Arcam Bluetooth Miniblink

I've recently bought this after owning the more expensive Audioengine B1. I loved the Audioengine device too but experienced technical difficulties with it after owning it for a year - perhaps due to me purchasing a used one from Amazon warehouse. So far the Arcam MiniBlink compares very favourably and is £50 cheaper. This device is smaller than the Audioengine and I haven't noticed any drop in sound quality. The bluetooth seems just as reliable as the Audioengine one was too. Sound quality is excellent as you would expect, and enable me to listen to audio stored on my computer via my stereo. Still not cheap, but after a few weeks of owning the Arcam I am pleased with my purchase and would recommend it above the Audioengine B1, mainly due to the fact that it costs approximately £50 less and seems to deliver the same high quality output.

Easy to connect up to the stereo, simple connection via bluetooth, and away you go. I have this connected to my old HiFi components from the 1990s. My HiFi components were expensively assembled back than, Technics with Acoustic Energy AE109 bi-wired speakers. Now with the Blibk unit I have my entire iPod catalogue, 900 audiobooks, 1000 albums, available in high quality, deep, resonant proper sound and not via headphones, I can fill a room with sound, and it sounds amazing. There is a little drop out if you walk between the computer and Blink unit, but with line of sight there are few issues, even the cat sniffing round the Blink unit doesn't affect the quality of sound. The unit is very small, it looks like a highly polished black shiny pebble ofWhitby Jet, it is so simple to use there are just three instructions on the box. What pleases me most is that this unit has given renewed life and vigour to my old stereo components, and the improvement in the quality of the sounds reproduction through the bi-wired speakers iis superb.

This receiver was definitely the best of the three Bluetooth receivers that I have had. The others were the Belkin F8Z492 and the eSinkin Bluetooth adapter which looked exactly like the Logitech unit. All three units suffer from stutter during playback, using IPad, iPod, and iPad and even a Blackberry DTEK60. The Miniblink was the least affected, and I would call it a slight hiccup rather than a stutter. The sound quality from the Miniblink was superb on my Marantz system. it reproduced music with clarity and honesty, giving an almost perfect reproduction of any of the soundtracks I played. UNTIL the hiccup.... its as though it loses a second of the soundtrack and then joins the two bits together? This seemed to occur at roughly 4 - 5 minute intervals. This is highly annoying, and frankly I don't understand why any manufacturer would release a product that does this. Surely it worked in their testing facility, so why have so many people had problems. The Belkin and the eSinkin were tons worse, and lost comms frequently. I have now upgraded to the Audioengine B1 which has so far processed all soundtracks without loss and sounds tremendous. If I was being super picky, then I might say it was a little light on the midrange. In summary, The Miniblink reproduced sound superbly, looks great and would have been a great unit if it were not for the problems. The unit was returned. If any manufacturers read this I would love an explanation as to why they think I and any others were having difficulty. T

I've been looking for a 'streamer' since a friend bought one of those £20 boxes to stream to a stereo. I wasn't prepared to shell out £130+ for something like the Audio Engine, but wanted a little better than basic. Despite it being several years old I went for the halfway house of the Arcam, we all know their reputation and I am so glad I did. You know the feeling you get when you realise you've bought something that just effortlessly works? Well this is it, all the connections you need are in the box, just plug it in, press the button to sync, bingo! One great lack of feature is there is no familiar BEEP-BEEP-BEEP noise while bluetooth is searching which is a massive relief when it's hooked to a stereo! Playing something like Goldfrapp's Supernature, the sound it tight and controlled, the silence is silent, the highs are glassy and the bass is crisp. I'm no perfectionist, but I can't tell it's a bluetooth connection, such is its quality and stability and trickery going on inside this modest bean (I'm using a Fatman w/Q-Acoustics 3010). It's an almost perfect little pebble, the only drawback I can shoot at it is the plastic isn't that tactile or high quality but it sits out of sight and just gets on with things, the 3.5>RCA connector is a little flimsy also. Still, for easy of use and sound quality… 5/5.

Unreliable (occasionally crashes and has to be reset), glitchy (occasional random audio noise - very damaging to both ears and speakers), unusable for video as the audio gets out of sync etc... I tried this product with 5 different Bluetooth transmitters and 4 different PCs/devices but this Arcam product is consistently buggy. The latest firmware (built-in software) is still clearly buggy and has not been fixed (or has been written so badly that they cannot fix it or find all the bugs) - they should have scrapped the firmware and paid someone else to develop a new reliable version. I bought a competitor's product that works great with all my Bluetooth transmitters and PCs/devices.

This item works brilliantly! However, it is expensive (you get what you pay for you could say) although sund is very good, my gripe is with the casing. If this was an Apple item it would feel like a solid piece of kit, probably be made out of anodised aluminium and really look and feel like a quality item. It looks okay but the case scratches far too easily, and because it is light the weight of the cables move it around if nudged - this doesn't affect operation but is undesirable I would say.

Tengo que confesar que era un poco escéptico, leí varias reviews y todas hablaban bien del cacharrito, pero es verdad, suena muy bien. Los flac desde mi pc se oyen con una calidad que es muy difícil distinguirlos de un cd (por lo menos para mí y mi equipo hifi) Muy versátil con otros dispositivos, se empareja con todos. Es aparato es pequeño, está bien construido. La únida pega para mí es el cable, no sé si es bueno o no, pero no lo parece. Yo lo he cambiado por otro. Lo recomiendo para rehabilitar el equipo hifi que nos costó un pastón hace 15 años y estaba cogiendo polvo.

