Hi everyone,

I’ve been using BIAB since v.1 in the 90s. I have had a music studio dedicated to production and teaching with pro equipment and monitors. BIAB always sounded great for students to play along with.

Unfortunately I am giving up the studio and semi-retiring, selling everything. I still plan to teach at home and online. I’ve managed to get BIAB to work with my desktop and a small Bose Minilink BT speaker, but the sound does not cut it, although it’s pretty good for recorded music streaming from Spotify. I have an excellent sound system at home, but it is not placed in a good location for sitting at the piano. I cannot use large speakers or wires for this purpose, and speaker(s) must sit on upright piano in living room.

Anyone find a decent BT speaker that will be decent with BIAB output for playing along with acoustic piano? Bass is obviously important. TIA!

An answer to a slightly different question, but I use a Logitech Bluetooth audio adapter to connect, e.g., my tablet to my amplifier. One caution ... these things tend to do a little jingle when they connect, which can be an irritation, especially over a PA! For anything with an audience, cable rules.

The only Bluetooth speakers I have worked with are consumer grade, not great quality, but they all have quite a bit of latency. I wonder if that's necessary with the technology, or just the cheaper implementations I have heard? Apparently there is a higher quality Bluetooth standard. Something to consider, anyway.

I use 3 different bluetooth speakers when performing with biab tracks. Which one depends on the venue I am playing.

Bose S1 Pro,
https://www.bose.com/en_us/products/speakers/portable_pa_speakers/s1_pro_system.html

a Turbosound 300,
https://www.turbosound.com/product.html?modelCode=P0CCH

and an EV evolve 50
https://products.electrovoice.com/na/en/evolve-50/

None of them have any latency issues. I primarily use Mac OS and IOS devices to connect.

I think the turbo sound 300 would be my choice for a studio.

The fidelity of the 300 is much more like a home stereo than a Pa.

You can always add a sub if you like

The Turbosound and the EV both have phone/tablet apps you can use to control the device. These are handy.



edited to add links to products

Bluetooth is not suitable for serious audio use. It is buggy and high latency.

Get a set of decent powered monitors.

I agree. For the price you'll pay for a good bluetooth speaker you could get a better sounding set of wired monitors.

The other thing to know about bluetooth audio is that very often it's transmitted using a lossy codec, so unless you specifically find devices that supports aptX Lossless you'll be losing sound quality.

Byron and Simon,
Wondering if either of you have actually used bluetooth with biab in a performance situation as suggested by the OP?

I have. About 50-100 times at gigs and hundreds of times at home.

All of the speakers I mentioned above have both bluetooth and direct cabled connections.
For performance I find no reason to use the cable I carry. I use bluetooth only to stream biab tracksfrom a variety of devices.

My experience seems counter to your opinions. Perhaps you can provide some details of your experience.


Thanks

Name some pros who use Bluetooth for monitoring.

Oh yeah....

Mackie systems use blue tooth. I've used it live in small bars for BIAB backing tracks guitar and vocals. Seemed ok. Not as good as my Fender PA, but for home I think it would be fine. They've probably got bigger and better now as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtuKjMSubWI

So.... if you have a studio now and are downsizing to a laptop..... easy.....

Keep your interface and keep your studio monitors. In most cases, those are small anyway and will give you good quality sound that you are looking for. AND.... you already have them. Sell everything else that you want.

Yep.

Sometimes the solution really is simple.

All bluetooth has noticeable latency. No one has released a BT standard that does not.

Whether it's an issue depends on how you use it. Prerecorded is not a problem since it all arrives at the same time. Live… if you are singing to tracks and it's BT 5 or faster, you might get away with it. Interactive play with BIAB generates RTL (round trip latency) and that is never a good idea.

Fidelity is subjective. BT is never linear but that either bothers you or it doesn't.