I picked up an LG soundbar a few months back, largely as it allowed me to stream audio using bluetooth which seemed a great idea for streaming from either my MacBook or my iPhone. Since i've had the soundbar i've had issues with this feature though. The streaming is flaky at best, at times it will stream for hours but other times it will drop out endlessly. No matter what dropout I get the device remains paired according to both my MacBook Pro (Mid 2010) and the LG Soundbar. I tend to be streaming using Spotify but i've had the same issues with iPlayer and iTunes also.
The symptoms are though that the audio simply stops being outputted by the device whilst it continues to play. Sometimes this is a short dropout (less than a second to a few seconds) and other times it stops for good (although remaining paired). Using my iPhone this seems to happen a little less but it still happens. I talked to LG support who were adamant that there was no issue and that the streaming should be fine. They told me to make sure that I was using the correct Bluetooth profile however which should be A2DP. From what I can tell this is supported by Mac's but I wasn't able to work out if this is what I'm actually using let alone how to switch to it if I'm not.
The closest I've got to anyone talking about similar issues is with regard to audio quality over bluetooth from a Mac that can be resolved by adjusting the quality with this command:
defaults write com.apple.BluetoothAudioAgent "Apple Bitpool Min (editable)" 40
I've tried this and this hasn't improved anything. Heard rumors it could be related to Wi-Fi interference too but nothing solid on this either. Running out of ideas, anyone else have any?
Best Answer
I have a samsung soundbar, and an Onkyo, I use bluetooth pairing from my macbook, and motorola phone- exact same issue on both sound bars. Apparently bluetooth pairing just blows. I think it might be interference from the multiple devices in the same area using bluetooth. (PS4 uses it for the controls, Samsung smart tv uses it for the remote). It definitely is not the macbook, as the problem happens from my smartphone, and I am a support tech for apple, and know how to troubleshoot the mac.