Focal Listen Wireless Headphones Bluetooth Connectivity

Streaming Audio
1

Hello,

I have recently purchased a pair of Focal Listen Wireless headphones and for some reason I am unable to pair the headphones to my Nova via Bluetooth.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

2

I think it works the other way, the nova Bluetooth connection is for sending music from your phone or whatever, not for a headphone connection.

1 Like
3

Hi there! Yes, Robert is correct - Nova is able to receive, not transmit, Bluetooth. The Listen Wireless headphones are designed for use with phones/tablets etc- you can get good results streaming from a range of apps, or your device’s own library.

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Many thanks for clarifying Robert. I may invest in a Bluetooth transmitter, if I do I’ll repost my findings on audio quality. Thanks again.

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Hi there, many thanks Clare. I may invest in a Bluetooth transmitter and see how that goes, would you have any suggestions? Thanks again for your reply. Jon.

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What phone are you using, and what app? Is there a reason you wouldn’t stream directly from your phone to the headphones? The DAC is in the headphones, anyway

Edit: These Focals apparently only support the aptX codec as far as I can find. That’s a bit poor, but they are not quite recent models.

With Android phones, you ideally want aptX HD or better LDAC support in phone and headphones.

With an iPhone, you are limited to AAC (and then only for music that is encoded in AAC, as far as I know). So that sucks. When streaming from a macOS device like a MacBook, however, you do have a choice of better codecs, at least aptX, maybe aptX HD

So if you are an iPhone person, a bluetooth transmitter on the Nova might make sense (edit: so that the iPhone is out of the equation and the bluetooth connection is created between the bluetooth transmitter on the Nova and the headphones). It must do aptX for your current headphones and ideally also aptX HD / LDAC for future headphones. However, at least LDAC ones seem to not come as just transmitters, but full-blown players, like he FiiO ones. And it looks like the Nova has no digital out if I am not mistaken

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Is this video helps?

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Yep - I hardly use my phone and have a minimal data contract so won’t be streaming that way when I can use my Nova. I am another person interested in any experiences and advice regarding a Bluetooth transmitter.

9

When you are at home, is your phone not using the domestic wifi?

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When I’m at home my phone is turned off as otherwise it needs to be recharged too often and also the screen is stupidly small. I only use it when I’m out on my bike in case I break down.
Having said that I guess I could stream from my tablet that I use to control the Nova…

Still interested in hearing about Bluetooth transmitters.

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Sure, when I say “phone” I was imprecise and meant whatever mobile device that is used for the Naim app. Instead of using the Naim app on this device to make the Nova play music and then send the music from the Nova to a bluetooth transmitter and from there to the headphones, it may be easier and better to just send it from this device to the headphones directly. With the caveats as mentioned above, such as iOS for iPhone and iPad being severely limited for this

Edit: It would be nice if there were headphones with built-in Apple AirPlay, but apparently this is not possible for technical reasons and they don’t exist.

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