IKEA makes quite a few of its own Bluetooth speakers, and it has just launched another in the shape of the distinctively named Badkruka.

The famed Swedish furniture manufacturer already boasts a host of Bluetooth models in its current speaker arsenal, with the super-cheap ‘Kallsup’ model setting you back a paltry £5. You could buy a plate of meatballs for less than that.

The new Badkruka is larger and a little more premium than the dinky Kallsup, sporting a rather no-frills cuboid form made from plastic and polycarbonate.

Designed for home rather than portable use, the new speaker houses a range of top-mounted physical control buttons, including a Spotify Tap toggle for faster access to your Spotify streaming library. As well as standard Bluetooth, you also get an optical input alongside a 3.5mm auxiliary port. Nice.

Inside, the Badkruka packs 25 watts of total power feeding a single tweeter alongside a complementary woofer to produce what IKEA describes as a “clear, powerful sound” that “meets everyday needs at home”.

You can connect two speakers together to create a stereo pair, or use multi-speaker mode if you want to have a string of Badkrukas tethered together for a more immersive, room-filling audio experience.

The word ‘Badkruka’ in Swedish means someone averse to bathing outdoors (literally a “bath-coward”), so we’re assuming that IKEA’s speaker of the same name doesn’t particularly enjoy being taken for a dip. Best to keep it inside, then.

The IKEA Badkruka Bluetooth speaker is available now in pink or black finishes, priced at €50 / $60. We haven’t seen the Badkruka listed on IKEA’s UK site yet, but we imagine that it will sit at around the £40-50 mark when the time comes.

MORE:

Rewind: new iPhones, wireless open-back headphones, a five-star spin on a classic turntable and more

Heading to university this month? Don’t leave home without these 12 hi-fi and home cinema essentials

Discover the best wireless speakers around

At the Sydney Hi-fi Show back in May 2026, Richter was rocking its demo room with two pairs of ‘Series 7 Special Edition’ speakers.

The smaller pair were substantial standmounters, the new Aurora S7SE, while the larger pair were beautifully-proportioned floorstanders, bringing back a classic Richter name from the past: the Dragon.

Over the decades some Richter model names, which favour legendary creatures and such like mysticism, have become legends in their own right, perhaps most famously the Wizard, which has a nebulous claim to have sold more units Down Under than any other speaker designed here.

But also the Dragon, which qualifies as perhaps Australia’s cult‑classic floorstander par excellence, the step-up model engineered with unusually serious cabinet design and driver tech for its price class.

Build & design

It’s a timely arrival, this being an anniversary for Richter: 2026 marks 40 years since the original founder Ralph Waters launched the company with three pairs of home-made speakers while battling to overcome the Aussie ‘cultural cringe’ that kept many stores stocking only English, Japanese and American brands. Fortunately the press were impressed, and Waters’ designs found favour with the Australian public, Richter going from strength to strength ever since.

This new Series includes S7SE versions of the Wizard, Dragon and Excalibur floorstanders, along with the Aurora bookshelves, and they share revised design elements which CEO Brian Rodgers says were conceived “to bridge aesthetic sophistication and acoustic performance... Our brief was clear – to design a speaker you’re as proud to look at as you are to listen to, speakers that feel at home in today’s modern living spaces, yet deliver the power, precision, and emotional engagement Richter is known for.”

The development saw Richter’s long-time acoustic engineer Dr Martin Gosnell working closely with industrial designer Adam Hobbs to create a softer, more contemporary form, reducing the visual dominance of traditional large black boxes, while maintaining the integrity of Richter’s sound. Their solutions include newly-curved cabinet designs, with real natural walnut veneers and matching anthracite-grey baffles, optional mottled-grey cloth grilles, and “just enough shiny bling to draw your attention”, says Rodgers.

There are several notable updates with the S7SE range over the previous Series 6 – but there never was a Dragon S6, so the changes are even more significant if you compare the new Dragon to the previous Dragon V, which was in production from around 2010 to 2015.

In driver terms the mid-bass drivers are new and improved, with ultra-rigid, lightweight cones in precision-engineered cast-alloy baskets. The bass drivers gain larger voice coils, but the biggest change is the arrival of a new high/mid module, the ‘SE Teardrop’, housing not one but two domes — a 25mm high-output neodymium-backed HF dome and a new 70mm soft-dome midrange. The module is vertical in the floorstanders but pivots sideways to fit the baffle height of the Aurora standmount design.

In the larger Dragon and Excalibur models, Richter uses the teardrop module D’Appolito-style, flanked by the two 6.5-inch mid-bass drivers, also new and improved, arriving with ultra-rigid lightweight cones in precision-engineered cast alloy baskets. This all creates a symmetrical “wall of sound” that should disperse widely into the room while retaining the precision of the double domes.

The teardrop shape also minimises sharp baffle edges around the tweeter, which helps to cut down on diffraction that can cause high-frequency ripples and uneven response.

The final driver for the new Dragon is a 165mm high-excursion composite paper cone bass unit that also gains a larger voice coil.

Further improvements include a newly developed 4-way, bi-wire-ready crossover network, with dedicated circuits feeding specific driver groups. One for the SE tweeter and mid-dome, one for the twin 6.5-inch mid-bass drivers and a bass-shelf extension circuit (a dual-chamber tuning system) for the bass driver.

Critical to both the new aesthetic and performance upgrade is the move to newly-curved dual-chamber vented bass reflex enclosures, with real Natural Walnut veneers and matching anthracite-grey baffles. The 285mm quoted figure for width refers to the total width including the stabilising feet; the cabinets themselves measure 230mm at their widest point, tapering elegantly down to 140mm at the rear. This curved design reduces resonances, in addition to allowing improved forms of internal bracing.

