Belkin SoundForm Connect AirPlay 2 Audio Adapter, Optical & 3.5mm

Great wireless audio - But terrible product description at top. This is for running audio from iPhone or any Apple device through wireless home network to your amplifier and speakers. It replaces old and discontinued Apple airport device perfectly. It is not for Bluetooth. If you don’t know what you are looking for that top product description will not help. I have used Apple airport for years to feed wireless audio from iPhones and computers into my high end stereo amp. This does the same. Perfectly integrated into Apple iPhone software. Note that you need an iPhone running OS18 and higher for setup and Apple devices with recent versions of OSX. Immediately available as audio output on all home Iphones and my Mac computers after simple setup. I ran this against my old Apple Airport to evaluate sound. It is just as good, and the Airport has very good audio resolution — That I tested years ago in detail. Absolutely no problem with device, but I do have a strong wireless signal throughout our house. Presently I am using the analog output. It is good. I may hook up optical output to my DAC and then to amp— but as of now I am fine with audio. I am driving a very good amplifier and high end stereo speakers with this system. Nothing through wireless will satisfy the audiophile snob — which I once was. But it is far superior to a Bluetooth connection. We tried that. Forget it. Use wireless if you can. Seamless connections for all the family. Hope they don’t discontinue this product. I bought it now as insurance against death of my 17 year old Airport, which is still working just fine. But for now, this has replaced it. Good luck. It works !

I bought this a few days before I upgraded my iPhone, HomePods, and Apple TVs to iOS/TvOS 16 and everything worked great *before the update*! It was an easy setup, the Belkin Sourndform app easily corrected my minor audio syncing issue and I was very happy! After iOS 16, the device is showing as “Not Supported” in the Apple Home app. If I jump through the right hoops, I can still get music to play from it, but getting it to work now is very frustrating. I’ll be returning the device unless there’s an update that brings back Apple Home support. Somehow my old Apple AirPort Express is still perfectly doing what this device is supposed to do… Edit: I kept the device in hopes this would be fixed and as of November 1, 2022, this issue has been resolved, likely by Apple’s 16.1 update. I’m changing my review to 5 stars as it works wonderfully now!

I am using this to play music in my bathroom while I shower. It is connected to a SMSL M100 DAC and SMSL A100 amp. In this application it works great! My main complain is with the setup process. It took several attempts for my phone to recognize the device. NFC would not find the device no matter what I did. Once I installed the Belkin Soundconnect app the process was a little smoother, but not without its hiccups. It took the app a couple of tires for it to reconcile my device. Then it took the Apple Home app several attempts for it to recognize the device as well. Belkin really needs to work on the setup process. It's quite buggy at this time. One other minor complaint is lack of track controls on the device. It would be nice if it had play/pause and track controls, or maybe even a remote. I don't think this is asking too much at this price point. I know music can be controlled on the sending device; but, as I said, I use this while I shower and my sending device is in another room. I do not knock the device for this, it does not state in the product information that track controls are a feature. It would just be nice to have them. Several reviewers have complained about low audio output volume. While the 3.55mm jack is not the best I did not have this issue in my setup. I wonder if those who do are using a small speaker or a low-power amp? I am actually connecting my via optical to an external DAC. Though the volume output through this connection is not the highest, it is not that bad. I can get more than enough volume from my system. I highly recommend that anyone who purchases this device use the optical audio output. I do recognize that this is an additional cost if your amplifier does not have it built-in, but it is worth it. The sound quality on this unit is very good, especially through the optical audio using an external DAC. I do release this has more to do with the DAC than the Soundform Connect. However, a poor quality Aiprlay receiver could result in sound quality segregation even via optical. I replaced an aging 3rd gen Apple TV with the SoundForm and it sound at least as good as that old Apple TV, if not slightly better. If you are looking for a simple AirPlay 2 receiver you really don't have a lot of options not he market at this time. The SoundForm Connect is one of the only. It is slightly overpriced, even at $80, but it works well. The setup process is a bit buggy and for that reason I did remove a star from its rating. Perhaps if Belkin can fix that it would receive five stars. Either way, don't hesitate to buy this device if it is what you you are looking for in your system.

