Choosing Between FiiO BR13 & BerryBak BDC-U For BT High-Res Audio

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Sticker shock pushed me to rethink Hi Res car audio Bluetooth. Legacy receivers from Mosconi and Audison look polished but outdated Bluetooth  and questionable value made me search for modern alternatives that cost less and deliver more. That search led to two compact boxes: the FiiO BR13 and a lesser-known BDC-U unit sometimes sold as the “BerryBak.” Both promise high‑res wireless, both lean on the same ESS ES9018K2M DAC, and both come in at a fraction of the boutique price tags. The question isn’t whether they work; it’s which one fits your habits, hardware, and expectations about codecs, control, and long‑term support.

The first surprise is how far Bluetooth has come. The BDC-U arrives with Bluetooth 5.3, USB‑C power and data, optical and coaxial digital outputs, and a harness for permanent installs. It even advertises aptX Lossless, a codec aiming at true 16‑bit/44.1 kHz transmission when the phone supports it. That last part matters: most Android devices today can do LDAC reliably, while aptX Lossless support is still thin and iPhones stick to AAC. In practice, the BDC-U pairs fast, locks into LDAC without drama, and delivers a subjectively lively output that measures slightly hotter than the FiiO. It also includes two antenna options, which helps if your glove box or center console buries radio range. If you want simple, modern, and cheap, this little brick does the job and feels sturdier than some pricier names.

FiiO’s BR13 takes a different angle: flexibility. While it runs on Bluetooth 5.1, it supports LDAC, aptX Adaptive, aptX HD, AAC, and SBC, and then adds serious I/O: optical in and out plus coaxial in and out, allowing digital passthrough inside a car or home rig. The companion app offers seven EQ presets and custom tuning, useful when your car’s DSP is locked behind menus or your factory head unit is limited. This isn’t about chasing mythical “wireless perfection” so much as giving you more routing options and smarter control. You can tuck the small chassis into a console and tailor the sound to taste. If you like to tweak, the BR13 is a better daily driver, even if its Bluetooth version trails the BDC-U on paper.

Codecs are where expectations need calibration. LDAC at 990 kbps is already excellent for most listeners and systems; it demands stable signal and proper settings, and some devices default to lower rates until you toggle them. AptX Lossless is promising, but only if both ends support it; otherwise you’ll fall back to LDAC, aptX HD, or Adaptive. iPhone users will ride AAC, which is fine but not “high‑res.” The biggest audible win often comes from clean digital output into a competent downstream DAC or DSP, good gain staging, and avoiding needless resampling. Both receivers share the same ESS chip, so differences you hear may come from implementation, output level, antenna placement, and your car’s acoustics more than from headline specs.

Day to day, both units are easy to live with. The BDC-U feels plug‑and‑play and pairs quickly, but some users will need to reselect LDAC in their phone or DAP after reconnecting. The FiiO trades a bit of setup for an app, better routing, and EQ that can fix a sagging midrange or tame a bright tweeter. Either will run from a USB port or adapter, and either can feed optical into a processor if you want to bypass analog paths. Compared with the pricey Mosconi and Audison units, you’re not giving up fidelity; you’re gaining modern connectivity without the “car audio tax.” If you crave simplicity and future‑proofed codecs, grab the BDCU. If you value features, app control, and digital passthrough, the BR13 is the smarter pick. And if true maximum fidelity is the goal, wired still wins—these boxes just make the wireless mome

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Q Garage.
Today we're going to bereviewing two Bluetooth
receivers.
One is called the FIO BR13.
The other one is called the BDCUfrom Unknown Maker.
We'll be going over that in alittle bit, but first I want to
show you what got me going downthis path.
So I had been interested inbuying a Bluetooth receiver, and

(00:23):
I started looking on Dyma anddoing some research.
And basically, what I foundfirst was uh the Autison Becon
and the Moscone AMass.
And so the Moscone AMAS, I'llshow you here, um, and the
Autison Becon are very similar.

