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Audioengine B-Fi Review (Streamer)

Paolo

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…Shame about the price of this device in comparison, and the reviews are not looking good, but this is a niche that should be filled.

Did you find any review with measurements?
All I've seen are tech reviewers and copy/paste of the press release.
 

infinitesymphony

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Did you find any review with measurements?
All I've seen are tech reviewers and copy/paste of the press release.
Seems like Belkin sent freebies to all of the Apple news sites. We probably won't see analog or digital measurements until someone sends one in for review or takes them on their own.
 

pseudoid

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... SBC is better and LDAC is the best but still, they produce content specific distortions that just can't be characterized broadly.
I must have about 6 different (v4/v5) BT capable devices (not including smartphones). I am yet to try any of these devices because it seems like extolling the virtues of the pig's lipstick color. But I had to look up "SBC" in wikipedia:
SBC, or low-complexity subband codec, is an audio subband codec ...It was designed with Bluetooth bandwidth limitations and processing power in mind to obtain a reasonably good audio quality at medium bit rates with low computational complexity... SBC supports mono and stereo streams, and certain sampling frequencies up to 48 kHz. Maximum bitrate required to be supported by decoders is 320 kbit/s for mono and 512 kbit/s for stereo streams. It uses 4 or 8 subbands, an adaptive bit allocation algorithm in combination with an adaptive block PCM quantizer.
I think darker gray lipstick would look more complimentary to pink.
 

Chazz6

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I have a B-Fi in the signal path. I also have a JDS Lab Atom DAC, so I can have it receive Toslink from the B-Fi and send line output into the amplifier, or I can use the B-Fi line output directly. The JDS DAC sounds slightly better to me.

That leaves Amir's report about the digital signal going through the B-Fi. I mostly feed 16 bit / 44 KHz to the B-Fi. All I can say is that I like the sound my system produces.

Is there a device of comparable function, that is, receives wi-fi and outputs digital, which provides noticeably better quality sound -- within twice the price of the B-Fi?
 

Hexus

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Is there a device of comparable function, that is, receives wi-fi and outputs digital, which provides noticeably better quality sound -- within twice the price of the B-Fi?

Raspberry PI + s/pdif hat? Near $100 total. Additionally it can act like a streamer.
 

Chazz6

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Raspberry PI + s/pdif hat? Near $100 total. Additionally it can act like a streamer.

I appreciate the suggestion, but do a search on raspberry pi wifi bubbleupnp and you quickly see that it would take a lot if time to learn, set up, and then keep running a solution like this.
 

Ralph_Cramden

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I have a B-Fi in the signal path. I also have a JDS Lab Atom DAC, so I can have it receive Toslink from the B-Fi and send line output into the amplifier, or I can use the B-Fi line output directly. The JDS DAC sounds slightly better to me.

That leaves Amir's report about the digital signal going through the B-Fi. I mostly feed 16 bit / 44 KHz to the B-Fi. All I can say is that I like the sound my system produces.

Is there a device of comparable function, that is, receives wi-fi and outputs digital, which provides noticeably better quality sound -- within twice the price of the B-Fi?
https://polyvection.com/en/product/digi32/

HCOPY9.png
 

MarkS

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I am using this B-Fi with analog out to stream Apple Music from my laptop or iphone. This was the streaming solution suggested to me by ASR members. It sounds perfectly fine to me. I don't care about artifacts that are 80dB down, that's plenty close enough to perfection for me.
 

jhaider

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Is there a device of comparable function, that is, receives wi-fi and outputs digital, which provides noticeably better quality sound -- within twice the price of the B-Fi?

Apple’s discontinued but widely available AirPort Express will give you better AirPlay over wifi or cat6, and Toslink+analog outputs.
 

blueone

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I am using this B-Fi with analog out to stream Apple Music from my laptop or iphone. This was the streaming solution suggested to me by ASR members. It sounds perfectly fine to me. I don't care about artifacts that are 80dB down, that's plenty close enough to perfection for me.

After considerable thought, and looking around at alternatives for Airplay with a digital output, I have to agree. When I got the B-Fi (I got one of the first units available) my first thought was send it to Amir to measure it, since it is so small shipping is nearly trivial. But since I was using only the digital output I thought it was probably a waste of time; I didn't think any vendor would screw up a digital conversion. W-R-O-N-G. Nothing else I can find that is available is worth the additional cost or inconvenience for most likely an inaudible benefit, so it stays. But I'm keeping my eye on the market, and the replacement goes to Amir first, if he hasn't tested it yet.
 
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pseudoid

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...I didn't think any vendor screw would up a digital conversion...
That's funny even if not intentional. Like 'Bass Ackwards'...
 

Hexus

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I appreciate the suggestion, but do a search on raspberry pi wifi bubbleupnp and you quickly see that it would take a lot if time to learn, set up, and then keep running a solution like this.

Actually I do have two such setups at home and one in a car. Last one took me about 2 hours to setup using available components and this image which is very user friendly and have good sound. I use Tidal Connect to stream.

Only reason why I'm looking for different option it that car setup requires shutdown to save car battery and booting every time during car startup is not very convinient.
 

sarumbear

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Apple’s discontinued but widely available AirPort Express will give you better AirPlay over wifi or cat6, and Toslink+analog outputs.
Are there any measurement of AirPort Express? Also, we haven’t yet seen the measurements of the new. Belkin device.
 
OP
amirm

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Also, we haven’t yet seen the measurements of the new. Belkin device.
Belkin has been kindly sent in by a member for review....
 

sarumbear

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Darwin

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There seems to have been alot of Apple created confusion by failing to give specifics on Airplay's capabilities and resolution. Some claim it maxes out at 16 bit/44.1khz, but others report it is capable of 24bit/48khz, just as the converters in most of Apple's devices max out at 24/48khz and TV OS maxes out at 24bit/48khz. https://darko.audio/2021/06/the-best-way-to-stream-hi-res-audio-from-apple-music/
Huh? Apple provides extensive detail on every aspect of Airplay.
 

Darwin

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You can connect it to your hi-fi system and stream to it using your phone or tablet as a remote. And don't need an ethernet cable. Like Chromecast Audio, but inferior performance. I guess that's all there's to it.

Completely wrong and obviously so. Airplay 2 is far better than Chromecast. Plus Apple doesn't sell you a device so they can track what they do with it.
 

Darwin

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The Belkin is on sale on Amazon.
 
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