anything else like that, will play through the iPhone speakers rather than the headphones. At this point, there is no way to get media playback to work through the headphones besides turning them off and, after waiting a few seconds, back on again.
The issue only triggers on some specific tracks, and only if I skip to them or start my session playing them, not if they transition naturally after the previous track has ended. It happens every time with the affected songs.
The issue goes away completely if I tell my phone to "forget" the headphones in the iPhone's bluetooth settings, then power down the iPhone completely, and then repair the headphones after rebooting the phone. Simply forgetting and repairing doesn't help unless I power-cycle the phone in between. Doing so makes the headphones work perfectly until the next time I turn them off, but that would require me to either keep them on all the time, ruining battery life, or to reboot my phone and re-pair them every time I want to listen to music.
The issue happens every time I skip to some tracks, one of them being Radiohead's "Creep" from the album "Pablo Honey". If I haven't rebooted and re-paired, the audio will stop after 3 seconds every time I play that track.
I own a bluetooth speaker from Jawbone that does not present this issue on any of my devices, and the issue is replicable using both my iPhone 6s Plus and my iPad Air 2 both running iOS 9.2.1, leading me to believe the H7's are the problem.
I have downloaded the BeoPlay Software Update app to my Mac, and updated the firmware on the headphones to make sure they're running up to date software.
If I can't use the headphones without having to frequently power cycle or repair them when skipping songs, I cannot use them and will have to return them, and I really don't want to, as they are very nice in every other aspect.
great analysis! This is 100% the same issue I experienced. Especially this is crucial, I forgot to mention this in my original post:
"...and only if I skip to them or start my session playing them, not if they transition naturally..."
Have you by chance tried the song-of-death I uploaded?
Meanwhile I wrote again to B&O support because of the guy who has the issue with his black (=neccessarily NEW) ones, but they insist that the problem has been solved in recent units. If I understand the supporter right, B&O would even replace old ones, but he (obviously intentionally) wasn't so clear about that. Maybe they'd replace them if bought from B&O directly. He was also not clear, if there are "bad" black ones out there.
What a shame. It would really help if B&O would give the S.No. of the good ones, but obviously they want most people to live with their broken ones.
Meanwhile I switched back to Android, which as far as I understand the H8s work fine with. Nevertheless B&O's behavior makes me reluctant buying anything from this company. They claim ultimate customer satisfaction, but apparently are no better than all the others.
Hello reach,
Since my first post, I tried one more thing. I installed the iOS 9.3 Beta 7 on my iPhone, and guess what, the behavior changed!
The issue is not gone per se, but it's definitely different in that now, the audio playback is never interrupted when changing tracks. I've spent over an hour now, switching tracks, pairing and unpairing, restarting both the headphones and my phone, and not once have I gotten the bug to occur when switching from one track to any of the previously problematic ones.
HOWEVER, the issue is STILL there if I begin my listening session from any of the affected tracks, and they're still the same ones as before.
Another difference is that now when switching tracks, the previous song no longer fades out before the next track starts, but it rather just cuts immediately to the next song without transition. My guess is this behavior is related to the issue as the iPhone no longer "ends" the current audio stream to start an entirely new one, but rather just sends the audio data for the next track in the same established stream connection. If I pause a song and wait more than 5 seconds, starting a "bad" one will trigger the issue. A shorter pause will not, as the OS demands the stream to stay live for so long before the headphones get a chance to enter their power saving mode.
This is just my theory, but would explain why the issue persists when beginning one of the affected tracks from silence, and why the issue is present in previous versions of iOS where the OS seems to end one stream before initiating a new one as indicated by the fade out.
This makes the issue more bearable, but still not ideal. I can still reproduce the issue as before on my iPad still on iOS 9.2.1.
Hi everybody, I have the dame problem with the beoplay H8 in my iPhone 6S and my iPad Pro, I have problems with the Bluetooth connection. I hipo pero you already have your new ones, I will try to change's my H8 with my dealer.
Me fascinan los audífonos pero me molesta mucho el problema del Bluetooth, aún así no los cambio por nada.
saludos a todos.
Perhaps, you need to update the firmware and hopefully the problem will be resolved. I brought my h8 to the dealer and they sent it to the repair centre to update the software for me. From then on, there is no more dropout issue and everything is fine.