I've been flirting with A2DP for the last few months and have generally decided its a bad idea.

The main motivation was that my wife wanted to listen to podcasts and audio books in the kitchen. First, I got some A2DP speakers (from the Orange shop) and a Bluetooth USB stick. I got the old "Amazon 3rd party not in stock" trick which got me a USB Bluetooth 1.1 stick that I didn't want. Wasn't impressed with the usability of the BlueSoleil software but it worked as long as the laptop was in line of sight of the speakers.

I bought another Bluetooth USB stick - this one a version 2.0 spec. It was actually worse with some random cutouts. The Widcomm drivers were more user friendly but weren't reliable. But the line-of-sight issue made it useless. Even a jug of water or a person standing in the way would cause drop outs.

My wife bought a Sony Ericsson W850i walkman phone. The A2DP worked fine but she found it hard using the software that you use to put music on the phone. While passing through an airport, I bought a Samsung YP-T9 mp3 player (with A2DP support) on a bit of a lust whim. It worked well with the A2DP speakers and its simple enough to load with music.

But when you boil it down, it's a pain turning on and binding A2DP connections. At home, its just as easy to plug in a wire. When the YP-T9 is transmitting, it turns very sluggish which I suspect is due to the processing overheads. That's gotta kill the batteries.

I also find it annoying that A2DP is sold as "CD quality". It's not. It's 320kps. That ain't bad but its not CD quality. A piece of wire gives better quality and doesn't kill your batteries.

For the home scenario of remoting audio, its better to use WiFi. The only scenario where A2DP might be worth it is in a car. However, I decided its not worth spending £150 on a new stereo head just to get this feature. Instead, I bought a AudiaX DGT-202 FM transmitter for £23. It's not the greatest solution but its simple, inexpensive and it works in any car.

I've sold the A2DP speakers and my wife just moves her laptop.