Review: FiiO BTR3
Let’s be honest, high quality audio and Bluetooth never have been well together. No one wants to have a high-end headphone and feed her up with crappy, compressed files, right?
That’s where the new, powerful Bluetooth codecs come into play. Thanks to the raising of Bluetooth’s bandwidth, it’s finally becoming possible to enjoy pretty good audio quality over Bluetooth… but unfortunately, we don’t have a universal codec, but a large number of different codecs. For example, Sony’s telephones and headphones only uses they proprietary LDAC codec, while other android devices are using aptX, delivered by Qualcomm. FiiO, while making this High-quality Bluetooth receiver, wanted to be as universal as possible: so, they created the first Bluetooth amplifier that supports ALL the existing wireless audio codecs, such as AAC, SBC, aptX/aptX HD/aptx LL, LDAC and LHDC. In this way, you can get the cleaner bitrate transfer that your device can offer, without bothering with compatibility anymore.
Aesthetically pleasing, with nice smooth edges, small rectangular shape, large use of glass and matte-black metal, the only LED indicator is the RGB “FiiO” written in the front. The different colors show which codec you are using at that moment: blue (SBC), cyan (AAC), purple (aptX and aptX-LL), red (charging), yellow (aptX-HD), white (LDAC) or green (LHDC). Battery life, thanks to the large 300mAh battery, is pretty good: i could use it for more than 8 straight hours, and the charging time sits around 90 minutes. One little downside that I noticed is that it tends to become pretty hot (and it of course drains faster) while using the LDAC codec, that is the heaviest codec available. That’s not an issue, since it can still be used for at least six hours even on the heaviest load and, looking at the enormous bitrate of that codec (990 kbps, nearly twice the bitrate of the main rival, the aptxHD), it’s totally worth it. But, of course, you need a compatible device.
While charging, you can still use it as a standalone, driver-less DAC, and it actually worked pretty well. It was a nice upgrade from the on-board DAC-amp of my xps13, but I’m pretty sure that you are not going to use a Bluetooth receiver just as a portable DAC, right?
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Author: Marco ; Review from: Simply Audiophile
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