On the rear of the 109cm-high cabinets are two bass reflex ports of differing depths. The top one is 15cm long, while the one at the bottom is 24cm. Both are just under 7.5cm wide, with shiny, black plastic extrusions that flare at the exits. If you prefer the sound of fully sealed enclosures, Richter supplies two foam bungs for each, which can be used to block the ports and convert the naturally vented enclosure to a sealed one. All four foam bungs measure 7cm × 7cm, so you needn’t worry about wondering if a specific bung should be used for the deeper reflex port.

If you’re perusing the dimensions of the Dragon S7SE, wondering if you can fit them in your home (perhaps subject to other half approval) you’ll want to know the 109cm quoted height of the Dragon S7SE cabinet is correct, as is the 419mm quoted depth — including speaker terminals and with magnetic grilles attached; each pair of Dragon S7SE comes supplied with mottled-grey cloth grilles.

A newly designed set of terminal plates complete the look, including high-quality nickel-plated binding posts which accept bare wire, pin/spade connectors and banana plugs.

As far as numbers go, Richter claims an in-room frequency response of 25Hz-30kHz at -6dB, a sensitivity rating of 90dB (2.83V/1m), and a nominal impedance of 4 ohms (minimum 3.5 ohms).

They will perform to their best with stable high-current amplification to unlock their full potential; Richter says that Dragon S7SEs will benefit from 100-300W RMS amps rated for 4-ohm loads, though our testing included the more modestly specced Marantz Model 50n (~100W/4 ohm), which still yielded impressive results.

Overall build quality is top tier, and with each speaker coming in at 29.1kg on the scales, they feel utterly solid. Each pair of Dragons comes supplied with spikes and discs for hard floors.

Listening sessions

First up was Lady Gaga’s smash hit Abracadabra, an upbeat techno anthem which immediately showcased the Dragon S7SE’s low-end credentials – tight, controlled, and impactful from the opening beat. Dynamic shifts landed spot-on, and their lively rhythmic presentation filled the room.

The SE Teardrop module excelled in projecting Gaga’s vocals wide across the soundstage while slicing cleanly through the bassline. We experimented with the bottom-port foam bungs, having settled on having the Dragons some 30cm from the rear wall. To our ears, the port-filling made vocals shine brighter, drum hits feel more solid through being a tad tighter – a subtle but meaningful refinement. To be honest, the speakers impressed with either configuration, but the easy tunability is a bonus to get things just right in different circumstances or tastes.

Jessie Ware’s Ride proved a fine Dragon demo tune: each frequency band clear and present within a composed and coherent overall performance. Her soft, sultry vocal emerged from the SE Teardrop module floating high up in the mix with ethereal presence and pinpoint imaging. With the foam inserts out of the rear ports, we could enjoy the extra low-end output afforded by this configuration to lend the track some real toe-tapping drive and rhythmic propulsion.

For a proper workout, we loaded Björk’s Bachelorette from her 1997 album ‘Homogenic’, a serious test for any set of speakers as it surges from delicate rising classical strings to a genuine onslaught, comprising dense orchestration, eccentric rhythms, and vocal acrobatics.

The Richter Dragon S7SE never once baulked at this organised chaos. These floorstanders portrayed all the layers with absolute authority, keeping harp twinkles crystal-clear from the SE Teardrop tweeter, while Björk’s shape-shifting vocals – from throaty sweeps to sibilant whispers – remained textured and planted dead centre. The pounding percussion was delivered with control and impact, all while maintaining a vast, three-dimensional soundstage. Even with ports open and walls close, bass stayed articulate without masking mids. It was clear we were in the presence of a remarkably talented pair of speakers.

Verdict

The Richter Dragon S7SE are, in every conceivable way, a stellar set of speakers,
and they arrive at an impressive price, given their ability to dig deep while unearthing the detail, to deliver scale and presence, while also being room-friendly through
their cabinet curves and the level of finish.

Add in the suite of driver upgrades, and especially the fact that mid-domes are more expensive to engineer than an equivalent mid-range cone, and Richter’s AU$7999 pricing looks and sounds exceptional value, winning themselves a recent Sound+Image Award, and maintaining Richter’s reputation for delivering the combination of outstanding performance at a high-value price.

• See all our Australian reviews from Sound+Image and Australian Hi-Fi magazines!

"Abbey Road Studios is the home of music,” says Andy Kerr from Bowers & Wilkins. “It's the heartland. It's the place where it all begins.”

There’s a very good reason that this humble studio in a leafy enclave of north west London is mentioned in the same breath as such legendary music venues as the Royal Albert Hall and New York's Apollo Theatre: its history.

Everyone knows of the studio’s legendary recording sessions by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder and many more. But fewer people know that this is where the concept of stereo sound was born (it was patented here by engineer Alan Blumlein in 1931, though back then it was known as ‘Binaural Sound’). As Kerr says, this was the “beginning of the whole concept of what we call high fidelity stereo sound reproduction.”

Without Abbey Road, the music industry as we know it wouldn’t exist.

So it’s difficult to overstate Abbey Road’s importance in shaping the modern music world. But perhaps more important than that are the experiences the studio has created, and the emotions these have given rise to.

Listening to music recorded here, “it's soulful, it's emotional,” Kerr says. They’re “recordings that change the way you feel that day when you listen to them – and we're very proud to be involved in it.”

Connecting to the music

Bowers & Wilkins speakers have been at the heart of Abbey Road for over 45 years. Founder John Bowers demoed the first model – the original 801 – himself in 1980. So enraptured were the engineers that the speaker stayed, only being replaced as newer 800 Series models improved on the original.

Pleasing Abbey Road's notoriously particular engineers is no mean feat – these people are at the very top of their game – so to do so consistently for nearly half a decade takes some doing.

