Hi,
today I got my Philips AEA2500 Bluetooth Hifi Adapter (with NFC and apt-X) and I tested it with my iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 800 und MacBook Pro Retina (Mid 2012). I works and sounds good, but in comparison to Airplay something is missing. All devices sound the same via BT. I´m shure the Lumia 800 does not support apt-x, because its to old. I also found a list of apt-x supported devices:
http://www.jessebandersen.com/2012/05/list-of-apt-x-compatible-devices.html
The Mac Books are listed as supported and iPhones, iPads, iPods and the Lumia 800 as not supported.
This Page shows how APT-X works:
http://www.aptx.com/howitworks2
It seems that in my testcases not the full bandwith is transfered to the BT Receiver, beause "something was missing" in the music, the spectrum was not filled out, no volume and a little bit flat sound against the Airplay solution. In the next Days I will get an iPhone 5S and a Lumia 920 and retest it, but I assume I will not get a better result.
If you dont know the difference, the BT sound sounds well enough. I hope I will get an officially supported APT-X devices and can here the better quality.
So my open questions are:
Does the Mac Book Pro Retina (Mid 2012) really support APT-X?
Why I didn´t hear a difference between MacBook and iPhone, if the Mac Book really supports aptX?
Does it really sound better than without aptX or same like Airplay?
My Test Equipment:
Denon x2000 AV Receiver (Airplay support, PURE Sound Mode, without enabled Equalizer Opt.)
Canton Chrono SL Speakers
Philips AEA2500 BT Hifi Adapter (aptX certified)
Apple iPhone 5
Apple Macbook Pro Retina (Mid 2012, OSX 10.9.3)
Nokia Lumia 800
Spotify Music Player with extreme quality streaming (320kbits/s vbr)