My Bluetooth Recommendation

Phew, after about $180 worth of Wifi/Bluetooth purchases, I can finally give some recommendations.

How did this battle start? It started when I bought the Sony 1000XM3 wireless noise-canceling headphones. These headphones are Bluetooth 5.0.

The headphones paired fine, but I noticed that when I was watching high-bitrate video, like on HBO Now, 4k YouTube videos, high-quality audio, etc. it would start stuttering the audio and start "lagging".

I tried everything first. Making Bluetooth apt-x only, disabling AAC, enabling AAC, setting bit pools, etc. Believe you me, I tried everything. Eventually, I decided to say, "fuck it" and bought another Wifi card, but I did my research and decided to buy the only one that supports Bluetooth 4.2, the BCM943602CDP.

I've tried the following cards before the BCM943602CDP:

• BCM94360CD
• BCM943602CS
• BCM94352Z

They all more or less had stuttering, weird dropoffs, horrible Bluetooth connections. My case is literally 2 feet from my face, and I have wifi turned off so I doubt it's range.

I used the same PCI-E adapter for all of them.

Finally after hooking up the BCM943602CDP (it's from a 2017 iMac), I had no bluetooth issues. If you're buying, make sure you buy one that's Bluetooth 4.2 as there are versions that are only 4.1. A good query is iMac 2017 Wifi Card.

The model on my card said BCM943602CDPAX_1.

Anyway, I have had 0 connection issues, the range seems to be better, it connects faster, even my wifi is faster. I recommend this chipset over the others, simply for better Bluetooth 5.0 functionality.