Review: Digiana AudiaX Wireless Audio FM Transmitter

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What’s In The Box?

“Little bugger” is right. This thing is tiny. You can see in the picture below that the package contains the unit (with coiled cord and 1/8″ stereo plug) and a AAA battery. You can also see how small the unit is compared to the battery — roughly 2″ x 1.5″ x 0.7″.

The unit is turned on and off by pressing and holding the lower and smaller of the two black buttons. The frequency is controlled by the two black buttons — up goes up and down goes down. There’s a crude backlight, but don’t plan on being able to see anything with it.
The package also has some good Engrish.

At least you don’t have to set the ways and means on this one.

Testing Methodology And Tools

Geographically Fixed Testing Lab

• Digiana AudiaX
• Home stereo
• Portable CD/MP3 player
• CDs
• Barcelona: transHUMAN revolution
• Skipshot: Skipshot

The AudiaX is plugged in to the headphone jack on the portable CD player, which is playing an audio CD. The home stereo and AudiaX are tuned to the same frequency and rocking commences.
Mobile Testing Lab

• Digiana AudiaX
• Durabrand PVS1960 Portable DVD Player
• Car
• Car stereo
• DVDs
• Fantasia 2000
• Strawberry Shortcake: Adventures On Ice Cream Island

The AudiaX is plugged in to the headphone jack on the portable DVD player, which is playing a family-oriented DVD. The car’s stereo and AudiaX are tuned to the same frequency and sensible family enjoyment commences.

Test Results

First of all, you have to understand the difference between CD-quality (or DVD-quality) sound and FM-quality sound. Basically, there’s more information present in CD-quality audio, so what you end up with is a more true-to-life representation of the original sound than with FM-quality audio.
The difference isn’t that big to the normal person: If you’re not sure if you can tell the difference, tune your stereo to a station that is likely to play a song that you have on CD. When a song you have is playing on the radio, switch back and forth between your CD and the radio. If you notice a difference, it’s because of the loss of information that occurs when the CD audio is compressed into an FM signal. If you don’t notice a difference, then you’ve been to too many rock concerts and should have a talk with your doctor about that constant ringing you hear.
The way this device works is the same as what the radio station does — the CD-quality audio is compressed into something that can be wedged into a 0.1 MHz-wide slot of the FM band, and that signal is transmitted over the air. There will be some loss of audio quality if what you’re starting with is higher than FM-quality.
That said, here is what I found.
Geographically Fixed Testing Lab
I tried a wide range of frequencies in the FM band before I finally settled on 100.5. It seemed to be the only one where I had no static and also had no high-pitched whine (other than that of my kids asking when I’d get out of the way of the TV). It also took some fiddling with the volume on the portable CD player to maximize the sound output and minimize the distortion; highs are easily distorted by small increases in input volume. The line-level output on the portable CD player produced dreadful results: the audio volume was far too low to be usable.
The effective range of the device was roughly 20′ through 1 interior wall. Farther than that and noticeable static interference comes into play. Higher volume on the home stereo also begins to highlight the shortcomings of FM-quality sound. At close range and normal volume, though, the sound quality is not bad at all. It certainly works fine for normal listening, and I could see using this to play MP3s from my computer on my home stereo in the living room.
Mobile Testing Lab
This setup also took considerable fiddling to find an open frequency that didn’t also have an annoying high-pitched whine in the background. I ended up on 90.5. I set the volume on the DVD player to about the same as on the portable CD player and saw similar results.
Sitting in my garage, the results were perfect. I was very happy with the sound quality, especially with Fantasia playing. Some more fiddling with my car’s equalizer even made higher volumes quite pleasant.
Once we hit the road, though, things were very different. Maybe it was the switch from Fantasia to Strawberry Shortcake, but the AudiaX’s heart just wasn’t in it. Static was a fairly common occurrence, but at times, the sound completely dropped out, like going under a bridge while listening to AM radio. Not even halfway through the movie, the kids had their headphones on so they could actually hear it. Being the indefatigable product tester that I am, though, I kept the movie playing through the stereo for the remainder of the trip.

What’s Good About It?

It’s small, easy to use and provides fairly good audio quality if you can find a frequency that is free of interference. Battery life is purported to be 8 hours. I have used it for a little less than 8 hours and the battery still has some life to it, so a single AAA lasts quite some time.

What’s Bad About It?

The backlight is just plain dorky. You might be able to see in the picture below that there are two small lights at the bottom of the LCD. These come on whenever either button is pressed and stay on for about three seconds. The thing is, when you’re in a darkened room, all you will be able to see are the two bottom corners of the LCD display, as that is all that is illuminated by the lights. That means that you’ll see a greenish dot on the left and a greenish dot on the right with a “z” in it. I’d rather have no backlight at all and save some battery life instead of that.

Signal dropouts shouldn’t happen when you find a usable frequency. I live in a major market city with a very crowded FM dial. I was able to find a couple frequencies that didn’t have anything on either side of them, but I still ran into some pretty serious interference when I was driving around. I haven’t been able to figure out where the interference came from — maybe a CB radio or a cluster of cell phones — but when the transmitter is less than 3 feet from the car’s antenna, it seems to me that it should be able to keep a clear enough signal.
External power would be nice. It’s good that a AAA lasts so long, but if I’m going to use this with my computer to play MP3s, I want to plant it behind my computer and forget about it. An external AC adapter would be a cool plus, but not a requirement.

Should You Buy One?

You should definitely consider it if you need to get audio out of an FM tuner but can’t connect the device directly, you don’t care about (or don’t notice) the difference in FM-quality sound and you aren’t planning on using it in your car unless you live somewhere with a mostly wide-open FM dial. The bottom line is that I’m happy with it for home or office use but it didn’t work acceptably in the car.
If you’re a typical music listener, this will suit your needs very well. If you’re an audiophile, then you never made it this far in the review anyway because you had to go replace a tube or polish your Monster cable or something.
The Digiana AudiaX is available from Merconnet for $34.99 + S&H and has a 1 year manufacturer warranty.
UPDATE: This has been replaced by a new model. Read the review!