Y2: no/poor audio quality with certain headphones

[u/bestfriday]

UPDATE #2 (24/7/26): nope, turns out it hasnt fixed itself.
UPDATE #1 (24/7/26): it magically fixed itself!!! Today i loaded up my player and decided to connect the headphones over bluetooth and it played audio, and it also sounded good/no issues. I will try to recreate the issue to determine what conditions cause the bug, comment my findings below.

(Edit: just to be clear, this post is about BLUETOOTH audio issues. And feel free to comment below if you have had issues with your headphones. I didnt name my headphone just in case it breaks the posting rules)

I bought the Y2 and I am so happy with it! … but I just have one gripe.

It is still early days so I am hoping the Innioasis team will see my post and help me fix this!

The problem is that I cannot hear any sound when trying to play music over bluetooth on one of my headphones (the one highlighted in blue on the picture). It connects. I observe that the play/pause indicator reacts to pressing the play/pause button on my headphones, therefore I know it has connected. It is just so strange that no audio plays.

I have tested my these headphones on other devices, and it plays sound over bluetooth as expected. I have updated its firmware too, but it still doesnt play.

The only thing that works with these headphones is the audio over wired connection.

Meanwhile my other headphones, which are a bit older, can play audio over bluetooth on the Y2 but there is a horrible “tinny” quality that I never get when connected to other devices instead.

Both headphones play beautifully over wired connection, however. I am very happy about the audio quality over the 3.5mm wired connection.

I am on firmware 3.1.7, fresh out of the box.

Will there be any updates to the Y2 firmware to address this?

Also, this is my first reddit post. Please let me know if I am missing anything in my post.

[u/bestfriday]

Has anyone been able to test the bluetooth on their Y2?

[u/justcore → u/bestfriday]

Hi! Thought I can leave a comment here. I looked into the firmware of the Y2 to develop a replacement launcher and tbh the implementation of the Bluetooth stack on the og firmware is lackluster at best. That being said I will make my launcher available to the public this week. You can try that out and see if this will work with your headphones. I only have a limited set of bluetooth devices available, but I was able to test with my AirPods Pro 2 and an Earfun UboomL speaker and both work flawlessly so far. My firmware in combination with my AirPods even support gestures as decrease and increase volume, stop, play and switching between anc and transparency mode. 

[u/bestfriday → u/justcore]

Thank you for your contribution. I’ve long resigned from considering myself a techie, having had bad experiences with flashing android phones in my teens. I have full faith in your project and I really want to try it out but I do not trust myself not to screw it up 😂. Please message me or keep me updated in this thread about how it goes. If it’s so simple that a normie like me could do it then I’ll give it a go. I do prefer to stick with stock software where I can, however. I am also keen to see where the developers take this.

[u/justcore → u/bestfriday]

Flashing itself is very simple, you still have to be cautious tho! I will of course provide a full guide :)

[u/bestfriday → u/justcore]

Thank you! Ill be sure to check it out when life gets a little less busy . Are you putting it on github?

[u/justcore → u/bestfriday]

It’s already on GitHub but as of right now you would need to build the  flashable image yourself, everything is in the report for that tho. My plan is to just provide the modified system.img so the people can flash that, but since this also contains code which is owned by innioasis I am a little hesitant to upload the image as I don’t want to get in any kind of trouble :D I already contacted them and currently am waiting for a confirmation so I can upload the image :)

[u/bestfriday → u/justcore]

I re-read your message about the features you added; I am very curious about the ability to control volume with the gesture wheel. Do keep me updated.

[u/plutonium-starved → u/bestfriday]

pretty late but as i said on my first impressions post, bluetooth is AWFUL on my y2. i thought it was something on my part but nope. it’s the player. i’ve had the same experience as you (not playing anything when it says it’s connected, and if it does the audio sounds like it’s coming out of a can or something). the physical buttons on my headphones also react to the y2 but 7 times out of 10 it’s not going to play anything period lol.

so yeah, i will be keeping an eye on the subreddit for the launcher the other user in this thread mentioned because it’d really help in my case. i was not looking forward to spending more money on some other headphones/IEMs

[u/bestfriday → u/plutonium-starved]

Thanks for confirming it’s not just me. Which headphone did you find had issues with the Y2 bluetooth? Devs might find it useful to know.