(00:45):
Um, they basically you caneither uh mount them permanently
with a harness that they comewith, or you can mount them or
connect them, I'm sorry, with auh micro USB if you wanted to go
the easy route, um, which is theone that I'm taking, the one

(01:07):
that I took.
Uh, no need to wire anything up,you just hook it up to your
cigarette lighter or your USBplug, and you're good to go.
Makes life a lot easier.
So basically, one of the thingsthat turned me off about these
things is you can see theMusconi uh goes for like$479 on

(01:28):
some sites.
Um the beacon itself goes for$279.
Uh I thought that that was a lotof money for these simple little
devices, and I thought that youknow we we can uh probably find
just as good, if not better, forway cheaper if we did a little
bit of research.
But um, as far as the Mosconegoes, I think this is way, way

(01:52):
overpriced.
You can find it used here andthere on the sites.
This is actually oldertechnology.
This has uh uh uh Bluetooth 4.2,it does run Qualcomm's LDAC LDAC
uh up to 96k.
Um I didn't find much info onit.
There's not a lot of infoavailable on the internet on all

(02:15):
the uh different codecs that ituses.
Um, I know that it you know itsays it's designed for LDAC, it
does the standard SBC Bluetoothcodec, which is basically uh the
code Bluetooth codec that's likeon any cheap old device um that
doesn't do high-res, that's nota high-res Bluetooth.

(02:36):
So as far as the Musconi, we canjust skip this one altogether
because in my opinion, it's way,way overpriced for what you're
getting.
Um, the Autism Blue BConBluetooth receiver.
So this is certified high-res uhwireless.
Um, this one has, I believe,three different codecs uh LDAC

(02:58):
AAC and SBC, which is again yourstandard Bluetooth receiver.
Um, I did buy this one, I didtry it.
One of the things that, at leastin my opinion, was it felt very
cheap.
I picked it up.
When I picked it up, it feltsuper light, light as a feather.
I mean, that doesn't you knowmean necessarily mean that it's

(03:18):
cheap, but um the first timethat I hooked up the uh the
optical cable to it, the littledoor on the optical um in broke,
and that wasn't too um you knowheartwarming.
But um, you know, I thought,wow, this is a$300 unit, and the

(03:40):
first time I plug it in, um, thedoor breaks.
That does mean that it stoppedit from working.
I mean, it could be a fluke, youknow, but still that didn't that
didn't uh really make me feelall warm and fuzzy inside.
Um with Autison Beacon, it comeswith cables, uh, and some
proprietary cables for likeAutison's amplifiers and stuff

(04:02):
like that.
Um, you're only gonna use eitherthis one or you get you can plug
it in directly again with thewith the uh with the micro USB.
Um so the thing about this oneto see is Bluetooth 5.0.
Um that that's not a super oldBluetooth, but still, you know,

(04:24):
you you can do better out there.
So my research ended up uhleading me to these two guys
here.
The FIO, let's see.
This is the FIO BR13.
Um, you can buy this for about60 bucks on Amazon, and this
actually has newer Bluetooth.

(04:45):
I believe this has Bluetooth5.2.
Um, from my research that I did.
Also, the other unit that Ifound, lesser known, this is
called the AAAB41165 BDCUBluetooth receiver.

(05:06):
I know that's a mouthful, but umyou know how it is in the Asian
markets that sometimes they havestrange names.
So, anyway, we'll start off withthis one, okay?
Now that we're already in here.
So with the BDCU, basically, umI ordered it.
It's$40.
This actually has way bettertechnology than the must.

(05:29):
It blows the muscone out of thewater and it blows the Autison
out of the water, okay?
At least in my opinion.
So with this one, you have newertechnology, newer Bluetooth.
Uh, you actually have USB-C.
You know, it's 2025.
Uh everybody should be using uhUSB-C by now.
And it's only$40 plus shipping.

(05:50):
I ended up paying like$61shipped to my house.
They said that there was gonnabe a tariff, but there was no
tariff when I received it.
Um, so anyway, yeah.
Oh, you know what?
It does have a name.
They call it the Berry Back.
You can see that right here.
It's hard to see, but when youget it in person, you'll see the
Berry Back.

(06:11):
Um, so we'll start off here withthe connections.
So you have analog output andthen you have USB-C data only.
So if you hook up, you canactually hook up your phone
directly to this.
And so basically, if you didn'twant to use Bluetooth, you
wanted to use uh um to get yourmaximum um you know resolution

(06:37):
for for your for your songs,high-res, lossless, whatever.
Uh, you can actually just godirect.
That kind of defeats the purposethough of what we're looking at
this for.
Um on the other side, you haveuh a harness connector if you
wanted to mount it permanently,and then you have your optical
out, and then you have yourcoaxial output as well.