I thought that Belkin was a trustworthy brand...my mistake! Setup was a nightmare. After repeating the setup process over and over, it simply would not work (and I'm a technically minded person, too, so it was not beyond my comfort zone). Then, out of the blue, it suddenly starts working. What? Am not sure how that happened, but okay, although the device should work the very first time when following the setup routine. Next, the sound quality from the optical output was great, but the sound quality through the analog output was horrid. It literally sounded like an old AM radio -- completely unacceptable in this day and age. Come on Belkin, stop lining your pockets and spring for a quality DAC/implementation! The reception of the AirPlay "data stream" (for lack of a better term) was also terrible. It would work just fine (for a while), but then the audio would cut out and back in over and over and over. What the hey? My boss would fire me if I only worked when I felt like it! This device needs to ALWAYS work whether or not it likes it...totally unreliable. Finally, Belkin's customer support is abysmal, to put it mildly (don't get me started). Clearly, this entire experience was not what I paid for -- it sums up to a ZERO VALUE proposition. In all seriousness, Belkin should pay me handsomely for emotional pain and suffering given the wasted hours, aggravation, and frustration that their failed product imposed upon my life. This is a radically subpar device with a faulty setup routine, abhorrent DAC/implementation (for the analog output), completely unreliable reception, and abominable customer service. Cannot recommend that anyone purchase this device for any reason whatsoever. Compared to this device, plain old generic Bluetooth (despite being a lossy format) is totally superior. Stay away from the Belkin SoundForm Connect at all costs. Thank goodness for Amazon's return policy!

For me, seamless, easy, set up. I Have two. Use one for a Samsung sound bar with optical input in combination with a bunch of HomePods. The second one I’ve experimented with attaching to a subwoofer and satellite speakers using the 3.5mm option. Also tried with RCA input from 3.5mm to Onkyo receiver with expensive BMW speakers, and a Sunfire sub. In all cases, it’s just great to be able to control and turn on an entire system, while other speakers are playing other content in other rooms, or even in adjacent home on the same network. But note, there are other products ( WiiM Mini AirPlay2 Wireless Audio Streamer, Multiroom Stereo, Preamplifier, Works with Alexa and……). that have very similar price tag with more features, Spotify connect, Alexa, Chromecast, PC… And better Audi quality such as 24bit, 192KHZ for as little as $10 more with four times the number of reviews so this might even be replaced by one of those and potentially returned because it’s very new, but it works well for what it does as advertised For anyone who may can’t afford it, a sidenote is you could play Spotify or Apple Music through an older vintage iPad or iPhone and control the music on that device from your primary phone or tablet while the secondary device is plugged into an old stereo system or something. The disadvantage of doing that versus using an AirPlay 2 receiver is you basically have Content playing you’re controlling from second device but you can’t add speakers or concurrently play different content in different rooms in the same way. Before having an AirPlay 2 receiver I played Spotify through onkyo receiver using a vintage ipad capped at update limited to iOS 9 and could control Spotify on the iPad through 15 Pro Max across the room for volume and song, playlist selection…….

This device is simple and lives up to its promise to bring AirPlay 2 to a “dumb” amp or powered bookshelf speakers. It does work. My biggest dislike was that it cannot get recognized in Siri commands. For example, I named these “Garage Speakers” and I put them in a room titled “Garage” in HomeKit (the Home app). When playing music from my kitchen HomePod mini, trying to tell Siri something like “play this in the garage too” or “play this on the garage speakers too” would result in Siri being unable to find the device. I tried renaming it, moving rooms, resetting the device, etc. No dice. I know that these commands are not limited to Apple devices as they work with my Sonos speakers just fine. From what I can gather, it is most likely due to how the device shows up in the Home app. This belkin device shows as a stereo accessory type, while non-Apple AP2 devices (speakers from Sonos or Denon Heos for example) present as a speaker accessory. Outside of that major limitation being a deal-breaker for me, I also had the device lose connection to AP2 streams a couple times. I don’t think it was a WiFi issue as I have a really good Ubiquiti Unifi setup. Other than the Siri limitation and some connection issues (which don’t seem to be universal), I can see this little device being perfect for someone.

