Hi,
I wanted to share my disappointing experience with my newly purchased WiSA SoundSend transmitter.
Background:
I'm currently using a pair of BL20s as a 2.0 system with a non-B&O TV. In order to establish a wireless connection, I was previously using a Transmitter 1 connected to a Celadon USB IR Receiver (RCV3000) for volume control - no Core needed. However, the TL1+IR receiver could not decode Dolby Digital/Atmos. It was this reason that prompted my purchase of the SoundSend since it can decode the aforementioned audio formats. At the end of the day, why purchase $15k speakers if you can't enjoy Dolby Digital?
Experience:
I received my new SoundSend this afternoon. Set-up was easy enough: simply plugged it into the HDMI ARC port and downloaded the app. The TV automatically recognized the SoundSend and defaulted to it as the primary audio output. The TV also enabled Anynet+ so I could use my TV's remote for volume control - nice! From there, the SoundSend set-up was fairly easy. I pressed the reset buttons on the BL20s to get them into pairing mode and the SoundSend recognized them quickly. I configured the speaker placement on the app and I was done!
I decided to run the TV non-stop for about 5 hours in order to test any syncing or signal issues. I tested multiple sources:
1. Cable Box: ATT U-Verse
This was the first source I tried. It was wonderful for the first 45 minutes or so. Then, all of a sudden, the BL20s turned off for about 3 seconds and then turned back on, right in the middle of the movie. This continued to happen about once every 45 minutes - 1 hour. About half of the time this happened, when the speakers would turn back on, sometimes only ONE speaker would continue to play... even though the 2nd speaker was powered on. When this happened, I would need to change the audio output back to using the internal TV speakers, and then back to ARC (SoundSend) again. This usually fixed the issue, but other times it did not and I would have to turn the TV off and on again. This is a very frustrating experience and not acceptable.
2. Native Apps on my Smart TV: Disney+
When viewing any content, only 1 speaker played audio. The second speaker remained powered on, but no sound would come out. I could not fix this issue.
3. Apple Airplay
This is by far the most frustrating issue, especially since music is what I use the speakers most for. My Smart TV has Airplay built-in, so I figured I would not have any issues streaming music. Well, I don't know why this happens, but once I connect to the TV via Airplay, and right when I press the "play" button on my Apple Music app on my iPhone, both BL20s immediately power off, then immediately power back on again, all within 2 seconds, and then proceed to play the song like nothing happened. Once I decide to pick another song to play, the same thing happens all over again. So, I essentially miss the first 2 seconds of every song that I attempt to play, not to mention my concern of possible long-term damage that this could cause to the speakers.
So, unless someone has any solutions or recommendations, I will most likely be returning the SoundSend and reverting back to the Transmitter 1/IR receiver combo.
I hope someone finds this information useful. Perhaps this is just a one-off occurrence (faulty SoundSend perhaps?), but the reviews of the SoundSend on the Apple App Store say otherwise...
Thanks for reading.
