Help Sonim XP8800 Bluetooth pairs to radio but no audio?

[Swamp_Yankee]

My Sonim XP8800 (not a common device, I know) pairs via Bluetooth to other devices (such as my Amazon Echo) with no problem, plays audio from phone calls, any media source, etc... No matter what I try it will not play audio through the stereo (Kenwood DPX303MBT) in my truck. I've tried changing settings, resetting the device, using different audio apps (Youtube, Pandora, Spotify, etc...) and no matter what, the device pairs, and the data (Pandora channel, song title, etc...) shows on the stereo display, but I get no audio from the stereo or the phone. My other phone, an old Samsung Note plays audio through the same stereo with no issue. I called tech support for both the phone and the stereo to try to resolve the issue to no avail. I did find out from Kenwood that the stereo is running Bluetooth version 3.0-not sure if that means anything. Any suggestions?

 

[ocnbrze]

its not your bluetooth...according to specs from gsmarena, y9our phone has bluetooth 5.0 so we can rule that out. is your phone up to date? have you tried a factory reset?

 

[Swamp_Yankee]

its not your bluetooth...according to specs from gsmarena, y9our phone has bluetooth 5.0 so we can rule that out. is your phone up to date? have you tried a factory reset?

Thanks for the information-I was not aware of what version of Bluetooth the Sonim had until now. I went back and decided to play with the settings some more and found this screen (screenshot attached)-both the media box and the HD audio box were checked. I unchecked and rechecked media which did nothing, but when I unchecked HD audio I got audio over my truck stereo. I am guessing that the HD audio is a feature of 5.0 that is not backward compatible to/supported by 3.0:

 

[mikedt]

Thanks for the information-I was not aware of what version of Bluetooth the Sonim had until now. I went back and decided to play with the settings some more and found this screen (screenshot attached)-both the media box and the HD audio box were checked. I unchecked and rechecked media which did nothing, but when I unchecked HD audio I got audio over my truck stereo. I am guessing that the HD audio is a feature of 5.0 that is not backward compatible to/supported by 3.0:

Yes, that's correct. Although I thought Bluetooth was supposed handshake and deal with different version compatibility itself, like NOT trying to send HD audio to a device that can't decode and play it. The Media Audio is most likely SBC(Sub Band Codec) that all BT audio devices support, the A2DP profile, but doesn't necessarily give the best SQ because it's a lossy codec. Some BT devices support AAC, that is apparently better SQ, but is still a lossy codec.