I was using Bluetooth to stream music from my iPhone to my Yamaha HTR-5790 through a Mii B03. The Yamaha was sounding muddy through my 2 new Klipsch R-820-F's, which seemed unusual based on the reviews of the Klipsch's I read whereas most people thought the Klipsch's were very clear and borderline bright. I initially thought that the Yamaha was the source of the muddiness. I read on-line that Apple Music had made lossless (and high-res) music available through their subscription. I decided that I wanted to take advantage of the higher res music. The Belkin gave me a way to stream CD quality (16/44.1), in lieu of the 256kbps that AAC is limited to via Bluetooth. Setting this device up was easier than I anticipated. I followed the instructions and within 10 minutes I was streaming via Air Play (WiFi) to my receiver (through the optical connection). NOTE: I have an Orbi WiFi system. To my surprise the music was much clearer and brighter. I tested multiple genre's and artists and decided that it was the Mii B03 or Bluetooth that was creating the muddiness and NOT the Yamaha receiver. This made my wife very happy because I lost my excuse to replace the Yamaha, which I've had since 2004. The Yamaha is a great receiver, albeit lacking some technology (Bluetooth, WiFi, Atmos, etc.). It's a THX model with a low THD rating and sounds better than ever streaming Air Play CD quality music. Great little device, although a little expensive.

Initially had issues connecting but I missed the instruction booklet (which must have fallen out when I opened it, and then my toddler apparently threw it into her playpen). Once I found that, it was simple, and the connectivity has been perfect. Sound quality is fine. Not a ton of range, but that’s compared to vinyl and cds playing through same system. Also have only been using the analogue cable as I cannot connect optical to my current system. There’s an expected/acceptable dropout in music quality, but the convenience is worth it when I occasionally want to play a longer playlist (parties or when cooking when constantly flipping a record is inconvenient). Sync seems good and played well when I simultaneously streamed to my HomePod. Honestly that sync added a bit of the range I was looking for… wish I could use the HomePod as a wireless sub… Overall can’t beat it for the money if you want the added convenience of Bluetooth (specially if you can take advantage of the AirPlay 2 quality - which is adequate). Most other similar systems cost at least twice as much.

This is a one trick pony that performs just as one would expect. We are using this device in an Apple environment. Getting the device recognized on an iPhone 11 was a chore. I don't know if it was using the camera or NFC, but it took many tries with the Home app. Once successful it has never again needed the home app. A few times over the past couple of months the Soundform has failed to show up on my list of devices: a power cycle on the beast rectifies the problem. Some reviewers have moaned the cost of the Soundform. I wonder how much the licence cost to use Airplay.

Setup couldn't be easier by just bringing your iPhone next to the unit, just like AirTags and Airpods. AirPlay streams losslessly unlike Bluetooth, if you use it to hookup your HiFi, its like the best of both worlds. For Bit-perfect audio, your volume on your device must be set to 100% volume, adjust the loudness on your HiFi side.

I was looking for a small and reliable AirPlay device since long for my farm house where I can play my music to all my outdoor speakers and inside music system together. Since my indoor Bose system has inbuilt AirPlay I needed another AirPlay device which has AirPlay too to connect to my amplifier, and this the one. I have tried many other AirPlay device but the main issue was with them was sound lags. This one perfect 👍

I have a bunch of legacy amplifiers that drive outdoor speakers, ceiling speakers and other applications where AirPods are not an option. The Connect brings them into the AirPlay 2 family perfectly. I had no problem configuring with iPhoneX and as long as wifi signal is good - no dropouts. I'll be buying more.

No es bromoso se acomoda en cualquier espacio y funciona perfectamente con AirPlay 2