This new ultra-slim adapter adds aptX Lossless and LDAC Bluetooth to iPhones: upgrade your music wirelessly for less than you expected (and it doesn’t stop you from charging at the same time, luckily)

Acoustune unveils new ATX001 high-resolution Bluetooth dongle
Plugs into 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 headphones that look like they belong on the set of a Transformers film (and costs about their budget too). But its new device seems much more normal and surprisingly affordable.

The company revealed the ATX001, which is a wireless dongle that you plug into a USB-C port to add aptX Lossless and LDAC audio streaming to this device. In theory, you can use any type of device, but the real benefit would be for the best iPhones, which don’t already have the features they enable.

The price of this dongle? It’ll cost you $75 / £57 / AU$107, which is a bit less than we imagined. Its Japanese price, when announced, indicated that it was closer to the triple-digit mark, which would still be affordable for this type of equipment – but this price is a real winner.

Fix an iPhone flaw

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

The ATX001 also supports the LDAC codec AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX HD, and aptX Lossless – provided you have a pair of the best or best earbuds that support them, which is a lot.

Unlike Androids, iPhones don’t support LDAC or the various aptX codecs, so this dongle will make playing “lossless” wireless audio much easier. Among audiophiles, these dongles are very popular for improving audio quality.

We found that Sony’s 1000X The Collexion had a clear audio difference using these connections over standard Bluetooth, and iPhone owners weren’t able to take advantage of this, just a recent example of how useful this sort of thing can be.

The ATX001 works primarily through a smartphone app, but once set up on your mobile, you can use the dongle on other devices, while controlling it with your phone. Acoustune lists gaming consoles or PCs as an additional possible use for the keychain, with a built-in USB-A adapter allowing you to connect it to various other gadgets.

A useful advantage is that the ATX001 has a USB-C pass-through port. 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 audio.