BerryBak BEA1 Bluetooth Receiver & DAC Review

[staticV3]

Sooooo... how you use it? You connect to it directly from your smartphone by bluetooth and it passes through the loosless bitperfect signal to your DAC by toslink?
You don't need any streamer thanks to this?

Or like I have a USB connection from PC to DAC - i could get rid of the USB cable and stream from PC wirelessly to DAC through BerryBAK BEA1?

You can do Phone/PC->Bluetooth->BEA1->SPDIF->DAC

Note that for true lossless signal transmission, you'll need a phone or Bluetooth transmitter with aptX Lossless support.

LDAC is still lossy.

 

[phoenixsong]

Sooooo... how you use it? You connect to it directly from your smartphone by bluetooth and it passes through the loosless bitperfect signal to your DAC by toslink?
You don't need any streamer thanks to this?

Or like I have a USB connection from PC to DAC - i could get rid of the USB cable and stream from PC wirelessly to DAC through BerryBAK BEA1?

If you have anything that isn't already wireless with a Toslink input you're good to go

Edit: Nvm @staticV3 already commented HAHA

 

[SlowJim]

Wonder how it would perform with usb input and optical out - presumably the same as LDAC + optical?

 

[Fleuch]

Without overshadowing Berrybak, the Fiio BR13 is a little more expensive but much more complete and has a PEQ via BT and is equipped with an ESS ESS9018K2M chip + TPA1882 chip

The Fiio BR13 is at a comparable price on AliExpress.

Can anyone recommend a box, which is a Bluetooth transmitter or transmitter/receiver, to stream to Wireless headphones or similar? The Fiio BTA30 has a reputation for dropping out at low volume or low input signal levels, so something similar but technically more reliable.

 

[Billy Budapest]

I’m a little confused by this discussion. As far as I know, iPhones only support SBC and AAC when it comes to Bluetooth audio codecs. They don’t do LDAC (or aptX, for that matter). So if we’re talking about measuring LDAC performance, that can’t be on an iPhone—it has to be on an Android device. Unless I’ve missed something major, that’s always been the case.

You can add LDAC support to iPhones with this:

Finally, hi-res Bluetooth on your iPhone: this cheap, tiny dongle adds aptX Adaptive and LDAC to any USB-C device

From FiiO, our favorite budget audiophile brand

www.techradar.com

 

[daniboun]

Can anyone recommend a box, which is a Bluetooth transmitter or transmitter/receiver, to stream to Wireless headphones or similar? The Fiio BTA30 has a reputation for dropping out at low volume or low input signal levels, so something similar but technically more reliable.

OMNITRONIC BDT-5.2PRO Aptx HD Bluetooth Transceiver : Amazon.com.be: Instruments de musique

OMNITRONIC BDT-5.2PRO Aptx HD Bluetooth Transceiver : Amazon.com.be: Instruments de musique

www.amazon.com.be

 

[VintageFlanker]

Many thanks, @amirm

Always impressed by the LDAC performance. However, it seems that its limitations really appear with THD+N Vs Frequency (while extremely good at 1kHz). Could you run a sweep, if you still have it on hands ?

The rest remains very similar shape to what we measured before (BT in/Dig Out) :

Also, aptX HD, FWIW :

See also this BT deep dive from @Rja4000 :

R

'Fiio BTA30 Pro Bluetooth Transmitter and Receiver + DAC - Review'

Nov 6, 2022

Hello

Here is a review of a special device:

This device is a Bluetooth Audio Transmitter, Receiver and DAC.

This is the Fiio BTA30 Pro.

The BTA30 Pro is about half the dimension of the (1U / half 19") RME ADI-2 Pro fs R in all directions:
Half width, half height (without the antenna), half depth.

There is a switch to select mode:
RX (Bluetooth receiver), TX (BT transmitter) or DAC.
There is also an input selector, for TX or DAC mode, and a BT Codec selector (TX mode). The LED has a different color according to active Codec.

It supports...

• Rja4000
• Replies: 38
• Forum: Digital To Analog (DAC) Reviews and Discussion

• 

 

[Multicore]

This is pretty bad results especially since it also clips (severely) above 1.4 volt (max is like 2.4 volts)

So you need to digitally attenuate signals to about -4.7 dBFS peak to avoid clipping? I'd call the design a failure on that basis.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

So the take away is that it's a great little $49 LDAC streamer through its spdif output, with a whole lot of other stuff thrown in that it doesn't really do all that well. If anyone has something like an old, unused Khadas Tone Board or a Topping D-10, this might be the perfect way to convert it into a streaming receiver for around $150.

Thanks for the review, Amir.

