[ToddziLLa]

Nice work barjohn. We appreciate your time and input.

Getting ready to purchase my HS850, I think I will wait for the H500. By the way, here is /\/\otorola's Official H500 Press Release Page.

[barjohn]

It looks like an improved HS820. There are two major problems with these headsets. The first is there resistance to wind generated noise. The cheap microphones on the wired headsets do a better job. The second is noise cancellation. If you have ever tried the Bose noise cancelling headset on a flight you know what I mean when I say THAT IS NOISE CANCELLATION! It takes two microphones, one aimed at the ambient surround and the other directed toward the speaker to effectively obtain a subtraction signal. ANything else is using volume level and trying to approximate the discrimination. I suspect that is what the BT800 is doing which results in it cutting out soft speech along with amplifying the background. The varying signal makes it hard for a listener to discrimnate the speaker from the background as they get intermixed. The wishbone noise cancelling microphone is a good example of what may be needed. I will try and post some sounds I recorded earlier from the BT800 in a noisy environment so that you can hear for yourself.

[PingGuy]

I bought the HS850 after reading barjohn's original HS850 vs. BT800 post. I was originally considering the BT250 but had started to look more at the BT800 near the end. Then I read his post and then read every review for the HS850 that I could find. In the end the BT800 sounded like it wasn't really ready for release when it came out, where as the HS850 had less complaints.

I am definately glad that I went with it although I'm not as satisfied with it as I had hoped. My only real complaint is the volume on my end, I have to keep it at full volume at all times. Indoors it's sufficient and at full volume I still wish I had a few more clicks to get to full. Outdoors or in a car it can be bad depending on the wind speed or how fast you are driving with just one window cracked a bit.

The fit is excellent and so is the comfort, the longest I've worn it at one time was an hour but it wasn't bothering me at all when I took it off. It's easy to get it on and off and it will stay on well even if you don't get it on exactly perfect. I haven't had volume complaints indoors but out in the wind it's pretty bad, the other end can't hear you at all. Of course this is winter Michigan wind so that makes it worse.

I heard posters here complain of echoes and I have had a few but I know why now. It seems that when your battery gets somewhere between 50%-30% it starts echoing, at least it has for me. Also in heavily electronic areas it can do it but you can lose the echo by only moving a few feet away. I don't have wireless at work or at home so I can't speak to that, but I know at my desk at work when I was pinned between a Dell D600 laptop, Sun Blade1000 and a Dell Precision Workstation 330 that I got echo. I ate lunch barely 5ft. from that spot and didn't have echo at that time.

I'm hoping to pick up another headset before the end of the year, possibly in preparation for a Vonage system or something like that, so I'll be sure to put up a review when I do.

[ToddziLLa]

John, in your review of the Bluespoon AX you fail to mention talk/sound quality.

I have narrowed my decisions down to the HS850 and Bluespoon AX. Which would you recommend?

[vberry]

One thing I haven't gotten out of the reviews: does mute work? Taking conference calls, that's one of the most important things for me.

[Stinsonddog]

I may be wrong but that's my guess since the BB BT implementation seems pretty limited in features. With the 7100 here are some shortcuts -

Turn mute on/off during call Press Exclamation point (!) key or QW

Switch between the speaker Press Period (.) key or press OP
and the earpiece during call

[barjohn]

To be honest, I did not check the mute functionality as my focus has been on sound quality. I have update the prior post with sound recordings so that you can hear for yourself what the units sound like under similar circumstances. One thing I have come to realize is that the sound quality of the 7250 (at least my unit) was not up to par with the 7100t. Candidly the 7100t isn't all that great either with frequent noises on my end that I find irritating. The 7250 seems to suffer on the called end and actually sound ok on the recieving end. Unfortunately there are many potential causes. It could be that Verizon is pushing the envelope on bandwidth to get more call in and allowing a degradation in call quality (something they can do with CDMA) or it could be my personal unit or a poor choice of microphone or a poor A to D converter in the design. Whatever it is it led me to return the 7250 since I was near the end of my 30 day trial period. I find that the problem is very related to noise level and as you can hear in the BT800 test, the interaction is really bad.


