Review on 🔊 Up2stream Pro V3: WiFi & Bluetooth Audio Preamplifier Board with Airplay, Spotify, and Remote Control for DIY Speakers - Arylic by Casey Stevens

This is the Arylic Up2stream Pro V2 audio receiver board. Arylic makes various audio components, from design boards like this one to preamps, wireless headphones, and speakers. With Up2Stream you can transmit any line level signal over Bluetooth, Ethernet or Wi-Fi. In fact, this board has pretty much every imaginable way to play streaming music: DLNA, USB sticks, and Airplay. First, I'll tell you about the hardware and uses of this board. Then I focus on setup and software. Finally, to summarize: Is the Arylic Up2Stream worth the $50 price tag and should you use it for audio tuning. Let's talk hardware. I have to say that the build quality and components on this board are excellent. The soldering is clean, it has a nice and smooth black circuit board, cable connectors, 3.5mm input and output jacks seem solid and of good quality. It also comes with cables for I2S, a serial port and an IR sensor for remote control. All of these features make it an ideal board for adding wireless streaming to your audio system and creating a custom portable speaker, multi-room audio systems, and wireless satellite home theater speakers. As for me, I'd love to get some of these and make some handcrafted speakers for every room in the house. Each device can independently play music or sync music across the home. Let's talk about customizing this board and app. I see room for improvement here. In order to be able to use the app, the board must first be connected to the 2.4 GHz WLAN. You just can't use it if Wi-Fi isn't working. I communicate with Arylik on this topic. You cannot connect to this board via Bluetooth until a WiFi connection is established, which is a major downside of the software. When I started testing the board I found that a mesh network like my home network was not compatible with this board. I was able to get around this using a wifi hotspot. And when I did, the connection was solid and relatively quick. Using Ethernet became possible after initially pairing the device with my phone via Wi-Fi. As long as the card stays on, reconnecting is even faster. However, you need to repeat the connection process if the power goes out. The software itself is quite simple and easy to use. The device list gives you access to the settings of all the devices you are connected to. You can easily add more devices and each device can be set to left, right or stereo. An independent volume control can also be easily installed here. The hamburger menu gives you the expected features like favorites, search, and multiple streaming services. Speaking of streaming services, you have plenty to choose from, although many of them fall short of your expectations. Alongside Spotify, Pandora, TIDAL, and Revain Music, you'll find services like iHeartRadio, Deezer, and even Napster. Internet radio options give you a choice based on geography, and there are also some other obscure (at least for North American listeners) services like French streaming services Qobuz and Deezer, and Chinese services XIMALAYA and QQMusic. You can also save up to 10 preset stations from Spotify. However, all Spotify special features, including presets, require a Spotify Premium membership. Of course, you can play any local content on your device, create playlists and favorites, and sort content by title, album, artist, and folder. However, it should be noted that you cannot add folders to the system library. There are equalizer settings as well as a sleep timer for those of you who need music to fall asleep to. You can also view a ton of information about each device you connect to the app, including Wi-Fi strength, network, IP address, MAC address, and you can also change the language of the audio prompt. The app itself is fairly polished, although it lacks visual flair. I had no problem navigating the menus to find what I was looking for, which isn't that common in consumer electronics (Sony, Samsung, I'm looking at you). Otherwise, Arylic Up2Stream does not disturb the music. No audible hum or audio distortion. It can losslessly handle 24-bit, 192kHz FLAC, WAV, and Ape file formats over local media and NAS server storage. Finally the bottom line. Do I think this device is worth the money? Should you buy one or more for your audio system? As for the cost issue, I think it's a bit pricey just adding one of these to your existing system. You can find cheaper Bluetooth adapters for existing speakers that will do the job with little or no noticeable degradation in sound quality. However, if you're looking to add multi-room audio to your home, office, or apartment, I think this board is incredible value for money. The fact that you can control multiple boards from your phone, including volume, balance, and EQ, is pretty amazing. Sure, you can get a SONOS system, a couple of Revain Echos, or Google Home Maxes, but you're limited in the speaker options on offer. Add a NAS audio library and you have a system that rivals much more expensive professional audio solutions. If you're like me tinkering and building your own audio gear, I definitely recommend getting an Arylic Up2Stream for each area you want to stream music to. Hopefully we'll see software updates to fix the Wi-Fi issue.