Models earning pride of place in Abbey Road over the years include the original 801, the 801 Matrix in 1987, followed by the Nautilus 801, 801 D3, and currently the 801 D4 – last year, Bowers & Wilkins released a limited edition Abbey Road Edition 801 D4, celebrating a longstanding partnership spanning over 45 years.

These are speakers that don’t just play the music, they reveal it as closely to the artist’s vision as it’s possible to be. “Listening to the speaker, it’s everything that the recording is,” says Kerr. “It’s rewarding, or engaging, or uplifting, or maybe even depressing, if that's the recording. It makes you feel emotive. It just absolutely connects.”

Or as one recent visitor to the studio puts it more simply: "You can hear so much... It's just unbelievable."

So it’s hardly surprising that Bowers & Wilkins' speakers have been a fixture of Abbey Road for so long. Here’s to the next half century of great music!

From the studio to home

Seeing behind the scenes at Abbey Road is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most of us – Abbey Road is still a working studio and so isn’t open to the general public. But with a Bowers & Wilkins speaker, discerning listeners can bring home that spine-tingling studio-quality sound.

The flagship 801 D5 loudspeaker costs £43,000 per pair, and brings a range of enhancements over the previous model: the design has been refined, it has a stiffer enclosure to reduce the unwanted impact of vibrations and resonances, and a new plinth design. It also comes in a range of new finishes with more durable paint, including Dark Walnut (inspired by the limited production 801 Abbey Road Limited Edition), Stealth Black, Warm White and Light Walnut.

Don’t forget to pair them with an amp that’s up to the job (like the Marantz Model 10).

Those on a more modest budget (or with less space to spare) will be well served by the 702 S3 loudspeakers. While these are a lighter-touch alternative to the 800 Series Diamond, they benefit from Bowers & Wilkins’ ‘cascading technology’ – the principle of taking technology from flagship models and applying learning and design advancement to other form factors. Hence the 702 S3 are able to offer many of the same core technologies as the 800 Series Diamond, but at £5750 they’re a fraction of the price.

Available in Gloss Black, Mocha and White, or signature options Datuk Gloss and Midnight Blue Metallic, the 702 S3 make Bowers & Wilkins’ world-class sound technology and renowned craftsmanship more accessible but without compromise.

LG has announced UK availability and pricing for its 2026 xboom speaker range, which was first unveiled at CES 2026.

The xboom Series takes aim at competitors like JBL, Bose and Sony, with an expansive selection of Bluetooth speakers, spanning from compact outdoor portables to room-filling “party speakers”. LG says that all speakers in the series have been tuned by former Black Eyed Peas member, will.i.am.

UK availability and pricing is as follows:

LG xboom Mini: a compact, ultra-portable speaker with an IP67 water and dust resistance rating. Available now for £40 / $70.

LG xboom Rock: an ultra durable, pocket-sized speaker encased in a shock-resistant, IP67 water-and-dust-proof chassis. Available now for £60 / $80.

LG xboom Blast: a plus-sized speaker which LG claims is “built for long adventures”. With 35 hours of playback, 220 watts of power, four drive units and three passive radiators, LG promises that the xboom Blast will deliver an "expansive soundscape” in any environment. Available now for £450 / $500.

LG xboom Stage 501: a “party ready” speaker, offering up to 25 hours of playback and 220 watts of power for “a bold, room-filling sound” from a five-sided cabinet. Available now for £500 / $500.

Aside from the speakers already released, LG says that the range-topping LG xboom Power 5000 and LG xboom Power 9000 speakers are also set to become available at the start of October, with pricing to be confirmed ahead of release.

MORE:

What makes great sound? We asked the audio experts at Sennheiser and iconic club Fabric how they get hi-fi results in different environments

“We know the home, we know audio, we know music” – we speak to Sonos about its operating system rebrand, its "customer-led" focus and app updates

Our pick of the best Bluetooth speakers tested by our expert reviewers

“We know the home, we know audio, we know music” – those are the particularly bullish words of Sonos's vice president of software, Sid Patel, whom we recently spoke to about Sonos’s new operating system rebrand (we were also given the lowdown on its new Ace Ultra headphones and Beam Ultra soundbar).

In case you’re catching up, last week the company announced Sonos 27, a new overarching name for the company’s audio operating system which covers the entire Sonos ecosystem. It’s promising better integration between Sonos products and various ways to control them, but without completely excluding other brands.

The company plans to update it annually, just like Apple’s iOS, so we’ll see Sonos 28, 29, etc.

But getting back to the quote, we wouldn’t be surprised if those words might have raised an eyebrow or two among current or ex-Sonos customers, especially given the brand’s tricky timeline over the past couple of years.

The last tweaks to its operating system didn’t go down too well. An ill-fated Sonos app update back in 2024 resulted in what was once a robust, rock-solid and intuitive way of interacting with Sonos products turning into a bit of a mess. Not only was it affected by bugs and glitches, but key features were omitted, much to the disdain of numerous Sonos customers.

Such was the fallout from this event that the then Sonos CEO Patrick Spence was forced to step down eight months later, in January 2025. At the time, the Sonos board even went as far as to say it would not take a bonus "unless the company succeeds in improving the quality of the app experience and rebuilding customer trust".

Despite this botched app release happening more than two years ago, it’s probably fair to say there are still many existing and potential Sonos customers who are still sitting on the fence and requiring a bit more reassurance from the brand.

Of course, the proof will be in the experience. If Sonos does what it’s promising and there aren’t any hiccups with either its new software or hardware, then it might be back in the good books of those disappointed by its recent efforts.

But what do you think? Have you been convinced by the statements coming from Sonos?

If you were disappointed by app-gate, have you been convinced to come back into the fold, or are you happy to watch from the sidelines to see what happens before you commit to any new products? Sonos has many music and movie fans in its midst and surely won’t make the same mistake twice?

