Question

Bluetooth Turntable to Play 5

  • 27 October 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 780 views
J
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

I currently have a turntable that I connect via Bluetooth to an echo dot that in turn is connected to the line in on Play 5 gen 1. 

It connects flawlessly but more often than not the quality is poor. I was convinced it was the turntable at first as it was quite muffled. I've since tried connecting the turntable directly to the play 5 and this sounds just fine.

 

My question is, if I bought a dedicated BT receiver is this likely to work any better than the dot? Or should I bite the bullet and move my Play 5 near my turntable. My play 5 is underused in the bedroom it resides in so I could replace that with a cheap IKEA speaker. 

Thoughts anyone?

 

Cheers

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6 replies

Airgetlam

This is completely an opinion, unsupported by any facts I can point to at this moment.…

Generally speaking, Bluetooth is acknowledged for relatively low fidelity. Fine for mp3 style data compression, but doesn’t always have the bandwidth necessary to deal with a full signal. And of course, this is also dépendant on which version of the Bluetooth profiles are in use. Some appear to be better than others, from what I’ve read. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bluetooth_profiles

If a direct connection to your PLAY:5 is better than using Bluetooth, that suggests to me some sort of constriction in the transmission across Bluetooth, so I would avoid the problem by moving the turntable so it can be directly wired. 

Bruce
ratty

What turntable is it? As Airgetlam says, the mandatory Bluetooth audio codec, SBC, can be pretty indifferent in terms of quality. There are several much better codecs, such as aptX/aptX-HD from Qualcomm and LDAC from Sony. 

The Dot is, I believe, limited to SBC. If the turntable is capable of better it would make sense to get a suitable BT receiver, assuming of course that it’s not possible to wire the turntable to the speaker directly, which would naturally be the best option.

J
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

Thanks for the replies. It's a relatively cheap turntable but the above suggests it doesn't have one of the better codecs. I must confess I thought Bluetooth was just Bluetooth, didn't realise the specs differed.

Wife permitting, I'm going to try and get my Play 5 moved near it to get a wired connection.

Cheers

Jacob

Airgetlam

“Wife permitting”...

Good luck. ;)

Another, albeit expensive, consideration would be to add a Sonos Port to sit next to the turntable, so that you wouldn’t need to move the speaker, but still get the phono input directly into the Sonos ecosystem.

Probably requires more partner approval, though. It is the way I would likely approach the issue...putting a speaker so close to the turntable always makes me cautious about picking up a vibration from the speaker. 

Bruce
ratty

Another option would be to dispense with the turntable’s built in (inferior) Bluetooth and use an external one. Presumably it also has a line-level output, i.e. has an integrated phono pre-amp. In which case a Bluetooth aptX transmitter/receiver pair could be the answer.

Alternatively consider the Audioengine AW3 wireless audio adapter, which is CD quality.

J
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

“Wife permitting”...

Good luck. ;)

Another, albeit expensive, consideration would be to add a Sonos Port to sit next to the turntable, so that you wouldn’t need to move the speaker, but still get the phono input directly into the Sonos ecosystem.

Probably requires more partner approval, though. It is the way I would likely approach the issue...putting a speaker so close to the turntable always makes me cautious about picking up a vibration from the speaker. 

Thanks, i did consider a port but it's just too expensive for the amount of use it will get. I think the Play 5 will sit nicely on the storage box below which is independent to the table so hopefully no vibration. 

 Now if it does work nicely, unfortunately its a white speaker so will need to look into customizing the colour which a whole other ball game!

 

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