Earlier this year, I got the iPhone 7 Plus. At the time, I said that I would have to live the dongle life on my next trip to listen to music. I did not anticipate a significant problem though. The Apple supplied Lightning to 3.5mm dongle that allowed me to plug in my RHA MA450 headsets sucks. And I mean that it really sucks. They do a horrible job of reproducing audio, even for non-audiophiles. What’s the fix for this? You could go with Lightning headphones. But there’s not a whole lot of them out there and they tend to be pricey if you want anything that has decent sound quality. Apple says to go wireless. Here’s my problem with that. I either have to buy W1 or Bluetooth headsets, or get a Bluetooth dongle of some sort to use my RHA headsets. The problem with the former is buying wireless headsets is not a cheap option. The problem with the latter is that when it comes to most Bluetooth dongles, the audio quality sucks almost as much as the Apple Lightning to 3.5mm dongle.
Fortunately, a Canadian startup called Bluewave Audio is out to give you a third option which is to use your existing headsets wirelessly via a device called the GET:

This is a Bluetooth 5.0 wireless audio adapter. Bluetooth 5.0? That’s not a misprint. It does support the latest version of Bluetooth so it’s ahead of the curve. It feels solid and well built. It has buttons to change tracks, a button to play/pause/answer and end calls along with turning the device on and off, and an analog volume control (which feels great by the way). There’s a clip that you can use to hang it off your clothing, or you can replace it with a bigger one to hang off your headphones of choice. I should also note that it has EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) support as well. But that’s not the only thing that it has going for it. For starters, it supports a wide range of audio codecs:
- AAC
- AptX-HD at 24 bit
- AptX Low Latency
- AptX
- SBC
- MP3
By “supports,” I mean that it processes those audio formats on the GET itself so that you get better sound quality. It has a built in microphone with cVc noise cancelling which from my testing works exceptionally well, a 3.5 mm jack to allow you to plug in the headsets of your choice, an insanely broad frequency response range of 20-20000Hz, a shockingly low signal to noise ratio of 96 dB, and up to 6 hours of battery life with a 2 hour recharge time. One added bonus on that front is that you can charge the GET and use it at the same time. Plus when plugged in to a power source, it will not use any battery power. You can read the full specs on the Bluewave website at your leisure. But you’re likely thinking if all of this is true. In particular, can this device really deliver top quality audio?
In short, YES.
The GET got subjected via my RHA MA450 headsets to the playlist that I use to test the audio systems in cars, wireless speakers and the like. It has a variety of music that will highlight the best or worst in whatever I am testing. If you’re interested, artists contained in this playlist include:
- The Pet Shop Boys
- Beth Orton
- David Bowie
- Röyksopp
- Austra
- Avicii
To my utter amazement, I have never heard any of this music sound this good. I was truly shocked about how good it all sounded as I was hearing details like drum reverb in songs that I have never heard before. I was also blown away in terms of how full bodied that this playlist sounded using the same headsets that I have been using for a while now. Clearly I wasn’t even close to maximizing the abilities of these headsets prior to the arrival of the GET in my test lab. As far as I am concerned, it delivers what it promises. And then some.
But I wanted to push the envelope. I gave the GET to my wife to try it with her iPhone 6 to see what her reaction to it was. She’s a perfect test subject as she’s a classically trained pianist who has taken several Royal Conservatory Of Music exams. Thus she has a great ear for what music sounds like. I’ll cut to the chase. What was supposed to be a single day test turned out to be four days, and she was reluctant to give it back to me on day four. But she did say two things. The first thing she mentioned is that she went the four days that she had it without having to recharge the GET. The second thing she said was that the sound quality was so good that it made her want to listen to music again. Clearly the GET impressed her as well.
Now the use case of not having to live the dongle life is not the only one that the GET addresses. You can use it with your home stereo for wireless audio, or use it in your car, or pair it to your computer. Anywhere you can plug in a 3.5 mm device to play audio, you can use the GET. One other note, there’s an app coming which will allow you to tweak options and update the device’s firmware. That I am looking forward to seeing as I am a bit of an “control enthusiast.”
