This new super-slim adapter adds aptX Lossless and LDAC Bluetooth to iPhones – upgrade your wireless music for less than you might expect (and it won’t stop you charging at the same time, thankfully)

Acoustune unveils new ATX001 high-resolution Bluetooth dongle
Connects to the USB-C port to enable aptX Lossless and LDAC wireless connections
Costs $75 / £57 / AU$107, so it’s pretty cheap

Acoustune is a Japanese audio company, best known for its wired and wireless in-ear monitors that look like they would belong on the set of a Transformers movies (and also cost roughly their budget). But its new device looks a lot more normal—and surprisingly affordable.

The company has unveiled the ATX001, which is a wireless dongle you plug into a USB-C port to add aptX Lossless and LDAC audio streaming to that device. In theory you could any kind of device, but the real benefit would be for the best iPhones that don’t already have the features it enables.

The price of this dongle? It will cost you $75 / £57 / AU$107, which is a little less than we imagined. Its Japanese price when it was announced suggested it was closer to the three-figure mark, which would still be affordable for this kind of equipment – but this price is a real winner.

Repairing an iPhone error

The point of a dongle like the Acoustune ATX001 is to make your iPhone compatible with various Bluetooth codecs not natively supported by Apple.

The ATX001 facilitates the LDAC codec as well as AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX HD and aptX Lossless – as long as you have a pair of the best headphones or best earphones that support these, which is a lot of them.

Unlike Androids, iPhones do not support LDAC or the various aptX codecs, so this dongle will make it much easier to enjoy ‘lossless’ wireless audio. Among audiophiles, such dongles are quite popular as a way to improve sound quality.

We found that Sony’s 1000X The Collexion made a clear audio difference using these connections over regular Bluetooth, and iPhone owners couldn’t enjoy it, just a recent example of why this sort of thing is useful.

The ATX001 works primarily through a smartphone app, but once it’s set up on your mobile, you can use the dongle on other devices and still control it with your phone. Acoustune lists gaming consoles or PCs as a possible additional use for the fob, with a built-in USB-A adapter so you can connect it to various other gadgets.

A useful advantage is that the ATX001 has pass-through USB-C. This means you can plug something else into the port – a charger, a connection to your Mac, a game controller – and still enjoy your enhanced Bluetooth sound.