Let us know by voting in our poll above and commenting below. We’re interested to hear your thoughts!

MORE:

“We know the home, we know audio, we know music” – we speak to Sonos about its operating system rebrand, its "customer-led" focus and app updates

Sonos Ace Ultra feature all-new drivers, updated ANC, and a "direct connection" to the current Sonos ecosystem

Sonos' new Beam soundbar is finally here with a big Dolby Atmos upgrade – but there’s still something missing

I'm excited by the Sonos Beam Ultra’s Dolby Atmos upgrade, but gutted it didn't borrow this feature from the Arc Ultra

Onkyo has announced a trio of new wireless speakers: the GX-AiO 50, the GX-AiO 100, and the GX-AiO 150.

An expansion of Onyko's desktop-friendly 'Creator' range, the three one-box speakers are designed to bring extensive connectivity and versatility to three varying sizes and form factors.

The GX-AiO 50 is the smallest in the range, the GX-AiO 100 sits in the middle, while the GX-AiO 150 is the largest, most premium option.

All three boast a 2.1-channel acoustic architecture which combines dual main drivers with a built-in, independently amplified subwoofer. All three use Class D amplification and Onkyo's own digital signal processing to minimise noise and distortion, resulting in "clear detail" and "deep, dynamic bass".

Physical connections include HDMI ARC alongside a USB-C and optical input, plus a switchable phono input if you want to hook up a turntable. For wireless listening, Bluetooth 5.3 is also available.

Three listening modes are accessible across the range. Eco Mode provides more precise low-volume control for nighttime listening and smaller spaces, whereas Standard Mode is designed for everyday listening. Max Mode, meanwhile, puts each system at its highest output for when you want to get the party started.

Plus, if you want to go even louder, you can connect any GX-AiO system into a stereo pair.

While they come in different sizes and clock in at different price points, all three systems follow a similar design language whereby a central control dial is flanked by two main drive units.

Integrated LED lighting around the control dial and the subwoofer slits has also been added "to create a warm ambient glow without overwhelming the room".

According to Vinny Bonacorsi, Onkyo's Chief Operating Officer: "The new Creator AiO series delivers what today’s younger music lovers want: compact size, simplicity, connectivity and affordability, paired with timeless industrial design. This series represents another bold step forward in Onkyo’s evolution, bringing our passion for music to a new generation.”

The Onkyo Creator GX-AiO series will be available this autumn in a choice of black or white finishes. Prices are as follows:

- GX-AiO 50: $399
- GX-AiO 100: $499
- GX-AiO 150: $599

MORE:

Read our Ruark MR1 Mk3 review

Read our five-star Onkyo GX-30ARC review

Our guide to the best desktop speakers for every budget and needs

Some people will never be able to get past the cost of these Marten speakers, and we can understand why. Standing just 42cm tall, the two-way Parker Duo Diamond Edition look under-equipped to survive in a high-end sector dominated by sonically talented and intimidatingly muscular floorstanders.

Given the significantly larger internal volumes and formidable driver arrays featured on those towering rivals, the Parker Duo Diamond Edition’s chances don’t look good. In the event, it turns out that these modestly-proportioned Swedish boxes can look after themselves.

Any company that names its product ranges after Jazz greats shows, at the very least, a good amount of musical appreciation. Marten invokes the likes of Coltrane, Mingus and Oscar, among others, and uses the Parker name for its step-up series.

It may be shocking for some to discover that the Parker Duo on test here is merely one of the early steps on the Marten ladder. Unusually, it is available in two forms: the standard version of the Duo (£11,995 / $19,000 / AU$18,500) and the Diamond Edition on test here.

Design & build

The standard Parker Duo uses ceramic diaphragms in both its 25mm tweeter and 19cm mid/bass unit. Its crossover point is set at a fairly typical 2200Hz, and the network design is a mixture of first and second-order filters. A rear-firing 23cm aluminium passive radiator is used to tune the bass.

Sensitivity is claimed to be 88dB/W/m and nominal impedance is rated at 6 ohms. Note, the minimum impedance is just 3.1 ohms, which suggests these speakers will perform best with a muscular amplifier.

The Diamond Edition adds more spice to the formula by swapping the standard model’s ceramic tweeter for a diamond dome, and upgrading the crossover’s polypropylene capacitors for more exotic copper-foil types. The internal wiring is upgraded too. Everything else, including the electrical specifications, remains the same.

See the Diamond Edition in real life, and it gets off to a good start. Build quality is as immaculate as the price demands. The gloss black finish of our review samples is wonderfully deep and mirror-like.

Not all our team like the unusual styling of this product, or the fixed metal grilles over the drive units, but we have no complaints about fit and finish.

The Parker Duo’s front panel is 6cm narrower than the rear, which looks a bit odd at first. This unusual shape reduces the build up of internal standing waves, while the use of 35mm-thick M-Board (a proprietary laminated material) for the enclosure’s panels is claimed to produce a more rigid and inert structure than more conventional alternatives.

The performance of any standmounter is massively dependent on the quality of its support. Marten makes dedicated stands for the Duo, and they are impressively weighty and rigid. Their construction is based around three rigid pillars and a thick steel base, fitted with four isolator feet co-developed with IsoAcoustic. These stands cost a chunky £3295 / $5000 / AU$5750 per pair, but are good enough for us to consider them an essential part of the deal.

Any product at this level positively demands a top-class system. Our reference set-up consists of Naim’s ND555 / 555 PS DR music streamer and the Technics SL-1000R/Kiseki Purpleheart record player feeding a Burmester 088/911 MkIII pre/power amplifier combination.

The cables are a mix of premium offerings from Chord Company and Vertere Acoustics. For benchmarking purposes, we have the ATC SCM50 and the PMC MB2 SE speakers.

