Aston InnovationsSoundTek HD Bluetooth Car Kit with aptX HD AAC for Music Streaming Handsfree Calls,Aux Bluetooth Adapter for Car/Home Stereo,Built-in Noise Isolator & MIC,Auto On/Off

I ordered this for my wife's older car because she wanted to make calls through the radio like you have with newer cars. When you check reviews on almost all of these devices listening to music sounds perfectly fine even on the cheap ones. The problem is almost all of them sound terrible on the other end for the person you are talking to. It is hard to get one that has a good microphone.This device has an excellent microphone and when you are talking to someone while you're driving down the road you sound great and easy to understand. It's kind of hard to tell that you are in a car because they won't really hear road noise. I can tell when she's on it but not because it sounds bad just because it has a different sound but it's very good.When you look at the good reviews on the other brands you will see that they are only considering how good their music sounds from their phone. For $50 I think this thing looks kind of plain compared to some of the others but trust me this is still way better than everything else out there.I suspect the difference is that this has a Qualcomm chipset. That's probably the reason why it's more expensive than most of the other ones. If you want to be able to have good speaker phone conversations and good voice commands, you should buy this brand. She has been using hers since 2021.Take your time and very carefully tuck the wires into the little gaps where the dash panels are attached and you can hide a lot of the wire. I used something like a credit card to push it in and just be careful not to damage the wire. I think I may have also upgraded the double-sided sticky tape to mount it. You should mount the round thing where it is in a good position with your face because that is where the microphone is.

I thought I'd upgrade my two-year-old but reliable Soundtek A1+ so I tried a bunch of other adapters advertising the latest bluetooth 5.4 or 5.5 features. They didn't come close to the Soundtek overall and they all must be made by the same manufacturer, because they all have the same flaws. Compared to other offerings, Soundtek's music mode sounds just as good to my ears. Voice mode, which is used by phone calls, navigation, and voice assistants, sounds far better because the other offerings all sound garbled. Finally, the Soundtek's microphone isn't great but at least people on the other end of phone calls can understand what I'm saying. That is definitely NOT true for the other brands. I went back to this brand and bought the HD and it's a relief. To be honest, you can't go wrong with either the Soundtek HD or the A1+. I still use the A1+ in my other car and I have no plans to change it.I also think the Soundtek's simple design and unobtrusive backlighting make it more pleasing to the eye; the other brands range from distracting to gaudy.

I needed a new BT audio receiver to replace another brand that had wacky gesture controls.PositivesMost important to me were the ability to stream via AptX codec (my Android phone distorts under SBC) and simple controls. This checks both boxes, and it has a built-in ground loop isolator whereas my old unit had a separate module.Sound quality is good. I tested it using some Dolby and lossless source material and was unable to tell the difference between this unit and the quad DAC on my LG G8 (using my mediocre car audio system). I do think AptX is a bit overrated in terms of audio quality, so don't expect any huge audio quality improvements.Setup was a breeze. Just hold the power button for 5 seconds to initiate pairing mode and then find the receiver on your phone. I love the simple controls which have 3 big buttons for back, forward and play. Play doubles as answer for incoming calls and you can hold it for a couple seconds to activate Google Assistant.NegativesThe price was 60% more expensive than a comparable unit without AptX and AAC codec support. At this price point, AptX HD support would have been nice. A cigarette charger thrown in would also have been useful.As simple as the controls are, they can be a bit laggy and cumbersome. There is a noticeable delay between when a button is pressed and the resulting action. Because of the lag, holding down the play button to activate the Google Assistant can sometimes put the phone into pairing mode (2 second vs 5 second press). The buttons don't have the most pleasing feel either with the presses sounding and feeling a bit cheap.It also takes noticeably longer for the unit to connect to my phone when starting up. My old unit was almost instantaneous whereas this unit takes a couple of seconds.One last thing. The cord management clips didn't adhere well to my car's plastic trim. Every single one of them fell off. The adhesive on the unit itself seems more powerful, and I think it will last for the life of the unit.ConclusionThis is a compelling option for people who want a more feature rich car bluetooth receiver.NOTE - Despite what the manufacturer says, I didn't notice any difference in quality between the AAC and AptX codecs. If you use an Apple device, you're better off sticking with the A1+ version and pocketing the extra bucks. Android users might benefit from this A2+ model since Android handles AAC somewhat poorly.

My truck doesn't have Bluetooth and I dont feel like spending $2k just yet on the stereo upgrade I am interested in. This thing works great and the sound quality is no different than when I use a good quality 3.5 aux cord. After the first pairing it will automatically pair with your smart phone or device when you turn on the vehicle for seamless interfacing. It comes with a great double sided tape mount for the controller and some tape mounted cable management clips.For power, it plugs into the 12v DC plug (i.e. cigarette lighter plug) or into a USB port. Sound is transferred to the stereo head via 3.5mm aux so you must have an aux jack on your unit to use this product.

After two weeks of very light using, the button to play music stopped clicking and usualy doesnt work but sometimes it works. I paid 50 dollars for product that did not even last two weeks. Cheap switches in the button is probably the problem. This happened day afer I could return it. Iam upset and will work on refund anyway.Other than that its very nice product with good sound. but cheap switches in buttons dont last..