I have been testing the Bluespoon AX and my bottom line is that I cannot reccomend it. In a quiet environment it sound ok to the other party but it has static on my end. In my car it picks up the road noise and the other end hears it as a roaring sound. Battery life is no where near the advertised time as even with light use it doesn't make it through a day without needing a recharge. Comfort wise it is one of the more comfortable headsets and the only one I have been able to wear comfortably with glasses. It pairs easily and I really like the size and the neck strap for carrying it works great!

So where does this leave us? I have ordered a Bluespoon Digital and it will be here tomorrow. I am still debating on a couple of other units such as the Sony Ericcson HBH 300 that has several fanatical devotees and the new Flamingo headset. There are some rave reviews on the BS Digital so I will see if they are warranted. The Tekkeon has the best sound in a quiet envronment and the M3000 the best in a noisy environment. I wish the Tekkeon were better made as it feels like it will break and I wish the M3000 didn't hurt my ears and look so musch like an apendange growing out of my head. I can't enthusiastically reccomend any of these so far and I would still hold the Tekkeon and the M3000 as the top of these headsets. One thing I should note is that my reviews are independent of price. To me the best is the best no matter how much or little it costs. Therefore, you won't see me saying that this is a good set in its price range or given its price. The way I look at it is give me the rankings and then I will pick the best that I can afford or that I am willing to pay.

Todzilla, sound quality wise the HS850 is a little better (but thinner sounding) that the AX. It gets better battery life by far. If you don't wear glasses it is pretty comfortable. It is about twice as heavy and much larger than the AX. Since neither are great in a noisy environment and the AX is more discreet I would pick the AX. However, my real reccomendation would be for neither of them. As the saying goes you pays your money and you takes your chances. I don't know your criteria of what is important in a headset and you have to decide what compromises you are willing to make. For me, I can sum it up as Sound and Size. Along with size goes comfort. if I can't stand to wear and use it then the rest really doesn't matter much does it?

[SchmutzBerry]

Hi,
Well I've had my BT800 and am ready to report on it.
1. Features. Best of all. Call display, vibration, you name it it has it.
2. Large, but light. Not as awful looking as the Plantronics 3000. NOt as nice looking as the HS850, and I assume the AX, although I haven't seen the AX. Kind of plain looking and cheap looking despite all the features. This of course is very subjective. Construction build appears good.
3. Comfort is very good. Much more comfortable than the 3000 which I just couldn't use. The 3000 ear clip is made of rather hard plastic which cut into my ear. The ear loop on the 3000 is made of very rubbery material which is very flexible and the pivot allows many adjustments.
4. As for sound quality with the BB 7290 - it's good to very good. It's reliable and steady, always intelligeble. In some ways, it's slightly better than the 3000, as there are NO crackles, and no echoes. But, the dynamic range is not quite as great, and neither is the volume. Sounds tends to be a bit muffled. Sound to the person being called is reported as equal to the 3000. But in my testing calling to an answering machine, I thought there was less dynamic range again.
As for wind testing, I haven't had much chance to test. Yesterday was the only windy day in Toronto in the past week, and I stayed in my office.

For Canadian buyers, there is someone selling them out on Ebay from Calgary for a reasonable price.
I would recommend this headset if the call display and vibration/ringing features are important. I would also make sure it's returnable if it doesn't pair well with your phone.

[dotcom]

First... John way to go on the research!

I am conducting research on my BB 7250.

results to follow...

Headset. BB 7250
Provider Bell Mobility Canada (Southwestern ON.)
Typical usage. Mini van 2004 Toyota Sienna. (Relativly quiet) 60,000 km per year mostly highway!
Bought BB March 2 2005.
Bought Jabra BT 250 same day.
Returned Jabra BT 250 2 weeks later.
Major compaints on the other end. Echo, My voice souinded "muffelled, static.

