CREATIVE BT-W6 Wireless Bluetooth 5.4 and LE Audio Transmitter with Snapdragon Sound, aptX Lossless, Low Latency and up to 24-bit / 96 kHz audio, Works with PC/Mac/Gaming Consoles

The specific reason I purchased the BT-W6 is I wanted the ability to use a pair of Cambridge Melomania M100 earbuds with a desktop PC running Windows 11 (version 2024H2) with no in-built Bluetooth receiver. The Melomania M100 supports aptX lossless codec, which the BT-W6 supports, so it seemed like a good match of products. User reviews of similar products from other brands all seemed highlight issues with device compatibility, pairing, audio quality and straight up failure to work, so I ended up purchasing the BT-W6 because it was from a brand I was at least familiar with, and was designed to work a range of devices, rather than being a companion product intended for use with specific headphones.I shouldn't have worried, because the setup process was really very simple. The BT-W6 doesn't ship with a USB-C to USB-A adaptor, so I attached the receiver to a UGREEN type C to type A adaptor I'd bought separately, plugged it into a spare port on the PC and installed the Creative app from the website. The whole installation process took a couple of minutes and the device was detected and ready for pairing.Pairing the earbuds was equally painless, which used the standard pairing procedure - both devices had to be in pairing mode, at which point the Creative software showed the Melomania M100 as the paired device. It initially connected using SBC instead of aptX (the LED indicator on the device changes colour to indicate the codec/pairing in use), so I tried removing and plugging the receiver back in and it detected and used aptX Adaptive LL from that point forward.The sound quality and general user experience has been flawless. Music streamed via Tidal sounds excellent and there's no noticeable lag when watching movies, YouTube, or playing games. There's a slight delay of about a second when a program starts playing audio and you start hearing it (probably as a result of synchronisation/handshake process), the audio is synchronised with the display just fine once playback is underway. The maximum supported volume is considerably higher than any human could possible stand, so there are no complaints in that department either.Yes, the BT-W6 is more expensive than equivalent products from other manufacturers, but the fact it just worked first time without problems made me less concerned about the premium. If you want to add Bluetooth audio support to a PC which includes aptX codecs, this is definitely worth considering.

Most devices these days are more than capable of transmitting audio via Bluetooth so whats the point here, well not all devices and transmissions are created equal. The purpose of this device is to enhance the audio experience and quality by providing high fidelity sound that you can tweak to your own liking. Gone are the days of comparing a crackly sounding LP or cassette tape to a CD or even a good MP3, audio has moved on - however I will say that most people probably won't care too much. Unless you have a very expensive audio setup or pair of headphones that will likely be the bottleneck to the high quality rather than the device doing the transmitting. Either way, this is a specific device to help solve a specific problem and its one that you don't need to solve for everyday listening. Its plug and play and comes with a companion application to help control settings, compatibility between devices might differ so check yours carefully. It can also be a fairly expensive way of adding Bluetooth audio to a non-capable device, but on that front there are cheaper options.

I’m using it with my IPhone 15 pro max & B&W PI8 & Apple Music with lossless.It recognises the lossless stream and I can say that I can feel the difference between the lossy and the lossless.

Great absolutely brilliant a bit on the dear side though!

It's been decades since I bought my first Creative Labs sound cards for PC. During the many years I used these devices I never had any issues with them. They always provide great sound quality and on the PC side of things the software has always worked extremely well.This newly released bluetooth dongle from Creative has a lot of features which should prove useful to many users. My initial trial involved using the unit with my Sony bluetooth headphones. Pairing of the headphones to the PC app did seem to take longer than usual. Once connected though they received a solid signal. This was under the basic bluetooth connection setting. This first bonding worked just fine. However, subsequent attempts to pair the adapter with other devices, some earbuds and a hifi amp in this instance proved somewhat difficult. In fact, I couldn’t get them to pair. This was even though I purged the existing settings.I downloaded a couple of high quality FLAC files to see what they sounded like. Even in the basic ‘flat’ mode they sounded good. I usually shy away from graphic equalisers but gave the PC software based app a chance to see what it might do. There are various settings. One of which is called Crystal which seemed to give real heft to some music I listened to. I like current pop and I really enjoyed the sound from my PC using Spotify as a source.Originally when testing my Sony’s I then played a couple of movies on my PC and found the sound to be really good. By that I mean, plenty of cinematic oomph. Vocals are clear and bangs and crashes certainly did the business for me. The sound was certainly in sync with my media player.I have an Xbox for my gaming with Game Pass (Ultimate) and tend not to do PC gaming so I can’t speak to the efficacy of using the dongle for gaming. I see the device has a microphone function. I can’t really see how this works in a practical setting. Microphone placement in relation to the person speaking is always important for me. Using a dongle plugged in the microphone in the back of a PC I suspect is not conducive to the best audio pickup.Recommended but with reservations.