Pros & Cons
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- High quality, up-sampled 24-bit audio output.
- Uninterrupted, stutter-free audio stream.
- Easy setup.
- Compact design.
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- Expensive.
Audioengine B1 Bluetooth Music Receiver Specs
| Product Price Type | Direct |
Audioengine's B1 Bluetooth Music Receiver is the affordable, simple wireless home audio solution we've been waiting for. When Apple's AirPlay debuted, with its relatively high-fidelity wireless audio, it was exciting. Bluetooth, which lagged behind in sound quality, eventually caught up and arguably surpassed AirPlay, which would sometimes stutter from network hiccups. Bluetooth, not needing any extra hardware (like a router), is far less likely to stutter, so the final piece of the home audio puzzle is a Bluetooth receiver for high-end musical tastes.
The $189 Audioengine B1 is the Bluetooth equivalent of the Apple AirPort Express: It's an adapter designed solely for music snobs, with high-fidelity output, that plugs directly into your stereo system. It lets you stream audio wirelessly from your mobile device or Bluetooth-equipped computer with pristine sound quality. The B1 is a joy to use, and easily earns our Editors' Choice award.
Design
The miniscule aluminum B1 measures 1 by 3.5 by 4 inches (HWD), with a front panel that has a small, adjustable antenna and a white, backlit Pairing/Status button. The back panel houses the connectors: an RCA stereo output for your receiver or powered speakers (an RCA cable is included), a 24-bit digital optical output, and a micro USB port for power through the included cable and wall adapter.Internally, the B1's 24-bit upsampling DAC (digital-to-analog converter) means you'll be getting a high-fidelity audio signal. This doesn't mean much if your files are low-quality to begin with, but the DAC ensures that the B1 will only improve or maintain your sound quality and never degrade it. This is definitely not the case with many wireless audio options, and is one of the most important aspects of the B1.
Pairing the B1 with an iPhone 5s for my tests took a matter of seconds. The B1 supports the aptX codec and both the A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth profiles. The receiver ships with a small drawstring carrying pouch in addition to the USB cable and wall adapter, should you need it on your next work trip or vacation.
Performance
It's ideal to have the receiver within 25 feet or so of the sound source, with fewer walls and doors involved, but the B1 showed strong performance beyond that. With my iPhone in a room nearly 30 feet away, the B1 pulled a steady stream through two closed doors without a hint of interruption or interference. This was a silly experiment to try to get the B1 to fail, but it never did. Because it wasn't sharing a router with the computers in my test space, the B1 didn't run into the same stuttering issues that often arise with AirPlay in the same setting.I listened to almost all of John Adams' "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," an opera that should have given the system enough time to fail or stutter. It played the entire piece without issue. Switching between pausing and playing rapidly on the iPhone also yielded near-instantaneous results, and never forced the stream into crashing, as sometimes occurs with AirPlay. So, for streaming endurance, the B1 gets high marks. But how does it sound?
Well, the B1 allowed the full range of the excellent recording to shine through, and the opera sounded dynamic and amazing. I never heard any artifacts or added noise, even during quiet passages at high volumes. Tracks with tremendous sub-bass content, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," are delivered with their full, booming bass potential intact, with no thinness or distortion. The higher frequencies are delivered clearly and beautifully on Bill Callahan's "Drover," with his vocals, the guitar strumming, and the percussion all coming through with excellent clarity. It doesn't show any hint of degraded signal or the awful high-frequency fidelity issues Bluetooth had years ago. This is a high-quality stream, and probably the best argument for cutting the cables out of your sound system that I've heard yet.
Wireless audio has improved by leaps and bounds in the short space of a few years, and the Audioengine B1 Premium Bluetooth Music Receiver is possibly my favorite device to come out of this high-fidelity revolution thus far. It solves the problem of shaky wireless home audio streaming, and it never degrades (and often improves) audio quality. Improvement in Bluetooth technology is the real hero here, but Audioengine takes it a step further and adds a top-notch DAC, which results in a top notch audio accessory worthy of our Editors' Choice designation. While it's expensive compared with the Apple AirPort Express, it does exactly the job it's supposed to do, with solid, reliable results.