My end sounded great always.. Volume was 0% and I can still hear the caller.
0% was best way to reduce caller hearing an echo (My hollow head)
Called Jabra they are aware of echo. Must be a BT thing.

I have a home Wifi so callers compained mostly from my home calls and when I was on the road moving at 120 KMH.

Handset... in a restaurant caller say background noise was unbearable.
Handset worked better than BT 250 when in car or other environs.

Motorola HS 810
My end ... not comfortable.. floppy. sound must be cranked to 80-100% in car. Increases echo ...

No advantage as yet on callers end..
More later...

Thanks again John..

Call my if you need more feedback (of a good kind)

gg

[adam11950]

First of all, I just want to say thanks to Barjohn and everyone, this is a great / informative thread, and actually inspired me to finally register and post something rather than just breeze through as usual....

I'm using a 7520 with Nextel and have gone through a few of the same headsets you guys have. So far the two that have worked best with my Blackberry have been the Motorola HS-805 (great earpiece, only problem is its a little heavy, I would have to imagine because of the triple A battery, but the battery life almost makes up for it. The one I am using now though and have no problems at all with is the Cardo Systems Scala-500. It works excellent with the Blackberry 7520 as far as sound quality and functionality, has good battery life, and if very small/light. I may have missed it but I haven’t seen anyone else review this one yet, definitely would be interested in knowing what you guys think.

[barjohn]

I may add it to my list since I have read mixed reviews with some just loving it and other not liking it at all. Post some sound files so we can hear what it sounds like under different conditions. I just got the BS digital and I will be teting and reviewing over the next few days. All this testing takes time and $$ since no one provides these headsets to me for free. I also picked up a Motorola Razr V3 today to compare the 7100t to the Razr with the headsets to see how much difference these two handsets make.

[adam11950]

This is only my experience, but I have a cingular line, and have used a couple different handsets so far. The v3 and v551 motorola phones seem to still have a tough time with bluetooth.. I use the bluetooth phones alot at work and noticed that those motorolas had a tendancy to say things along the lines of bluetooth signal weak and switch to handset even with the phone and headset being only about five feet away from each other. This happened a number of times with a few different headsets so I have since switched to the nokia 6230, and haven't had any more of those problems. Oh also they would sometimes say bluetooth module not attached and would need to be power cycled before the headsets could be connected again

[barjohn]

That's good to know and I will be looking out for those issues. I also need to see what firmware version is on the phone since I know from the threads that 79R is available. I have to presume it fixes some problems over earlier releases.

I checked my unit and it is 57R so it needs to be updated. Does the same as previously described and drops the BT connection after a certain time period.

[adam11950]

Thats a good point too, I'll double check what the one I used was and post that tomarrow, as those razrs are a little pricy I'm pretty sure I still have some in stock that where delivered with the one I used...

[eightyolk]

Hi SchmutzBerry,

I have the BT800 with 7250 and like it too (although admitted I have not compared it to others). Question is are you able to use the BT800 to dial a call out when the Blackberry is locked ? Like RSouthern, I have been unable to make calls out when the handset is locked but I have had no problems answering calls with the BT800 when the handset is locked.

[barjohn]

I suggest you go into a noisy environment and call your answering machine and see how you sound. If it is loud and clear, GREAT! If not send it back quick before you are stuck with it.

[barjohn]

Sound posts updated to add Bluespoon Digital. Its noise canceling abilities are pretty godd as I had the TV turned up very loud. I was surprised it heard my voice as I could barely hear myself over the noise. At first trying to wear it was really PAINFULL. It kept falling out of my ear and the more I tried to push it in the more it hurt and the faster it popped out. I kept thinking that my ear canal was just too small. Also, I couldn't hear a thing on playback when I had it on, yet I could tell the mic was working and recording. Duh! it took a while for me to figure out that I was not wearing it correctly. The trick is in the little spring. If you get the little spring hung in the right spot you barely have to push the headset in with a very slight twist. I kept trying to corkscrew it in and that hurts and doesn't work. I am wearing it now and it is pretty comfortable once you figure that out. The little videos make it look simple and easy and it is; however, what you can't tell in the video is how hard or far to push it. Answer, hardly at all. As you will hear in the sound recordings it sounds more on the bass side so it is not tinny.

