Audioengine B-Fi Multiroom Music Streamer

Audioengine B-Fi is the best addition that I ever put on my restored 47 year old hi-fi receiver. The sound is hi-fi clean and clear. There was a slight app learning curve to get over in the beginning, and I wish the app could save internet radio stations (Youtube), but the incredible sonic tonality renditions through my stereo receiver are amazing to witness. I’m not just listening anymore. I’m feeling the performers talent at their best delivery, and through a medium of streaming that best unlocks the full potential of well designed electronic gear. Many thanks to Audioengine for this wonderful B-Fi product. I hope it lasts me many years of joyful use along with my vintage stereo. I’m even thinking of pairing another one to a 47 year old amplifier I’m now ... MoreAudioengine B-Fi is the best addition that I ever put on my restored 47 year old hi-fi receiver. The sound is hi-fi clean and clear. There was a slight app learning curve to get over in the beginning, and I wish the app could save internet radio stations (Youtube), but the incredible sonic tonality renditions through my stereo receiver are amazing to witness. I’m not just listening anymore. I’m feeling the performers talent at their best delivery, and through a medium of streaming that best unlocks the full potential of well designed electronic gear. Many thanks to Audioengine for this wonderful B-Fi product. I hope it lasts me many years of joyful use along with my vintage stereo. I’m even thinking of pairing another one to a 47 year old amplifier I’m now restoring. Having two of these paired up would be a home run. Thanks Audioengine for a great streamer! It’s a very fine hi-fi product. The music has breath — so real!

I think Audioengine hit the sweet spot between price and performance with the B-Fi streamer. I wanted to upgrade from bluetooth and right now you can either buy the cheaper wifi streamers that only have analog out (and cheap built-in DACs) or spend a lot more for units that have a digital out. The B-Fi is much more moderately priced than other higher-end streamers but still uses a high quality DAC for analog ouptut or toslink if you want to pass a digital signal to your source. Compared to the more expensive streamers you are giving up a built-in screen or readout but this is readily handled by the app if you need info on what is being played. You are also gaining a lot back in real estate because the B-Fi has a small form factor and can be placed almost anywhere. ... MoreI think Audioengine hit the sweet spot between price and performance with the B-Fi streamer. I wanted to upgrade from bluetooth and right now you can either buy the cheaper wifi streamers that only have analog out (and cheap built-in DACs) or spend a lot more for units that have a digital out. The B-Fi is much more moderately priced than other higher-end streamers but still uses a high quality DAC for analog ouptut or toslink if you want to pass a digital signal to your source. Compared to the more expensive streamers you are giving up a built-in screen or readout but this is readily handled by the app if you need info on what is being played. You are also gaining a lot back in real estate because the B-Fi has a small form factor and can be placed almost anywhere. I've been using the unit heavily for over a week now since I'm forced to work from home and am very impressed with it's performance. There are no dropouts or sound quality issues like I had been seeing with my previous bluetooth setup and I am more than satisfied with the great sound using both standard wifi and AIrPlay. The unit runs cool and is built like a tank and is backed by a great warranty so I am looking forward to many years of enjoyable listening!

I purchased this to allow my kids to stream our music library, ripped from CDs and stored on a Synology NAS, to an analog stereo system with an Onkyo receiver. I wanted to use it with iPod Touch devices that the kids use. We have the Synology DS Audio app streaming to two different Bluetooth speakers, and these work great, but I wanted an option to play through our stereo. I'm doing this because I _didn't_ want to use any streaming apps that involve cloud storage; we already have hundreds of losslessly-ripped CDs. This is to replace a feature that iTunes used to offer called Home Sharing in which you could share your entire library to other devices running iTunes on the same network. Apple Later Macs and MacOS versions Apple's Music app will still act as clients to ... MoreI purchased this to allow my kids to stream our music library, ripped from CDs and stored on a Synology NAS, to an analog stereo system with an Onkyo receiver. I wanted to use it with iPod Touch devices that the kids use. We have the Synology DS Audio app streaming to two different Bluetooth speakers, and these work great, but I wanted an option to play through our stereo. I'm doing this because I _didn't_ want to use any streaming apps that involve cloud storage; we already have hundreds of losslessly-ripped CDs. This is to replace a feature that iTunes used to offer called Home Sharing in which you could share your entire library to other devices running iTunes on the same network. Apple Later Macs and MacOS versions Apple's Music app will still act as clients to an older version of iTunes acting as a server, but iTunes is now obsolete and that feature is gone and so we won't be able to use it when my 2008 Mac Pro finally gives out; Apple wants everyone to use their paid cloud services instead. The packaging is quite nice and the unboxing experience is enjoyable. The device feels quite simple and solid. One minor disappointment: I'd have liked to see a replaceable antenna. I'm afraid that younger kids will break that right off and so I've tried to hide the box behind the stereo gear rather than putting it in a visible spot. Things get much less fun when it comes time to use the Audioengine app, which I installed on an iPhone 11 using iOS 15.4.1. I'm sorry to say that the app is quite primitive and hard to use. The dialogs contain typos and grammatical errors. One has to constantly jump back and forth between the app and the Wi-fi control panel. The guidance it gives is not very helpful. Even after failing to configure a device, it will show up in the list of connected devices, and there is no way to delete it or modify it; one has to (confusingly) add a new device. It lacks the common standard user-interface options like being able to slide a list entry to delete it. Renaming the device, actually works, and changes the AirPlay device name that is seen from iOS devices on the same network, but the name change doesn't show up in the app. After a successful firmware upgrade, the app continues to report that a .11 upgrade is available, but attempting to install it fails; it then says it is going to restart the device, but doesn't. Also, when the connection fails, it takes me to a screen telling me to push the reset button on the speaker, and there's a little picture of a reset button. There's just one problem - this device doesn't have such a button. So this is a generic app across other products, and a pretty poor one at that, giving a poor user experience. Fortunately once you get the device configured on the WiFi network, you can ignore the app and use the iOS control center (a bit tricky, swipe down and left from the upper right corner) to select the AirPlay audio destination. I was first trying to connect the Audioengine device to our main network, which is a Netgear mesh system with two satellites, and works great for us with multiple Linux, MacOS, and iOS devices. It is a hybrid 2.4 and 5GHz router, and the Audioengine requires 2.4GHz. It would not connect to the network, despite multiple tries. So, I tried instead to connect it to a T-Mobile network appliance that I use as a backup Internet connection for when our cable XFinity cable modem drops, which is a pretty common occurrence. It connected immediately to the T-Mobile device. I finally figured out, not from any of the company's FAQs or troubleshooting guides which are quite poor but by experimenting, that the device won't connect to the Netgear router if it is configured to use WPA3-Personal authentication. I had to downgrade the security setting to the older WPA2-Personal authentication protocol to get it to work. But, after that, it did connect. One final note: so far the device seems pretty robust against dropouts, but it seems that the way it does this is to maintain a large audio buffer, several seconds of audio. This makes it slightly confusing to use because when hitting stop or changing tracks, there is a delay of several seconds while the buffered audio continues to play before changing. Overall, I'm not returning it, since it works, sounds fine, and I like the fact that it provides a simple function and doesn't require using any cloud services. But vendors should make sure that if their devices require apps, the app provides a good user experience, and this one definitely doesn't.