These Marten speakers perform best when given plenty of space to breathe. In our 3 x 7 x 5m test room, they sound most at home with the front panel around 90cm from the back wall and angled in slightly towards the listening position so that the tweeter axis crosses a little behind our heads.

Given such a placement, these speakers produce a lovely, consistent tonal balance combined with the kind of three-dimensional stereo imaging that almost feels physical.

Sound

That huge price tag may lead many to expect sonic fireworks every time these speakers play music. That’s not how it works.

The Parker Duo Diamond Edition does exactly what every truly great speaker should, and that’s reproduce the source material with the minimum of alteration. So, if you have a poor compressed recording, or less than capable electronics in your system, these standmounts will merely reflect that, imperfections and all.

Unusually for such revealing and analytical performers, these Marten speakers won’t go out of their way to highlight those flaws. You can hear the shortcomings easily, of course, but they remain in proportion, and the good parts of the recording will still shine.

However, feed these speakers a diet of great recordings – classics such as Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue or Take Five by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, for example – and they will turn in a performance full of subtlety, dynamics and cohesion that’s almost eerily convincing.

That the Marten Parker Duo Diamond Edition are capable of a high level of resolution should not be a surprise. Such qualities should be a given at this level. However, what sets them apart from most rivals is the degree to which they step beyond the mechanics of hi-fi – you know, a cone moving backs and forward, crossover components and enclosure resonances – to put the music front and centre.

These speakers sound impressively natural regardless of whether we are talking about rendering instrumental textures in classic jazz recordings or the nuances of Billie Eilish and Khalid’s vocals on the wonderful song, Lovely.

When we play Tchaikovsky’s Marché Slave Op.31, these Marten standmounts stay controlled even when pushed hard to high levels. Just as pleasingly, they refuse to harden up and compress to any significant degree under such circumstances.

There are certain boxes that need to be ticked for a speaker to succeed at this level. Tonality has to be spot on, and it is. These standmounts sound neutral while still displaying natural warmth and richness; this is a rare combination that few rivals manage.

Next, dynamic expression should be top class. That’s another tick here, whether we are talking about the wide-ranging sweeps of Tchaikovsky’s symphony or the finesse needed to get the most from the Billie Eilish/Khalid track, the Duo Diamond Edition manages it.

Then we come to rhythmic drive, a quality many hi-fi products struggle with. A quick spin of Michael Jackson’s Who Is It? reveals that these Marten speakers excel in this area too, communicating the song’s momentum and energy beautifully.

We haven’t even got to the icing on the cake yet. These relatively small speakers do bass, proper deep bass, way beyond that we would expect for this size of standmounter. As we listen to the Jackson track we are floored by the power and authority of the lows. The Parker Duo Diamond Edition hit hard and true, delivering the lows with enviable articulation and precision.

Compared to the cheaper but appreciably larger ATC SCM50 speakers, the Martens deliver richer, punchier bass with broadly comparable extension. The company claims low-frequency extension down to an impressive 36Hz ±2 dB. That sounds believable.

Verdict

The real shame of a product like this is that very few people will actually be able to hear and enjoy it, given its price and restricted exposure.

However, if you are one of the lucky few with the budget and system to do a speaker like this justice, we recommend a serious audition; the Marten Parker Duo Diamond Edition is a true endgame speaker.

Review published: 2nd September 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Compatibility 4

MORE:

Read our review of the YG Acoustics Carmel 3

Also consider the TAD ME1TX

Read our ATC SCM50 review

Best bookshelf speakers: top standmounts for every budget tested

Well this is something we haven’t seen from a Bluetooth speaker before: a design that mimics a kettlebell. And from turntable brand Lenco, too. Quite a departure.

The Orbita-360 isn’t aimed specifically at fitness fans, and it doesn’t weigh too much, so we wouldn’t start using it for kettlebell swings. But it is waterproof, so can be used outside, and it fires out sound in 360 degrees.

Inside is a 2.1-channel audio system comprising a 4-inch subwoofer, four full-range drivers and dual passive radiators, delivering 60W RMS (120W maximum). It promises “rich, room-filling audio with impressive bass and clarity.” And because its sound is projected evenly in 360 degrees, everyone in the surroundings should enjoy the same listening experience, no sweet spot required.

It supports Auracast, and so can pair with other compatible speakers to create more immersive wireless sound. And it’s rated IPX6 waterproof, so is protected against “strong water jets” – in other words, it’s safe to use by pools or fountains, and will happily withstand the inevitable downpour during your picnic.

The battery is good for 13 hours of use (that’s one hour less than the Award-winning JBL Flip 7). And it has nine lighting effects (including continuous and beat-synchronised modes) from its built-in LEDs, for adding a bit of razzle-dazzle to your gatherings.

But really it’s the design that sets it apart, of course. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, though the materials are more traditional – there’s an aluminium carry handle and a fabric finish (similar to those seen on the Amazon Echo range). The colour choices are also quite vanilla: Diamond Black or Lunar Grey.

Lenco is better known for its affordable turntables, such as the L-85. It has made speakers before, though its current range consists of the kind of hideous karaoke speakers that usually signal that a night out has gone awry.

The Orbita-360 is out now for £230 (around $300 / AU$440).

MORE:

The best Bluetooth speakers around

What is Auracast? Find out here

The best outdoor speakers to buy before the weather turns

JBL has dominated the portable Bluetooth speaker market with its Go, Flip, Charge and Xtreme models, and now it is turning its attention to the wireless multi-room speaker category with the new JBL Cove range.

The Cove range is designed to bring "superior JBL sound to every room", touting a flexible and expandable whole-home audio ecosystem powered by JBL's in-house platform and managed via the JBL One app.