How about in actual use? I spoke for about an hour yesterday using the 7100t. I was both inside and outside. My house has WiFi (A & G) and several computers going 24/7 so it is a high electronic noise background. The other party said that he could hear a little static in the background but that I was perfectly intelligible. I too could hear a little static and I could not quite get the volume level I would have preferred. There was no echo on either end and when I was outside there was a light wind blowing and it never effected the conversation. I tried it inside with the V3 and I had problems with the other party stating that he could not hear me and it would occasionally disconnect from the phone. Yet when I did my recording test, it sounded better than the 7100t. Pairing it up has been easy, but that can be misleading because after pairing behavior can be erratic. I had a very difficult time getting it to work with MS Recorder and it would be hit and miss. The Tekkeon never presents that type of problem. Same can be true with the phone. The unit definitely prefers line of sight to the phone for the cleanest sound. I find the button placement to be a bad choice as it hurts to push on the headset and they are hard to locate for volume usage. I have only had it a few days so I will test further before giving my final conclusion and recommendation. Like all of these units, they work better with some phones than with others. Why each manufacturer can’t test to the same standards is beyond me. Maybe soon we will get some better standardization in Bluetooth. If they don’t it will get such a bad reputation that it will be replaced by something that works better and more reliably.

[dotcom]

I have been using the HS 810 for about one week.

BB 7250
Mostly in Van (Toyota Sienna)
Tried recording using hard wired headset included with phone. The Bluetooth headset and handset.

Results:
Noise! The HS 810 produced an unbearable road noise on the recording. Mostly when I would be silent as if listening to the caller. BarJohn, I listened to the recordings you made and noted that you left no silent pauses. You may see different results because the mic will tune down as you are speaking and tune up when you are not.

The callers I have quizzed say I sound tinny or muffeled on the BT headset. The wired headset sounded muffelled on the recordings.

It looks like the Plantronics unit is the best. I think I will return this unit and try the Plantronics.

[barjohn]

If nothing else, I hope this thread encourages people to test a little more rigorously than just listening on their end and occasionally asking someone what they sound like. dotcom, as you can see from your testing, your initial impression can be wrong. The other problem is that there are so many variables that you can't always rely on the feedback you get from the other party as they may be less sensitive to bad audio than the next person you talk to. Vairables include call quality on your end due to your signal strength, towers handset, etc. Call quality on the revievers side on the same issues. Are you calling a land line versus another cell phone? Are they on the smae carrier or a different carrier?

For consistency, I made all calls to my home office land line and recorded them on the same Panasonic Digital Voice answering machine. I made all calls from the same location, my second floor master bedroom with the TV both on and off. I made multiple recordings to verify that I was consistently getting the same result and then recorded those at phone quality with MS Recorder for you to hear. All of those steps result in some degradation to the sound and the various conversion steps introduce further degradations. However, since it is the same on all units you can still compare sound quality. What I could not reproduce is the sound you hear as the user.

Almost every unit has some hissing sound (white noise) that you hear in the headset as you crank the volume up and it seems that most require higher volume settings to be heard. How much of that is noise created by the handset itself I can't tell you. The BB's audio amplifiers leave a lot to be desired. The other phones I have tested seem to have better sounding audio amplifiers with the SX56 having really good ones. HTC phones in general have very good microphones and amplifiers. Motorola usually does though the V3 is a disaapointment. I hope more of you will conduct tests and post the results so that we can build a library of what works well and what doesn't and why.

[bbgirl]

isnt there a thread that tells how to tweak the sound quality of the these earpieces..?

please help..