I keep in mind this autumnal day in 2017 prefer it was yesterday. Following an ill-timed vacation, throughout which the remainder of the What Hello-Fi? evaluations group had acquired and examined the KEF LS50 Wi-fi, I walked into our hi-fi check room, then in Twickenham, and located the 2 audio system connected enjoying music. I’d examine these “wi-fi LS50s” since they have been introduced the November prior, however right here they have been in entrance of me for the primary time – simply two regular-sized speaker cupboards plugged into the ability sockets behind them, and to 1 one other through an ethernet cable; no further transmitter field, no supply bodily tethered to them. The place was this music coming from? ‘Solely’ Bluetooth, I’d uncover as I approached them and peered at their top-panel enter show, although their killer characteristic was undoubtedly built-in wi-fi and community streaming.
Whereas we as a group had come throughout, and reviewed, powered and lively audio system from the likes of Dynaudio, Dali, Linn and Meridian earlier than, we have been all in settlement that none of them had mixed such an assortment of options in such a chic and accessible (~£2000/$2000/AU$4000) two-box format – primarily as they hadn’t built-in wi-fi streaming, both in any respect or as well.
“Properly, that is fairly neat,” I keep in mind considering as I sat and listened for some time (I consider some indie-pop by Spoon was enjoying), attempting to mentally erase the interconnecting cable that hung between the audio system and considerably spoiled the in any other case unsullied setup (one thing that was, fortunately, bodily erased within the MKII variations launched two years later, as you may see slightly below).
“Is that this what the hi-fi system of the longer term ought to seem like? We definitely hope so,” is how we concluded our five-star evaluate of those pioneering KEF oddballs. That was over six years in the past, and certainly the absolutely built-in streaming stereo speaker highway has been travelled down by a variety of hi-fi producers seeking to provide each efficiency and comfort in a best-of-both-worlds system.
PSB, JBL, B&W, Triangle, Piega, Sonus Faber and Kii Audio have a pair or two underneath their belt, and a few might be discovered within the higher echelons of the hi-fi market in Cabasse Pearl Pelegrina and Dynaudio Focus territory. However I anticipated the trail to be considerably as closely trodden as Disneyland’s Fundamental Avenue on the primary day of the summer season faculty holidays by now – why aren’t there extra LS50 Wi-fi II challengers? Why is it solely this yr that we’ve got felt compelled to supply a second Finest Purchase award to one thing of this design?
That was to the JBL 4329P (pictured under and tragic solely in identify) by the way in which, and it was listening to those all-in-ones that spurred my need, and that of my colleagues I consider, for extra of their kind to exist. You’ll learn, and sure know yourselves, that a lot about hi-fi is a compromise, and by their very nature (that’s, cramming a number of parts which might be historically every housed in devoted packing containers, into simply two cupboards), the JBLs and the like are compromised. Compromised by way of their efficiency as a result of a) that cramming (sonic sacrifices are inevitable when circuitry for various purposes share areas and can’t be correctly remoted), and b) the probability that the producer behind them is a specialist in audio system or electronics however not each. There’s a compromise by way of practicality regardless of their apparent benefits there too: the inherently restricted improve path they provide.
However the JBLs, for his or her pretty accessible value of £3499/$4500 (simply what a budget-to-mid-priced system of separates would value inclusive of stands and cables and so forth), ship a efficiency extra mature than I had beforehand heard from such a design at this stage. In our remaining levels of testing, our evaluations group determined there wasn’t a lot in it between them and a great comparable-cost separates system.
JBL has taken its confirmed horn loudspeaker design and applied the electronics into it very properly, making the most of the all-in-one design’s greatest power – that each half, from streaming chips to amplifier modules to speaker parts, is particularly chosen and executed to work collectively optimally, all underneath the management of one producer. And so for somebody after a room-fillingly huge, energetic and detailed stereo sound within the tidiness of two packing containers – one thing typically past the aptitude of the KEFs – the 4329P is good.
I look ahead to listening to what the newly introduced Sonus Faber Duettos can do on this identical area of round £3500/$4000/AU$7000, however extra broadly I’m excited to see how good this all-in-one design can get, each within the (comparatively) accessibly priced realm and past it. For what it is value, I do suspect that extra of them will fly off manufacturing traces very quickly, not least as a number of of the class’s manufacturers talked about above have solely launched their designs in latest months.
Provided that Class D amplification (which might facilitate high-power outputs with much less warmth and subsequently enable for smaller merchandise) is seemingly maturing, and DSP know-how and streaming structure are going that method too, to not point out that there’ll probably be a continued whole-system demand for ‘higher from smaller’, the trail forward of stereo speaker techniques appears promising.
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