The new series consists of three models available at launch: the compact Cove M1, the battery-powered Cove P1, and the flagship, six-driver-toting Cove X1. Each speaker can be used in its own right, as a stereo pair, or as part of a multi-room setup.

The smaller Cove M1 houses a trio of tweeters alongside a single woofer, while the Cove P1 packs four tweeters and a single woofer. The flagship Cove X1, meanwhile, also houses a quad tweeter array, complemented by a pair of woofers.

Both the Cove X1 and Cove P1 support Dolby Atmos, with the battery-powered Cove P1 boasting 14 hours of playtime on a single charge and an IP56 certification for protection against dust and water.

To help you get the most out of your multi-room system, JBL’s own 'Constant Sound Field' automatically tunes the speakers to their given environment, while 'AI Sound Boost' further aims to optimise performance based on where and how you listen.

You're not short on wireless connectivity, either. Alongside standard Bluetooth, wi-fi access grants support for AirPlay 2, Google Cast, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, and Qobuz Connect, and all members of the new Cove family are Roon Ready. Spotify Tap provides quick access to Spotify, while built-in Alexa Plus voice control is also available.

The Cove range will connect with JBL's Bar Series MK2 soundbars (which include the Bar 300MK2 and Bar 1000MK2), and you can use a pair of Cove speakers as rear surrounds for a home cinema setup.

According to Carsten Olesen, President of Consumer Audio at Harman: "JBL Cove marks an important step in our ambition to become a leading force in home audio, combining powerful JBL Legendary Sound with the simplicity, flexibility and outstanding value that will help even more people discover how simple it is to have great sound throughout the home.”

Each member of the JBL Cove range will be available in white or black finishes from October 2026. The JBL Cove M1 is priced at £200 / €230 / $230, the Cove P1 at £400 / €450 / $400, and the Cove X1 at £430 / €500 / $450.

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Era 300

Also consider the Apple HomePod 2

Best wireless speakers: tried and tested by our expert team

Dali has announced the release of a new subwoofer, the Basik Sub, which the company says is “a natural partner” to its Kupid and Sonik 1 standmounters.

The Basik Sub uses a 20cm downward-firing woofer made from paper pulp, which Dali claims combines “low mass with rigidity to provide detailed low-frequency performance”.

According to the company, the Basik Sub’s downward-firing configuration allows more even bass distribution and improves flexibility when it comes to positioning.

It's powered by Class D amplification, delivering 170W RMS and a peak of 220W. And the subwoofer's reasonable dimensions of 31.9 x 29.5 x 31 cm (hwd) should also make it easy to integrate into smaller listening spaces.

The subwoofer includes a stereo line-in and a mono LFE input to cater for hi-fi and home cinema applications. The speaker also features built-in controls, such as a gain, crossover adjustment (40–120Hz) and phase controls (0–180°), which Dali says “make it straightforward to integrate Basik Sub into a wide range of systems”. A dual-stage limiter has been included to protect the drivers from overloading.

A vented voice-coil helps to maintain cooling and minimises air compression at high listening levels, while a switch-mode power supply regulates power consumption and heat generation.

According to Krestian Pedersen, head of product management at Dali: "We've seen a rise in popularity of bookshelf speakers with our own award-winning KUPID and SONIK 1 speakers over the last year. This has been fuelled by small, affordable streaming amplifiers and turntables which allow consumers to create a custom hi-fi system for the price of a smartphone.

"BASIK SUB is designed as a natural enhancement for these systems as almost all affordable streaming amplifiers and speakers feature a dedicated subwoofer output and bass management features, making it possible to get the full scale and bandwidth from a compact and interior-friendly package"

The Dali Basik Sub is set to go on sale in October for £429 / $800 / €500 and will be available in six finishes: Solid Black, Solid White, Caramel White, Golden Yellow and Chilly Blue.

MORE

Read our full Dali Sonik 1 review

And our Dali Kupid review

Plus, take a look at our pick of the best subwoofers for all budgets, tested by our expert reviewers

Stereo wireless streaming speakers from Yamaha: two boxes, but the simplicity of an all-in-one system. There's no extended system required, because the speakers contain both amplification and a streaming system (here Yamaha’s MusicCast), so that as a minimum you could just place the speakers, cable them up and start enjoying your hi-fi – with high‑fidelity streaming on offer, an HDMI TV connection, and control from a well-established multiroom-capable app.

And these are most definitely hi-fi, with several of the compromises more generally involved with all-in-one systems going out of the window. There's no lack of stereo separation here, nor any questions over whether a particular manufacturer is able to excel across the hi-fi chain: Yamaha’s MusicCast streaming is well-established, the company makes award-winning amplifiers and AV receivers, and it also has a strong record in loudspeakers going back to the 1950s.

And as musical instrument makers, the Japanese company might even claim a unique insight into the sounds which form our music in the first place.

We were delighted to have the new NX-70A speakers in for review in Sydney, as they were first revealed to the world here in Australia, at the Sydney Hi-Fi Show back in May. Euro-Yamaha had hoped to hold their reveal for the recent High End Vienna, so in Sydney they were slightly anonymised, their product cards redacted, our reportage restricted!

Now at last we can tell all, and listen in earnest, to see how these streaming active speakers neatly straddle the convenience of an all-in-one system with the sonic strengths of genuine stereo hi-fi.

Build & drivers

The Yamaha NX-70A speakers are substantial standmounters, available in black or white, and unusually shaped, with fairly subtle rounded curves and a top plate which rises to be higher at the back (335mm) than the front (315mm). Either side of the rear back spine, a selection of inputs sits among a back plate of lovely shining copper-coloured metal.

The speakers port fairly traditionally to the rear but the cabinets also have grille openings to the rear with more copper-accenting, and most unusually in a curved strip on the top. These we presume to be for passive cooling of the internal electronics: thermal management rather than acoustic design.

