Bluetooth Speaker Pairing

Steven J. Gross

Well-Known Member
I've always been a bit confused about bluetooth stereo. Does the average single bluetooth mini speaker technically have 2 stereo speakers in it or is it mono?
And with pairing, is that true stereo or what?
 
I've always been a bit confused about bluetooth stereo. Does the average single bluetooth mini speaker technically have 2 stereo speakers in it or is it mono?
And with pairing, is that true stereo or what?
That's an "it depends" question. Some Bluetooth speakers simply sum the music to mono, like the small Philips speaker I own. Others that claim to be stereo will have a left and right dirver, yet will still share a common bass speaker to save space. (My Scosche Boom Bottle does this--it's a Bluetooth speaker designed to fit bicycle water bottle holders, for those times when tunes are more important than hydration.) For something more advanced like the Riva Arena speakers, they have drivers on the front and both sides, and use their own technology to present a wide stereo image by way of how the speakers are driven. (A pair of Arenas can also be configured as left and right speakers, but only through the Chromecast option, not Bluetooth, as Bluetooth audio can only make one connection at a time.)

Best bet is to read the specs and see if they mention how it works.
 
But Bluetooth headphones are true stereo?
Yes, they all should be. The two sets of earbuds I have are both stereo. Bluetooth isn't the best fidelity (it's lossy/compressed, basically like MP3), but for my purposes, it's good enough to take a phone call, have notifications read to me, and play music just loud enough to drown out the crap the stores play. 🤣 If I ever need to do serious listening on headphones using a phone as a source, I use an Audioquest Dragonfly and my planar headphones (made by Oppo).

Bluetooth does support two-channel playback, so it's up to the manufacturers if they want to support it or not. Headphones are easy. But when you're trying to pack a lot of sound into a small container, they have to make compromises when it comes to speakers, which is why some are more "stereo" than others, as I mentioned above.
 
I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to some of the more modern technology. It was just about a year or so age when we rented a cabin up in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a week. The cabin was fully furnished and had several TVs with satellite reception, and sitting over on top of a chessboard was a bluetooth speaker from Altec Lansing. I was curious about it, so I paired it with my phone and was delighted with the sound it was putting out.

Upon arriving home, I tried to find that exact model, but could only find its little brother to order, and it was a good deal at $30. So I've enjoyed this little speaker since then, using it in our golf cart to listen to baseball games or music from my phone. It also has a connecting jack to feed any audio to it if there's no bluetooth connection. This is the Altec Lansing imw479L.

81tBdexK2XL._AC_SL1500_.jpg


It has two speakers and does indeed reproduce stereo. Of course, with three-inch separation, you pretty much have to hold it up to your face to hear any stereo, but I'm happy with the way this little guy works.
 
It's surprising the amount of sound they can pack into these little speakers! I'm also finding that newer Bluetooth devices pair up so much easier than they did several years ago.

I had looked at some larger Bluetooth speakers to use in the garage but they were quite pricey.

I had bought the Riva Arena pair to use in various places but the connectivity is so bad (neither Bluetooth nor Chromecast is reliable, and about 2/3 of the time, they don't connect) that I couldn't recommend them. It's a shame because they sound good...when they work.
 
My regular old wired home pc speakers are a mess, static and noise, when I use my wireless speaker it sounds great. My question is, if I get the same brand that I have in my other room for a different purpose of course, will the Bluetooth identity 2 separate speakers on 2 separate devices or will it not? If so, if I buy a different brand that should solve that, but would 2 speakers of different brands be paired if I wanted to?
 
You can pair more than one, but only one will connect at a time, and you might have to manually disconnect the pair you don't want to use in your phone or tablet if it connects automatically.
 
Back
Top Bottom