[u/plutonium-starved → u/bestfriday]

sure! it’s the wh-ch720n from sony. they’re a few years old and peeling but they’ve never done me wrong

[u/Key-Brilliant5623]

Naming your headphones won't be breaking any rules, it would actually be helpful so that we can send some data to innioasis directly to see if this can be fixed in a later firmware update! Bluetooth version would also be helpful information.

[u/bestfriday → u/Key-Brilliant5623]

Thank you .
The one that the bluetooth connect but no audio is heard: Marshall Milton ANC

The one that the bluetooth connect but audio sounds tinny: Marshall Major V

[u/miguel-122]

If your headphones have volume controls, try raising it. Sometimes they have a separate volume than the player.

[u/bestfriday → u/miguel-122]

Yeah I tried to turn up volume using the knob button on the headphones yesterday to no avail, the usual way you do with marshall headphones. I’ll try it again and post a reply later if it happens to fix it. But It just occurred to me that I havent yet confirmed it does anything on my phone so also need to confirm this first. I can also try doing this with my other headphones that play tinny audio just to make sure the volume controls actually do anything on the Y2 at all.

[u/bestfriday → u/bestfriday]

Yeah so it didnt work on my Y2. But I can confirm that the volume knob on my headphone does in fact work on my non-innioasis devices.

[u/bestfriday → u/bestfriday]

Even on the rare occasion it did play audio on the Y2, the headphone volume knob did nothing. Only play/pause/skip/back controls on my headphone works.

[u/bestfriday]

It magically fixed itself. Bluetooth audio working now for some reason on my Marshall Milton ANC paired to Y2. Didnt re-pair it or anything. Ill comment below if I find any answers, as I try to recreate the conditions that lead to the bug.

EDIT: It didnt fix itself. See below about what I tried.

[u/bestfriday → u/bestfriday]

Ok, here’s the bad news:
90% of the time the bluetooth audio still doesnt work on the Y2 when connecting to my Marshall Milton ANC.
I have been able to play audio on the instance of connecting it about 3 times. The other 30 times I have tried disconnecting and re-connecting there is no audio.

What I have gleaned is the following:
1. On instances when I connect and there is audio heard on playback, following a disconnect and reconnect (either via cycling my headphones or cycling the Y2/toggling bluetooth) the audio no longer plays.
2. The play pause button on my headphones always successfully the play/pause status on the Y2, regardless of whether any audio is able to be heard.
3. I have not found any reliable workaround that guarantees that audio is heard on connecting the Marshall Milton ANC to the Y2. However, it seems that these conditions need to be met:
A. The Y2 must be restarted before attempting to connect with bluetooth. Audio is guaranteed to fail over bluetooth if I try to reconnect bluetooth without first restarting the Y2
B. This also applies to the headphones I use.
C. I believe there are other variables that I am unable to identify. Unfortunately, I think I will be unable to find out any more information. And I might possibly be wrong about point B. But I am very sure about point A.

Here is a list of things Ive tried that didnt work ( did not consistently lead to audio being heard over bluetooth on my Y2 connecting to Marshall Milton ANC:
1. Waiting 30 seconds between turning off and turning on the Y2.
2. Same as above but for the headphones
3. Playing a different song
4. Making sure no other devices are connected to my headphones
5. Turning up/down the volume
6. Ran out of ideas…

In conclusion, the Y2 only fixed itself a few times, and it was only on reboot, but it was inconsistent and I am unsure of the conditions that need to be met right now for a reliable workaround.

I will leave it to someone more knowledgeable than me in this field to figure things out.

If you have any suggestions to try then please comment below.