Perhaps unusually, that top plate doesn’t have any control buttons, such as a local volume control; it’s clean aside from the grilles at the back, Yamaha’s ‘tuning fork’ logo at the front, and four structural fasteners which secure the top plate to the main cabinet of MDF, enhanced to mitigate vibration, with the front baffle reinforced with a 25mm panel (designed, we’re told, using a laser Doppler Vibrometer). The very front panel layer is an ABS plate, shaped to incorporate a new tweeter waveguide. All this is beautifully integrated, kept clean and attractive up front, with the cool tech stuff going on mainly at the back.

One feature easily overlooked is a small white light and a text display in the black section at the bottom of the left speaker; the display shows the input or song information and other messages. The right speaker has just the white light. The text display might be useful if you’re up close in a desktop situation, but it’s too small (for our old eyes) at a normal listening distance. If you find it intrusive you can set the dimming options to zero, though even this is not quite ‘off’, but then this text panel sometimes shows error messages (e.g. ‘Version Error’ during a firmware update), which might be useful to see.

You get a rather nice half-size remote control included, with a copper-ringed central circle. A set of optional stands is available (A$799.99 in Australia), in the same black and white colour choices as the speakers.

The pricing of the NX-70A ranges them as obvious competitors to, among others, KEF’s established wireless speaker range, and specifically the KEF LS50 Wireless II. But the Yamaha aesthetic is very different, partly by virtue of using separate 30mm tweeters and 13cm woofers (compared with KEF’s single coaxial driver) and also by going for a taller, more conventional if quirky look, compared with the fat curves of the KEFs, which look rather as if inflated to the point of bursting.

Both drivers in the NX-70A use the same material blend, described by Yamaha as their ‘Harmonious Diaphragm’, as used also in the company’s highest hi-fi speakers. This combines wood fibre from spruce (which Yamaha notes is used in its grand piano soundboards) with the synthetic polymer Zylon, a material to which Yamaha switched after its period favouring beryllium, which is an excellent lightweight alkaline earth metal, but sadly a highly toxic one to work with.

By contrast Zylon is more easily manipulated, yet an extremely strong polymer claimed to have an acoustic velocity comparable to beryllium and a tensile strength 1.6 times higher than Kevlar. Its versatility for use in tweeters as well as woofers provides the possibility of a tonally-matched sound across the full frequency range.

Each driver has its own dedicated amplification module (so an active system, rather than merely powered). Yamaha claims to have taken great efforts to optimise these relationships, announcing a new arrangement called Synergistic Drive: “an innovative unified circuit design,” says the literature.

“By connecting the speaker unit directly to the amplifier circuit, the system precisely manages electric current flow, minimising distortion that is fundamentally rooted in conventional amplifier and speaker interactions.”

You might this would be something which could apply to any active design, yet it implies a technology “unique to Yamaha”. Further investigation reveals the use of current feedback around individual drivers, detecting distortion as variations in electrical current and aiming to reduce it in real time. This reduces the negative effects of distortion caused by Eddy currents, says Yamaha, and specifically addresses third harmonic distortion. It reminds us of the feedback in Yamaha’s YST subwoofers.

So Synergistic Drive is Yamaha’s particular take on active speaker design, raised to higher hi-fi levels of priority than on Yamaha’s smaller active speakers and soundbars.

Room correction is another thing possible by having processing, amps and speakers all in one package. Yamaha not only here includes its YPAO (Yamaha Parametric room Acoustic Optimiser) straight out of its AV receivers of renown, but also provides a bundled microphone for the purpose, rather than the common practice of leaving such crucial measurements instead to the vagaries of a smartphone microphone.

Ins, outs, and apps

Physical inputs are fairly limited, which is typical of the smart speaker breed: that back panel hosts one minijack analogue input, one optical digital input, a USB-A slot, and one HDMI eARC/ARC input with CEC.

This last plays back audio from whichever HDMI socket on your TV is marked for HDMI ARC, and makes these speakers ideal for flanking your TV to provide sound for all your entertainment, not merely music. We have no hesitation in recommending the solution of stereo speakers either side of your TV rather than a soundbar in front of it.

Additional socketry provides a subwoofer output, so you can add depth if you need it (only in a larger room, we’d say), and an Ethernet socket if you can give the NX-70A a wired network connection; otherwise MusicCast will help make the Wi-Fi link to your network. This MusicCast app controls everything from input selection to streaming and even multiroom sharing between rooms.

The left and right speakers can connect to each other wirelessly, so there’s no need to run a cable between them. But you can choose to do so using the very coily Ethernet-style cable provided, length three metres, so still allowing good separation between the two boxes. Using the cable provides stability in a busy Wi-Fi environment, and also allows a higher digital connection rate which actually doubles the highest frequencies these speakers can deliver: they go up to 35kHz (-10dB) when using a wired connection, only 21kHz (-10dB) when using Wi-Fi. From this we assumed (and Yamaha confirmed) the wireless connection to use a 48kHz sampling rate with the cable raising this to 96kHz, both at 24-bit.

There is Bluetooth available for direct streaming, but we note its codecs are limited to the lower SBC and AAC codecs, so MusicCast here can provide preferable and higher-quality ways to stream. This is also true of AirPlay 2 streaming, currently limited (by Apple, not Yamaha) to the AAC codec at 256k, even though it’s capable of far more.

You can get higher quality using Tidal or Spotify via their Connect versions, which means just using the service’s native app as the controller, and directing the music to flow straight from the internet to the speakers at whatever quality you’re paying for.

There’s also Google Cast here, good from Android phones and devices.

But if you store music actually on your device, the most reliable way to play is the tab for ‘This iPhone’ (or whatever) at the top of the MusicCast app’s interface. This seems to send the file at full quality, most likely via some UPnP/DLNA in the background. We hear the difference in our listening notes.