(07:01):
And then what's neat about thisone is it comes with two
different antennas.
So we'll be scrolling down onthat in a second.
So let's go back to the antenna.
So you get a little short stubbyantenna, or you get a long
antenna um that I believearticulates.
Um, so from what I saw with thisone, um it's heavier than the

(07:24):
BR13 as far as weight.
Um, as humans, we always kind ofthink that, well, if it's
heavier, it's gotta be better.
That's not necessarily true, butit does feel better, it does it
does feel heftier, um, leadingyou, giving you the illusion
that it is better.
But uh anyhow, um so let'sscroll down here.

(07:49):
So believe it or not, um, sohere's the uh the Bluetooth
module that it has.
Oh no, I'm sorry, this did I say5.2?
This has 5.3 Bluetooth.
Um, I don't know, I don't thinkthat's the latest Bluetooth, but
it is a newer Bluetooth.
So uh according to this, it saysit has a transmission rate of

(08:11):
990 kilobytes per second, whichis basically the L LDAC uh
codec.
Um, but supposedly this hasAppdex lossless, which is
supposed to be CD quality.
Okay, so uh LDAC is the 990, solossless is supposed to be

(08:33):
better, but in all theliterature that I read in here,
um it says that the max rate is990.
So we'll take that with a grainof salt and just assume that
this is the top that it can go.
But supposedly lossless issupposed to be better, appdex
lossless is supposed to be thetop dog.

(08:53):
So the caveat with that is yourhardware has to have these these
uh codecs.
If your hardware doesn't havethis, like if you check on your
phone, and the only phones thatcould do this are gonna be
Android-based phones, anyhow.
Um and from what I've seen, I'veused it on my dApps.

(09:17):
Uh my dab, I have a dApp thathas Android 13, and another dApp
has Android 12.
Um neither of my dApps nor myphone.
I have an iPhone anyway, sowhich of my iPhone is gonna do
AAC.
Uh neither of my neither of uhmy dApps can do lossless.

(09:38):
They can do LDAC, which isconsidered uh the only ones that
are considered high res are theappdex HD, the appdex lossless,
and the LDAC.
Uh some of these will haveAppDex adaptive.
This one has Appdex uh SBC,which is your standard

(10:01):
Bluetooth.
Um let's see.
So anyway, so funny enough, thisone and the uh the FOBR13 have
the same uh DAC chips.
Um they have the identical DACchips, okay.

(10:22):
Uh let's see here.
Uh they do have differentBluetooth chips though.
Um so we'll go back to the BDCU.
Okay, so the BDCU lets you doAppdex Lossless, LDAC, AppDEX

(10:45):
HD, and SBC, which is you knowbasically the bottom one.
You don't want that one.
Um appdex lossless is onemegabyte per second.
This is basically CD quality.
This is the top dog.
Uh doing some research, I Ididn't find a lot of hardware
that does appdex lossless yet.

(11:06):
Uh, if you Google that, thereare some phones from Sony and um
other ones out there.
Uh, there's not a lot ofhardware.
So even if you buy somethinglike this, it doesn't mean that
you're gonna have the app dexlossless.
You have to, but most people'sAndroid phones and dApps can do
LDAC.
So that's pretty damn if you cantell the differences between

(11:30):
these two, then you got reallygood uh ears, anyhow.
So um let's see.
So yeah, uh basically we'regonna go on to the feel right
now, but here's the uh the stuffthat it comes with here.
Um, this was the the largerantenna, the the harness comes

(11:51):
with an optical cable, user'smanual, and the unit itself.
Um, I didn't have any problems.
It it it it uh connects toBluetooth insanely fast, sounds
really good.
Um the only thing is, you know,when you go into when you first
go into your your dApp or yourphone, uh you have to manually

(12:13):
go in and change your settingsevery single time.
That's the only thing that was apain in the butt was you have to
go into your your your Bluetoothsettings and switch it to uh to
uh LDAC.
And I changed mine to uh the24-bit 48 kilohertz because

(12:37):
that's the max that mine can do.
There is a setting for 96kilohertz, but it just it it
didn't produce any sound, so itum you know it's all dependent
on what your hardware is limitedto.
So uh this is the DAC that I wastalking about, the uh the

(12:57):
ES9018K2M DAC.
Uh the like I said before, theBR13 has the same DAC.
So with the BR13, this this hasa uh either Bluetooth 5.1 or
Bluetooth 5.2.
We'll see it in here.
But this does do high reswireless and high res wired.

