[FIIO BT11] Portable High-Res Bluetooth Transmitter Is Officially Released!

[ramenguy]

The first step in adapting BT11 is to prioritize the adaptation of our own FIIO products【like BTR3/BTR3K/BTR13/BTR7/BTR15/BTR5/BTR15 etc.】.

The next step is the feedback from everyone

It will take some time to solve these problems, but please believe that we will solve them, please don't worry, give us some time!

@FiiO Willson and @FiiO
I think the main feature that should be implemented now is to have the app
1. Control and lock the bitrate of LDAC (990,660 etc)
2. Lock and force to handshake only with APTX-Lossless (currently, from my test, the handshake always goes to APTX-adaptive)
3. List and show all paired devices (lowest priority on to do list)

I read some comments on Reddit that customers that are getting BT11 because it advertised it as a "APTX Lossless" dongle
Most of the dongles available on the market now is APTX-Adaptive only, BT11 stands out because it can do APTX Lossless.
For me, the main selling point is having LDAC, if it can be locked at 990kbps, that would be the best.
However, if BT11 is not capable of doing APTX Lossless, then you should stop marketing that feature to customers.
As from my test, BT11 was not able to establish APTX Lossless with my NureTrue Pro, only APTX Adaptive.
(see my earlier screenshot)

 

[ricthaman]

I believe Aptx lossless is part of the Aptx adaptive codec. See this article by Darko.audio for more on this topic (2nd half of the article).

 

[ramenguy]

I believe Aptx lossless is part of the Aptx adaptive codec. See this article by Darko.audio for more on this topic (2nd half of the article).

I understand this. Same thing as LDAC.
In this article:
"I was also told that “aptX Adaptive has five quality levels: L1 (284kbps) -> L5 (620kbps)” and “aptX Lossless has five quality levels: L1 (242kbps) -> L5 (around 1Mbps)”. This could explain why I hear the soundstage on the Bose and Denon momentarily collapse to sound muffled in the top-end when on a busy street or at the airport. Assuming their presence in the connected headphones, a smartphone supporting aptX Adaptive and/or aptX Lossless will dynamically scale the bitrate according to environmental conditions, just like Sony’s LDAC. This scaling prevents playback interruptions."

Unless there is an option in the app users can "lock" into a mode, these protocols will just switch to whatever is most stable.

If you use Alternative A2DP Drive in Windows, you can see LDAC constantly jumps around between 330 to 990kbps unless you lock it in at 990kbps. BUT, when you lock it into the highest bitrate, you will hear dropouts if the reception signal is less than optimal.

Probably the same as APTX-Adaptive/Lossless. Right now, there is no way we can control it, but it would be nice if there is a choice for the end-user, stability vs sound quality.

Again, it is all about the product they are marketing. For their advantage, they should have a Lossless only mode, to differentiate them from other Adaptive products such as Ugreen USB dongle, which is a lot cheaper.
https://a.co/d/drHCUOX

I already had an Aptx-Adaptive dongle from Nura a while ago, and I am satisfied with the sound quality combined with the NuraTure Pro. I am getting BT11 mostly for LDAC.
I was excited to check BT11 out and hoping I was about to get aptx-lossless, but that was not the case (see screenshot)
HQ 96k means it is at L5 under the adaptive protocol, not lossless.

 

[helmutcheese]

Ignore:

 

[helmutcheese]

I agree.

If you have an external DAC for example, you can adjust your computer volume and the volume of the DAC. This is not out of the norm.
It is nice if they have volume buttons on the BT11 to control the Bluetooth volume but from my experience, it is quite common to have a separate volume control on the signal source.

They do not need a physical volume button on the BT11 it can be done via a slider in the App like they probably do have (same as the Creative dongles) but they should offer A2DP BT controls as an option.

 

[dougms3]

Wasted about 2 hours trying to set this up.

I plugged it into my pc, phone, dap, tv, laptop, won't pair with anything.

Sending this right back...

 

[helmutcheese]

Sounds like the BTA30 PRO all over again.

 

[XTF1]

they should offer A2DP BT controls as an option.

I thought the connection between the BT11 and the phone (App) was not BT audio (the audio is USB audio)… How could they offer A2DP BT controls then?
Or do I have it all wrong?

 

[dougms3]

I'm really surprised that fiio would release a product like this.

Its not near ready for market. Needs to go through alot more development to weed out all of the bugs and issues.

 

[helmutcheese]

I thought the connection between the BT11 and the phone (App) was not BT audio (the audio is USB audio)… How could they offer A2DP BT controls then?
Or do I have it all wrong?

It is USB Audio but how do the earbuds connect to the dongle (BT) and it can have AD2P support as all my Creative Dongles do and the AKG earbuds I had a few weeks ago added it to their WIFI dongle also.

The Intel WIFI/BT M2 cards in many laptops/PC uses the USB 2.0 bus for the BT side that is why when you buy an after market one that is on a PCI card you need to plug in the little lead to a USB 2.0 header or you only get WIFI with no BT and you can control your music via your ear/headphones connected that way can you not.

 

[rlw6534]

I thought the connection between the BT11 and the phone (App) was not BT audio (the audio is USB audio)… How could they offer A2DP BT controls then?
Or do I have it all wrong?

Agreed. It's very confusing... It appears that you have to pair over bluetooth to configure the BT11, unlike the Creative dongles which are configured through USB. Then you have to pair it to the receiving device to transmit audio.