The GET is in the process of starting to ship from the suburbs of Montreal where they’re assembled. MSRP is $129 USD, but it’s currently going for $99 on their website. If you’re sick of living the dongle life and you want outstanding audio wirelessly, you need to get your hands on the GET. The company has a money back guarantee. But I assure you that once you try it, you won’t be sending it back for a refund.
Helping A Client Deal With The #Fail Of Rogers Internet
Posted in Commentary with tags Rogers on October 21, 2017 by itnerdYesterday I brought you a story of a very serious service outage at Rogers. To recap, if you signed up for Internet service with Rogers, or you changed modems in the last few days, you have no service. That’s due to whatever systems that they have to activate cable modems go down, which resulted in a untold number of people being left without Internet service. And there is still no ETA from Canada’s largest telco as to when this will be resolved which is simply stunning.
This was brought to my attention by a client of mine who absolutely relies on the Internet. She’s an 83 year old woman who is effectively shut in her home. Thus she relies on the Internet to do everything from order medication, order groceries, to communicate with her family in the Ukraine and the USA. The first two items are key because she has mobility issues that keep her from leaving her home. Thus she uses the Internet to order medication and food for delivery. She is affected by this outage because she had a Rogers cable modem fail and had to do a cable modem swap to get back online.
Except that she isn’t online thanks to the problems that Rogers has.
Because of her situation, having no access to the Internet isn’t a minor inconvenience. It’s a major disruption to her ability to live. So I knew that if Rogers couldn’t get her back online (because as I related to you yesterday in the story that I linked above, Rogers tech support had no ability to bring her back online), then I had to step in and help her. In her case, she had a computer and an iPad. So while I couldn’t do anything about the computer, I could get the iPad back on line. So I took one of my phones, which was the ZTE Axon that I kept around for testing purposes, and put it into mobile hotspot mode. I then connected her iPad to it. That allowed her to do everything that she needed to do from her iPad. Mission accomplished.
Meanwhile, the issues that Rogers has continues to affect who knows how many people. Many of whom took to Twitter to vent:
https://twitter.com/mxrvnc/status/921555745048477696
This whole episode shows that Rogers has serious issues that has to make their customers wonder about their choice of Internet provider. And the last Tweet that I posted above highlights why. It seems inconceivable that Canada’s largest telco doesn’t have a backup of some sort for a system that for them has to be business critical. You have to wonder if that sort of short sighted thinking exists elsewhere within Rogers. I don’t know and maybe I am looking at this wrong. But here’s what I do know. A lot of people are really, really mad at Rogers right now. And the longer that this goes on, the more likely that Bell Canada and other telcos are going to get phone calls from people who simply want to get back online. Thus, I truly hope that Rogers is putting every resource that they have to resolve this issue. Then they come out with a robust apology to their customers for the trouble that they’ve caused, paired with something to make things right for all their customers. Given how much of a mess this is for Rogers customers, it’s the least that they can do.
UPDATE: My client called me to say that she just got an automated call from Rogers to say that the ticket that she opened related to this outage was not resolved and that they had no ETA when it would be. She’s asked me to come over to her house on Monday to look at other options as she thinks that Rogers inability to get their Internet offering working is ridiculous.
UPDATE #2: It seems Rogers problems are bigger than just their Internet offerings as per this Tweet from Rogers:
So this issue also affects home phone and cable TV customers too. That makes this issue an #EpicFail as that’s most of their business portfolio with the only exception being their cell phone operation. What’s an even bigger #EpicFail is that Rogers is still doing installs and upgrades despite knowing that they have a problem of this scale. I really can’t see how that makes sense as it creates a really bad impression of Rogers as per the the Tweets above. Not to mention that they are simply making the problem worse as they are adding to the queue of hardware waiting to be activated. Rogers clearly didn’t think that through.
UPDATE #3: Readers of this blog have tipped me off that Bell Canada is aggressively going after frustrated Rogers customers on Twitter to steal them from Rogers. Take this for example:
Rogers problems have just gotten worse. I would not want to be them right about now.
UPDATE #4: Rogers sent me a statement on a Sunday to say service should be restored by Sunday evening. Details here.
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