(13:22):
Um, the interesting thing aboutthe BR13 is we'll see right
here, we'll go down, we'll godown.
Is this actually does opticalin, optical out, coaxle in,
coaxle out.
So you can actually do apass-through with your system.
This one's a little bit moreversatile as far as um

(13:44):
connections go.
Uh, this doesn't have a shortantenna, so if you're gonna
mount this in the car, you haveto fold this antenna down.
It's not a big deal.
Um, I know it doesn't look it,but I mean, this is here's a
size comparison of the car.
It's really small, so you couldtuck it in your your glove box,
your center armrest, or yourcenter console.

(14:05):
Um let's see.
So also with the with the FIOBR13, you could actually do it,
it comes with an app and it hasseven different presets for the
EQ, and then you can actually umuh do your own custom EQ work.
Uh so the FIO BR13 is a littlemore versatile uh when it comes

(14:29):
to connections and uh um justoverall use of the product.
So here is the DAC again.
Uh like I said, it has the sameexact DACT.
So these two are pretty muchpriced the same.
Um so pick your poison.

(14:49):
Do you want something that youcould just put in the car and
set it and forget it?
Like the BDCU is basically ano-frills type product, where
this one you could tinker withit and you can mess with the EQ
and flavor the music to yourliking.
Um let's see.

(15:14):
So uh basically when I when Iuse both in my car, um I didn't
see you know many differenceswith it.
Um I did notice that on the BDCUit plays at a higher volume.
If I have my my DAP at let's say80, it it is like one 1.5 dB

(15:36):
higher.
I did test it with a meter.
Um, it could just be that theBluetooth is set at a higher
level, the voltage on that, theout the output.
The feel only comes at onecable.
That's it.
It's basically a USB-A to USB-Ccable, no optical.
Um, that's not a big deal.
Uh I bought mine for about$55.

(15:58):
It was on sale a few weeks ago.
Um, if you keep out, keep an eyeout, you can find it for that
price.
But pretty much the as far asthe price goes, it it's a wash.
Um as far as a clear winner, itit just depends on which one you
want.
I I think they're they're bothum so similar in what they do,

(16:24):
um that really it's it's up toyou.
They're both priced the same,they both have the same DAC
chip.
One has newer Bluetooth, one hasuh little older Bluetooth, but
not by much.
The other one has like Bluetooth5.1 or 5.2.
You know what?
Matter of fact, let's check outwhat what Bluetooth it has.
Let me see.

SPEAKER_01 (17:03):
So let's see.

SPEAKER_00 (17:16):
Yeah, Bluetooth five point one.
Yeah, here we go.
So this is it right here.
X out of this.
So uh here's the um the type ofBluetooth codex that this one
has.
So it's got LDAC, it's gotadaptive app dex, uh, which
basically means that it'll youknow switch on the fly if it's

(17:38):
if it's having um a hard timewith with uh with the signal.
Um appdex, the the the reg thisis kind of like the bottom of
the barrel appdex.
This is still better than SBC.
Um low latency.
I have no idea.
I haven't really uh researchedappdex low latency.

(17:58):
Um the one that I use is is appis LDAC.
So uh and if you want to pick uhhappy medium between LDAC and uh
app decks, HD is the one youwant to use after that, and then
of course got SBC, which is yourstandard Bluetooth, and AAC,

(18:19):
which is Apple's proprietaryBluetooth codec.
Uh yeah, so honestly, if I wasgonna pick one, I kind of like
the FIO for the features, but Ikind of like the BDCU for its
simplicity and um the fact thatit has Appdex uh lossless for

(18:45):
future proofing.
Um, really, that's not a bigdeal.
Uh, if I want to listen to mymusic with maximum fidelity, I'm
gonna use Wired, obviously.
And the reason that I even chosea Bluetooth receiver or even
looked at this is duringmeetups.
Um, when I'm sitting on my side,I like to just have the my DAP

(19:07):
in my hand and you know incontrol.
Uh normally my DAP is pointedtowards me in the driver's side.
So yeah.
Um, so again, keep an eye outfor uh for the giveaway.
I hope you guys subscribe.
I really appreciate everybody.
Have a happy new year and a goodholiday.