Magnifique petit concentré de technologie, à peine plus gros qu’un galet, capable de transformer sa simple tablette émettant via bluetooth, en un maillon de très haute fidelité, parfaitement en phase avec - dans mon cas - un ampli de puissance et un préampli Quad des années 80, et une paire de colonnes B&W pour enceintes. Je n’ai pas eu la chance de comparer - sur ma même chaîne et dans les mêmes conditions - ce Miniblink d’Arcam au 10 fois plus couteux Hugo2 de Chord, mais je vois mal ce que ce dernier aurait apporté de plus en terme d’équilibre sur toute l’étendue du spectre, de rendu du détail, d’espace et de transparence. Piano seul, trios et quatuors de jazz, musique de chambre, notamment baroque et classique, et chanson à texte sont transmis avec un réalisme et une neutralité tels, qu’il m’est difficile de distinguer un CD de son équivalent mp3 streamé. Cela étant, les éloges et l’enthousiasme de la presse spécialisée sont parfaitement justifiés. En bref, l’un des meilleurs convertisseurs actuels pour mettre sa chaîne à jour sans rien y changer. Et sans doute le choix ultime, compte tenu du rapport qualité / prix dans ses critères de choix.

Extremely good product for budget.

Ricevitore bluetooth di eccellente qualità musicale, con tecnologia aptx e con un convertitore Dac Burr Brown 5102, utilizzato su prodotti arcam di prezzo superiore. Il miniblink non si limita a ricevere un segnale da un altro dispositivo BT ( ad esempio, da uno smartphone ) , cosa cha sanno fare anche dispositivi da 15 euro, ma lo decodifica da digitale ad analogico per poi trasmetterlo a qualsiasi impianto stereo non dotato di BT. Viste le recensioni di autorevoli riviste e delle opinioni di acquirenti e possessori, mi aspettavo buone prestazioni , ma messo alla prova ha fornito una perfomance sonora al di sopra delle mie piu ottimistiche attese. Collegato con un smartphone Samsung BT con aptx e accoppiato con ampli Arcam fmj a19 ha fornito una riproduzione sonora quasi indistinguibile rispetto al mio lettore cd Nad 546bee. Unica pecca: l'ho acquistato su amazon con spedizione del vettore inglese Parcel Force, che ha frainteso il numero del recapito di consegna, per cui ho dovuto sudare le proverbiali sette camice per recuperarlo , recandomi personalmente al magazzino dove era stato momentaneamente depositato . Una vera odissea. In futuro cercherò di comprare prodotti solo con consegna gestita direttamente da Amazon. In Sintesi: eccellente receiver bluetooth dal costo notevole, ma giustificato dalla qualità e prestazioni fornite. D'altronde non credo che a 110 euro esistano dispositivi che possano lontanamente ugugliare la sua grande musicalità.

Vergleich Logitech, Harman, Arcam Zur Ausgangssituation: In meiner Küche stehen 2 Sonos Play 5 und ein Convertible von HP für Filme, Youtube etc. Nach langer Zeit habe ich dann gelesen, dass es BT Adapter gibt, die vernünftig mit Sonos funktionieren und da es mich schon lange total ärgert, dass ich so gute Lautsprecher habe und sie aber mit dem HP nicht wirklich nutzen kann, wollte ich so etwas testen. Zuerst habe ich es mit dem Logitech Adapter (dem Eckigem, ca. 30 Euro) probiert. Angeschlossen an eine Play 5, BT Verbindung schnell hergestellt. Es funktioniert, aber bei diesem, musste ich bei den Sonos Boxen selbst, den Pegel auf die Hälfte zurückdrehen, da ein Lautsprecher ständig total unangenehm surrt. Ob der Adapter defekt war, oder sich das Teil mit Sonos nicht gut verträgt, kann ich leider nicht sagen. An den Kabeln lag es nicht. Der Klang selbst war ganz ok. Vom Lautstärkepegel ging bei dem Adapter nicht viel und jedes Mal wenn ich zB von Netflix auf Youtube bzw. auf eine andere Windows 10 App wechselte kam ein Schnalzen, was auch ziemlich nervig war. Das zweite Gerät, das ich hier hatte, war der BTA 10 von Harman Kardon (ca. 50 Euro). Angeschlossen und schnell verbunden. Dann ein Glücksmoment, das Surren, das beim Logitech so unangenehm war, hatte dieser hier nicht. Der Lautstärkepegel geht generell höher, falls benötigt. Der Sound selbst ist wesentlich besser als beim Logitech und ausser einem leichtem (für mein Empfinden) Grundrauschen ziemlich gut. Allerdings hat der Harman, genau wie der Logitech auch, dieses Schnalzen, wenn ich zwischen Programmen bzw. Apps wechselte. Und dann bekam ich den Adapter hier von Arcam (ca. 110 Euro). Angeschlossen und beim Pairing gleich bemerkt, das dauert wesentlich länger. Übrigens wurde der Adapter als Lautsprecher erkannt, beim Harman als Kopfhörer. Als nächstes habe ich den Pegel der Sonos Lautsprecher voll aufgedreht und ich konnte kein Rauschen oder Surren vernehmen. Also Youtube angemacht und als erstes gleich mal furchtbar geschreckt. Der Lautstärkepegel beim Arcam ist in der Übersetzung viel höher, als bei den anderen, als würde man halt einfach die Play 5 am laufen haben. Den Sound finde ich erstklassig und sehr klar, noch besser wie bei dem Harman. Und das Beste zum Schluss, dieses nervige Schnalzen, beim Wechseln von Apps, hat der Arcam auch nicht. Also für meine Bedürfnisse ist der Arcam perfekt. Es kommt mir fast so vor als würden die Lautsprecher per Kabel am HP hängen. Da zahle ich gerne ein bisschen mehr. Den Vergleich hier mache ich, um Leuten, die vielleicht genau so etwas suchen, bei der Entscheidungshilfe zu helfen.