 

[shuppatsu]

The AAC on iphone is massively more distorted the way it has spread the spectrum. You cannot compare THD+N ratings for lossy codecs except in gross levels. You need to look at the spectrum or be a trained listener to know what to listen for. There is no question that LDAC is superior to AAC on iPhone.

I agree, I think he was just going by SINAD which has both the problem you identified (ugly distortion not on harmonic intervals) and the problem I identified (results muddled by running through an amp with its own significant distortion). But by that token the AAC spectrum on Android devices looks far, far worse than it does on the iPhone 11 and 14.

I’m a little confused by this discussion. As far as I know, iPhones only support SBC and AAC when it comes to Bluetooth audio codecs. They don’t do LDAC (or aptX, for that matter). So if we’re talking about measuring LDAC performance, that can’t be on an iPhone—it has to be on an Android device. Unless I’ve missed something major, that’s always been the case.

For me, LDAC vs iPhone AAC is an important comparison because iPhone doesn’t support LDAC. LDAC is best-of-breed, and therefore best-of-breed for Android. But it’s worth having an accurate assessment of just what you’re giving up by being in the Apple ecosystem, and it doesn’t look like AAC measurements from Android phones gets you there. Unfortunately there’s issues with how Arch did his tests so I’d love Amir to be able to do them.

It’s not even clear from Amir’s data if AAC is the best codec for iPhone. Amir says he prefers SBC. But again I think this is really only within an Android context.

 

[GD Fan]

Personally I avoid devices that do one thing well and suck at all the others so everyone has to remember which one is the sole use case. No thanks. Hard pass.

 

[TNT]

How may people would know that though and end up using the analogue out,

Why wouldn't they - it's advertised as a DAC and I assume, will be used by a DAC. Out of a FDAC comes analog signal - its in the "name" Only half experts would understand and use it as a bridge. New "we" know, but 95% of all buyers will not.

//

 

[amirm]

Wonder how it would perform with usb input and optical out - presumably the same as LDAC + optical?

I already showed that in the review:

It is actually worse than LDAC as it defaults to 16 bit output, regardless of the fact that the input was 24 bits. It has also changed the sample rate from 44.1 to 48 kHz.

With LDAC, it must have special code that makes it run at 24 bits/96 kHz.

 

[amirm]

Could you run a sweep, if you still have it on hands ?

I have it packed already. Alas, it is hard to do a sweep with wireless devices the AP can't control. I could run an "acoustic measurement" but it is a bit of a hassle. I did run it in the Topping BC3 review though: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...c3-review-bluetooth-receiver-bt-codecs.23740/

 

[amirm]

So you need to digitally attenuate signals to about -4.7 dBFS peak to avoid clipping? I'd call the design a failure on that basis.

Good point. And I did that with the help of my analyzer. Without it, you wouldn't know that easily that it is clipping in the DAC section.

 

[amirm]

I forget who pointed out that LDAC to RCA graph was duplicate of USB to RCA. I fixed it in the review. It is essentially the same results.

 

[Guerilla]

Why don't you test with the newer aptx formats @amirm

 

[amirm]

Why don't you test with the newer aptx formats @amirm

Because they are either not supported in the device, my phone or both.

 

[JSmith]

I’m a little confused by this discussion. As far as I know, iPhones only support SBC and AAC when it comes to Bluetooth audio codecs. They don’t do LDAC (or aptX, for that matter). So if we’re talking about measuring LDAC performance, that can’t be on an iPhone—it has to be on an Android device. Unless I’ve missed something major, that’s always been the case.

As can be seen in the images you quoted, one is an Android 10 phone using LDAC, the other is an iPhone 14 Pro using AAC. iPhones also won't do ALAC via BT.


JSmith

 

[CedarX]

Some additional technical information here: https://store.sure-electronics.com/product/796.
The DAC chip is an ES9018K2M and the BT receiver is a fairly high-end QCC5171. It should support 10xPEQ if one has access to the right Qualcomm tools (or the third-party HYT_TOOLS_QCC_EQ apk?). I suspects the QCC5171 is also used as USB bridge, which may explain—not excuse—the poor USB DAC performances: as seen in the Qudelix 5K review (the 5K uses an older but similar QCC5124), implementing these Qualcomm chips for high-performance USB audio appears non-trivial...

Sure-Electronics (aka Wondom, BRU, BerryBak…) seems to be based in China with a claimed move to Malaysia in 2019. They seem to be a serious company, their website has a comprehensive support section, the BEA1 webpage shows the FCC and CE certificates. I hope they take notice of the performance issues and address them...

EDIT: just noticed that the version tested by Amir is "upside down" as compared to the one shown at Sure-Electronics. I think the end-plates marking is the only difference...