Belkin’s new Soundform Connect turns any active speaker or amplifier into an AirPlay 2-capable device. Handy!
Do you still have a system of good-sounding active speakers, or an older hi-fi system that you don’t want to or can’t part with? And somewhere you miss the modern wireless capabilities that modern equivalents offer a bit?
Then Belkin has the Soundform Connect for you. This module adds all the capabilities of Apple’s AirPlay 2 to any “dumb” active speaker or amplifier. Including multiroom capabilities and streaming from your Apple device. Siri – the voice assistant that comes with the Apple ecosystem – is also at the ready.
Affordable
In the end, the whole thing is somewhat similar to the old Google Chromecast Audio, which Google discontinued a while back for unclear reasons. In any case, what the Belkin Soundform Connect has in common with that old Google dongle is its relatively low price: you pay $99 dollars for it. The dongle features an analog mini-jack jack for analog output and – thankfully – also an optical S/PDIF output.
For the whole thing to work, you need an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad running at least iOS 11.4, or a Mac running at least macOS Catalina. An Apple TV (from tvOS 11.4) can also be used, of course.