Driving and phone-calling can be quite dangerous. So making a call to the Tech Guy while steering the wheel is not the most comfortable situation for your brain to process (often complex) answers from the other end. Always wait to pull over or get home before you dial Leo for a tech question. Nobody wants a car wreck/accident that can be easily avoided by simply waiting a bit to get off the road!
Beware of the Apple AirPods Max, especially if you're tempted to get them! They just are NOT worth the expensive $549 price tag for the average consumer. The main issue is the audio quality, as lossless audio doesn't seem to be supported even when the product is plugged in with a Lightning-to-3.5mm cable. The headphones should've supported an option for Airplay. The noise-canceling is pretty good thanks to the processors in both ears, so the AirPods Max makes sense for plane travel. But there are simply cheaper, competent alternatives out there.
Jim is hard of hearing and would like to know if there's an app or something that will enable him to boost his hearing aids or use bone-conducting headphones to hear. Leo says that there are in the iPhone. The iPhone will route sound to your hearing aids if they are modern. But if you want to use bone-conducting headphones, then you'll end up with some lag via Bluetooth. There's no lag with hearing aids because they use RF Radio technology and not Bluetooth. But if you need Bluetooth, then there are various wireless microphones that can do what Jim needs.
Michael has a Samsung Galaxy Tablet and when he connects via Bluetooth to his headset, the audio quality really drops. Leo says to try removing the device and then repairing it. It's also possible that the profile Michael is using is the wrong one. The sad part is, Michael may not have a choice to use a different one. So he may be stuck. He will want to use a profile suitable for music, like Aptex or A2DP. But it sounds like the tablet may be older, and thus relies on an older headset spec that doesn't support stereo and won't sound good.
Ross has ripped all his CDs so he can enjoy the mp3s in his car with an external hard drive. Leo says that is cool, but hard drives have the same problem as a record player; they will skip when jostled. So if you hit a bump, the hard drive could skip, and that could damage your hard drive. Leo recommends a solid-state solution like a thumb drive or SSD drive in an external enclosure. Or you can put the music up in the cloud and just stream it from your mobile phone through the car's Bluetooth connection.
John upgraded to a Moto G7 recently, and now it reboots when he goes to the supermarket and ONLY the supermarket. What gives? Leo guesses that there's a signal that the phone is receiving that it gets confused with. Try putting it in airplane mode first and see if it reboots. If it doesn't, then there's some sort of signal. ScooterX says there's a Google TechNote to reboot your phone. The way to fix it is to turn off Bluetooth.
Sam is looking for the ideal pair of noise-canceling earbuds. The ones she has now won't pair to her iPad. Leo says that she will need to put them into pairing mode before they will pair. That usually works by pressing the power button and holding it for a few seconds until the light starts blinking. Then select them on the iPad. And she won't need a special app to pair either. Alternatives? Leo likes the Jabra earbuds. But The Wirecutter likes Bose. Then Samsung.
John used to be able to listen to music from his phone to the radio using the headphone jack on his phone. But now he can't do that because his phone doesn't have a headphone jack. So what can he do now? Leo says that a Bluetooth cassette that he can put into the cassette player can then pair it to the phone. There's plenty of them on Amazon. EluraTech makes one for $29.99, but he can get them for half that as well. He'll want to make sure it has Bluetooth 5 though. So be sure. The player also has a 4-8 hour battery life too, depending on the model.
Scott has a review of a new pair of headphones, the Grado GW 100 v2 Bluetooth Headphones. Grado has been making headphones since 1991 and the GW100 is their first wireless Bluetooth headphones. What's interesting about them is that they have Bluetooth, but not active noise cancellation. The choice was deliberate in order to focus on better quality sound. It's also a better quality experience with AAC and other codecs which are transmitted over Bluetooth 5. Battery life is about 40 hours, which is very impressive. The cost is about $250.
Elizabeth wants to be able to listen to music from room to room that can plug into her laptop. Leo likes Ultimate Ears UE Speakers. Leo likes the UE MegaBoom.