 

[JamesFiiO]

Sorry to bring you some bad experience. The original idea of BT11 was to design a HIFI Bluetooth transmitter for iPhone that supports SBC/AAC. Due to iPhone control, MFI certification is required to communicate and set up BT11 through the TYPE C port. The MFI certification process is long, expensive, and has many strict requirements besides technology. Therefore, we can only design to control BT11 through BLE's Bluetooth connection. In addition, BT11 has actually undergone a round of public beta testing, and has undergone many improvements and has been recognized by public beta users before we made the Offer For Sale. The main problem now is that you are not familiar with some operations. We will share the relevant operation videos and instructions with you as soon as possible.

 

[XTF1]

Sorry to bring you some bad experience. The original idea of BT11 was to design a HIFI Bluetooth transmitter for iPhone that supports SBC/AAC. Due to iPhone control, MFI certification is required to communicate and set up BT11 through the TYPE C port. The MFI certification process is long, expensive, and has many strict requirements besides technology. Therefore, we can only design to control BT11 through BLE's Bluetooth connection. In addition, BT11 has actually undergone a round of public beta testing, and has undergone many improvements and has been recognized by public beta users before we made the Offer For Sale. The main problem now is that you are not familiar with some operations. We will share the relevant operation videos and instructions with you as soon as possible.

For the cases where the BLE control (FiiO Control) doesn’t work, why not proposing an alternate control/configuration option through USB and a Webapp—similar to the BTR13? That would allow configuring the BT11 from a PC or Mac.
Not the same chip as the BTR13, but they are from the same Qualcomm family…

And if I keep dreaming… adding PEQ features (again, like the BTR13) would be great for my iPhone: an LDAC/AptX BT transmitter with the equivalent of a system-wide PEQ !!!

 

[helmutcheese]

Sorry to bring you some bad experience. The original idea of BT11 was to design a HIFI Bluetooth transmitter for iPhone that supports SBC/AAC. Due to iPhone control, MFI certification is required to communicate and set up BT11 through the TYPE C port. The MFI certification process is long, expensive, and has many strict requirements besides technology. Therefore, we can only design to control BT11 through BLE's Bluetooth connection. In addition, BT11 has actually undergone a round of public beta testing, and has undergone many improvements and has been recognized by public beta users before we made the Offer For Sale. The main problem now is that you are not familiar with some operations. We will share the relevant operation videos and instructions with you as soon as possible.

That contradicts what was said when it was first announced and it is also pointless as iPhone's have SBC/AAC by default, it was to give them LDAC.

Now you have upgraded the chipset and added far more so how about you prioritize Android /PC usage now as hinted Apple are not the best to deal with and not open source.

I know fine well how to try and set these up as the BTA30 PRO is the same, you need to pair to your phone via RX mode to change settings to then use it with PC in TX mode over USB Audio in my case.

 

[FiiO Willson]

I'm not sure what you meant by that, but I take a chance and say; Nope... not with the BT11.

When I paired my headset/TWS (PX8 and Pi8) with the BT11 for the first time, the volume was very low with the phone set to 100%.
At first I didn't understand why, but then I adjusted the volume on the headset as well, and I saw that you have to have to adjust the BT11 and headset/TWS individually.
Using the buttons on the headset/TWS does NOT adjust the volume on the phone... that's why. And it's very annoying.

Hello Friend,

I don't think you read what I wrote carefully.

We are using the USB output of the phone, and our hope at first is that the volume coming from the USB side should be appropriate.

Now it seems that this is not the case with a lot of devices, where the volume amplitude of their USB output is not enough and attenuation is done.

What you said about going through the USB of the phone to control the volume of the phone, this is a different set of protocols, we are not doing this at the moment, our initial plan was to control it through the APP, not through the software on the computer side, so we have a big difference from the ones you are talking about

Also, as I said above, we will find a way to boost the volume through technical means, not that we are not responsible for it.

Our BT11, and FIIO device adaptability is very good, this is the basis of our initial listing, more device adaptability, we will also slowly do a good job, you said the other brands, they have been doing it for many years, they have their own set of theories, besides, they are not perfect!

I hope you will tolerate each other, we will continue to update.

EDIT：ADD：

Since the BT11 has been on the market, some users have reflected that its Bluetooth transmitting is less loud than the Bluetooth output of the cell phone. This is actually a different understanding of BT11 and ordinary products.
Ordinary headset and cell phone connection go AVRCP protocol, headset and cell phone is linked to adjust the volume;
The working principle of BT11 is that he plugged into the USB port to give how big the sound, it then 1:1 processing after the output. And in order to use slightly simpler, we prohibit the headset to BT11 volume adjustment.
So, if you find that your headphone sound is low after connecting BT11, you can solve the problem in the following way:
1, turn up the volume of the headset to a suitable volume for your listening through the volume adjustment button of the headset.
2, If the headset still feels small after adjustment, please turn up the USB volume of your cell phone.

In addition, because cell phones have so many features, there are many reasons that affect the volume of the USB output. We have learned that, for example, with the iPhone, there are at least five setting options that affect the output volume of the USB.

Finally, because BT11 uses several new technologies, we will also keep updating the firmware to optimize the performance, for example, in the next version, we will add LE AUDIO and separate aptX Lossless and adaptive completely.

Please be patient and thank you very much for your support!