Review on FiiO BTA30: Advanced Wireless Bluetooth 5.0 Long Range 🔊 Transmitter Receiver for PC/TV/Speaker/Headphone with HiFi Dac/DSP and Streamlined APP Control by Brian Campbell

I bought this FiiO to work with my Mac Pro 5.1/4.1 via USB/optical so I could use my Sony WH-1000XM3 headphones and my attached Anthony Gallo Micro speakers can be heard connected to a Velodyne Microvee subwoofer. My audio source is either my own lossless copies of my own CD collection stored in iTunes or Revain HD/Ultra streams. PHYSICAL FACILITIES. The device is easy to set up, but no documentation is supplied (but can easily be downloaded from the Internet). The physical body is made of glossy plastic that looks nice from a distance but feels a little light and cheap in the hand for a $100 device. The volume control is smooth, has a moderate resistance and is quite comfortable in the hand. However, the entire device moves when you try to change the volume or flip the switch because the entire device is so small and light. You can set the unit to (1) transmit wirelessly, (2) receive wirelessly, or (3) operate as a wired (via USB, optical, or coaxial) DAC using the front panel switch in the center of the unit . The tiny switch that slides horizontally between the three modes feels nice, but it's vague when trying to select the B/T gear position in the middle, requiring me to double-check to make sure it's the correct mode is selected. Apart from these ergonomic aspects, the device is usually nice to look at next to a desktop computer. PAIRING A W/T HEADSET. Pairing the headset is relatively easy by pressing and holding the "PAIR" button for 3 seconds. The device sends/transmits in SBC, aptX and LDAC. If you turn on your device and headset at about the same time after pairing, they will pair automatically and correctly 4 out of 5 times. However, sometimes the device just won't pair, requiring you to manually press the pairing button to reconnect. Also, the device doesn't always pair with the same codecs. Like most people, I bought this unit primarily for its LDAC capability. Despite the XM3's ability to connect to aptX HD (amber light) and LDAC (white light), it doesn't always connect to the best codec. Most of the time I can turn on the XM3 and automatically connect via LDAC, but sometimes it defaults to SBC (blue light). There doesn't seem to be an option to manually select a codec. There is no obvious reason or order. When connecting to the SBC, multiple resets and restarts of the headset and device are required to re-establish the LDAC connection. This is a little frustrating as it only happens once or twice a week and I use this setting almost every day. However, using the USB/DAC connection does not cause any problems. FOR MAC USERS. By default, the device is set to 24-bit at 48 kHz every time it boots up or wakes up from sleep. I can manually change the output setting to 24-bit at 96kHz via the audio MIDI setting, but couldn't get the device to output higher settings over the optical connection. However, via USB I can get up to 192kHz on an old Mac Pro and 384kHz on a Macbook M1. AUDIO QUALITY: The sound quality coming through the device via LDAC on my Sony XM3 is clear with decent depth and fidelity. . However, this is no exception as I was hoping for the LDAC transmitter. The vocals are clean if a bit flat. Highly clear, but not seamless. The soundstage is present but not wide. When I listened to the XM3s with the SBC codec because I couldn't connect them to the LDAC, the sound quality didn't degrade noticeably. In fact, it sounds pretty much comparable to my ears. Sometimes I wonder if the LDAC codec was actually used. Compared to another aptX HD BT transmitter I use, this one has more headroom and sounds more spacious, with a much more pronounced difference between SBC codecs and aptX HD codecs. Could it be that the inclusion of a volume control in the device has resulted in some degradation in sound quality (you can control the output volume on the USB-DAC as well as in the wireless settings)? This might be an extra feature that most people don't really need since it's not a headphone amp and all wireless headsets have volume controls. On USB via Anthony Gallo speakers, the sound gets wider, with more depth and stage. In both cases, the audio signature is the same in DAC and LDAC mode. RANGE: I can consistently get a range of 35 to 55 feet (almost 2 full rooms) before the signal goes out in my 2 story house. It's not as far as the BT 5.0 specification promises. However, due to the high data rate used to transmit LDAC, it is difficult to maintain a good connection through walls in a typical home. Large selection. While the sound quality over the USB/optical connection is pretty amazing for a $100 DAC, there's a lot of room for improvement on the wireless side.