>>>Update 5/4/16:
Updating my review to 5 stars after fiddling for a couple weeks with this product. While it's not perfect, I believe that it's earned the full 5 stars considering the super low price and the fact that most of the competing products are mediocre and also larger/bulkier.
Here's how to limit the distortion with this device:
- TURN YOUR DEVICE VOLUME DOWN to between 50-75%, and turn your car stereo up higher. Again, I am using this between my iClever Himbox HB01+ bluetooth car adapter and my car's aux input.
- For reference, when I plug straight into my aux input, I always turn up my phone's volume to max and there is zero distortion. The same goes for when using my bluetooth adapter without the ground loop isolator, so the issue is definitely caused by this device.
- It's a bit of a balancing act because turning your stereo up to the max also can cause distortion, so you'll have to find the sweet spot combination of volume levels of your two systems to minimize the distortion. I've got is sounding almost as good as just plugging straight into my aux input, but since my car stereo is turned up almost twice as loud as usual, the static sounds during quiet/no music times is much more noticeable than with the volume on your device turned up almost all the way (and the whole purpose of this device is to minimize this static sounds). While music is playing, however, you can't hear the static and if you're driving the static between songs is unlikely to be noticeable unless your luxury car is dead quiet inside.
So I don't get the horrendously distorted bass anymore, in fact the sound quality is quite good, but it will take some fiddling and you'll probably have to set your volumes differently than you normally do without this device. Go ahead and get one, it's probably the best you can get for the price right now.
>>> Original Review:
I bought this to use with the iClever Himbox HB01+ bluetooth adapter in my 2007 Mazdaspeed 3, which plugs into the cigarette lighter and the aux input. I was getting serious whining/static hiss sounds from my stereo at all time with that bluetooth adapter, and I obviously want to it to sound closer to plugging straight into the aux port. I am leaving my review at 3 stars because it technically does what it's supposed to but it's hard to not knock it lower for the reasons described, below.
Pros:
- Small, simple, cheap, mostly does what it advertises. Makes music playing through add-on bluetooth car systems tolerable in most scenarios with decent sound quality.
- It does significantly remove the static hiss when playing music, and it's mostly gone in the silence between songs. I can still hear some hiss if I turn the volume way up with nothing playing, but it's nothing to write home about.
Cons:
- I have always had my treble turned up a bit on my stereo but I had to turn it back to 0 when using this because it seems to amplify the "tinny" high-frequency bits and makes it a bit more uncomfortable to listen to medium-loud music.
- In a review of a similar product, another reviewer said it made the bass sound like an amplified wet fart, and that's exactly what this adapter does for certain songs that have a few specific types of bass tracks. For this reason, alone, I am contemplating returning it, but there just doesn't seem to be any better alternates out there so I really don't know what to do with this thing.
Explanation:
- For some music types like acoustic/rock/jazz/some tamer EDM music, audiobooks, phone calls, etc. it sounds fine and actually has MORE bass, like this device amplifies it to compensate for any minor volume losses (to the point where I have actually turned the bass down on my stereo).
- For any "thump" sounds in the bass track, however, the sound gets moderately distorted and sounds like your speakers are old and severely worn out. Have you ever heard somebody turn up a subwoofer beyond what it's capable of and it sounds like the speaker diaphragm is smacking into the front of the speaker box with a muffled whump? If you're lucky it will sound like that only in minor doses on bass-heavy songs. This is not so bad to return it, but I NOTICE it every time it happens and it becomes almost impossible to ignore it for the rest of the song.
- For other songs, when you're NOT so lucky, sometimes continuous bass sounds get so distorted that it sounds like somebody poured a bucket of gravel into your speakers and they are gargling the gravel like mouthwash. It was so awful the first time I heard it that I immediately muted my speakers and unplugged it because I thought my speakers were blowing out. This happened during a section of a continuous bass drone, and I verified that it was not my speakers by plugging in to the aux and using my HB01+ bluetooth adapter without the ground loop (both sounded normal).
Final thoughts:
- From perusing Amazon and Google shopping, I don't think you will get much better sound quality than this, unfortunately. Even if you are looking to spend more money, there just are not that many options. It's OK, but I am rather apprehensive about listening to certain types of music with this plugged in, lest I actually damage my speakers from the horrible distortion that this can cause with no warning on certain bass tracks.
- TL;DR: 3/5 meh, works pretty well aside from when it's insanely distorted.
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Reviews with images
Just what I needed!
So I basically bought this cable because I was using it for my Astro A40 headset being plugged into my mixamp, which was plugged into my Elgato HD60S and as I was recording, there was this very obnoxious buzzing sound. Popped this into the elgato and ran the aux cable back to my mixamp for the headset, then boom. No buzzing at all. Fixed my problem. Recommend this to anyone who had the same problem I had!
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