Yamaha MusicCast also allows multi-room playback, combining ‘rooms’ within the app so that any MusicCast device can share its inputs with any other MusicCast devices in the home. Given Yamaha’s MusicCast ecosystem of products runs from small wireless speakers to hulking AV receivers, this is potentially a powerful method of home unification.

The NX-70A speakers are also Roon Ready, if you have invested in this music organisation software.

Also under fingertip control in the MusicCast app there is internet radio, a Podcast section, and ‘Server’ access, which instantly found various file shares on our home network, through which we could then navigate through folder structure or artist/album lists slightly laboriously (no permanent library is created). Files loaded via USB are accessed in a similar way.

All these will benefit from the DAC implementation here, using an 8-channel 32-bit ESS DAC, the ES9017S. We were told that “3× channels of differential output are combined and then sent to the tweeter and another 3× to the woofer, creating a more precise representation of the original signal with wider dynamic range and lower noise levels as it’s combining 3× versions of the conversion to capture more detail.” (We’re just gagging to ask ‘so why not 4×?’ but we’ll let it lie.)

Many ways to play, then: let’s fire them up.

Listening sessions

Set-up proved fairly simple whether or not the stands were attached for use in the music room, or simply sat on a firm surface either side of the TV as we used them later with HDMI; for such surfaces they have pre-attached silicone feet. We gave them the Ethernet-style cable connection between the speakers to ensure we heard them at their best.

We also gave them a wired Ethernet connection to our network, and this cable was coming from the right, a bit strained to reach the left speaker which has all the inputs. The speakers are very clearly labelled as to left and right, arriving with huge cardboard covers telling you so, but the first thing we did once inside the MusicCast app was to check if we could switch left speaker with right. And yes we could, so we were able to restore cable neatness, hoorah. (We later found a button on the back which can do the same thing.)

Since our environment already has MusicCast elements in residence, adding the NX-70A was just a case of selecting ‘add device’ then scrolling down a very long list, which shows how many MusicCast-enabled products Yamaha has released. When you get all the way to the NX-70A, it’s not there! An enquiry to the local Yamaha team revealed that Yamaha puts new products at the top, above ‘A’, but doesn’t think also to include them in the right place. This oversight aside, we had the NX-70A connected pretty much instantly, and checked for a firmware update.

We ran background internet radio and AirPlay 2 streams from an iPhone for a good week just to have the speakers soaking through, as it were. This was when we discovered that playing music stored on our phone via AirPlay 2 sounded radically different to playing the same files via the ‘My iPhone’ tab of MusicCast. It’s a great demonstration of what such transmission does to your files. Playing the beginning of Kate Bush’s Aerial Tal via ‘My iPhone’ at 16/44.1, the vocal had a quicksilver edge while the gentle piano beneath was richly toned across the soundstage from left to right; we could hear the pedal being lifted. All that was just gone when playing via AirPlay: softer, blander, less in the way of life and dynamics.

Spotify and Tidal users can do better; selecting these services within MusicCast simply opens the native app and you choose the Yamahas as the target. Because MusicCast has already allocated these to become a ‘Room’, it is this ‘Room’ you’ll see as the target, rather than the Yamahas themselves. This can be confusing, especially if you have two streaming devices in the same room. If you want to see ‘Yamaha NX-70A’ as the target for streaming services, then just name the MusicCast room as ‘Yamaha NX-70A’.

If you want Apple Music at better quality, currently we could only suggest the extended workaround of having an AppleTV 4K playing Apple Music into your TV, and then out via HDMI into the Yamahas.

The ‘Server’ option within the MusicCast app looks for files on your network. We have assorted old NAS drives humming away around the home and MusicCast found them all. Not all such platforms do so.

Even more conveniently we attached an old WD powered hard drive to the USB-A slot, and could thereby play our collection of high-res albums through the Yamahas.

And playing from this USB drive we really found what a high level of hi-fi performance the NX-70As could achieve. The guitar on Audio Alchemy’s Marrakesh at 24-bit/96kHz sounded delightfully clear and clicky-edged, while the bass sounded not so much as if it was emanating from the two speakers but more as if a small bass guitar cabinet was somewhere in the middle of them, so like the real thing was the bass fullness and tone. There’s a double-time section in the middle of this track which showed also the system’s speed, keeping up with the gaps in the machine-gun bass notes: individually punchy, no blur. We used this section to find our ideal speaker positioning, which in our room locked the bass into the best combo of tightness and depth with the ports 22cm out from the rear wall, close enough to suit general use with TVs as well as making stereo lounge use convenient. Nor does their treble fade excessively off-axis, though keep the tweeters at ear height to enjoy best imaging.

There was an almost alarmingly real delivery of the percussion that somehow sits in 3D among Chick Corea’s piano and ensemble on his Australia Concerto No. 2; this wildly dynamic piece burst unrestrained from the Yamahas with all its impressive imaging and ping-pong bursts of sound intact – exactly the kind of spread that would be lost on a smaller all-in-one system or speaker. The Yamahas bring all the hi-fi qualities of proper speakers, without compromise from stuffing electronics inside, we’d say, and quite possibly benefitting from all that Synergistic Drive! With the Chick Corea they sounded simultaneously musical and clinical, laying out the soundstage with both width and depth, everything in its place to make this whole popping piece stand forth in a three-dimensional presentation, among which we could still hear the wide ringing roll-off of a China boy cymbal, or the gaps between separate rolls of the brushes on the snare, the richness of orchestration around Corea’s marvellously close-miked piano (home territory for the Yamahas) which brought this piece to life. They did the same with a super-crisp delivery of Herbie Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island and its still more extreme ping-pong elements; during the piano solo the left channel was silent like a hole in the Matrix.

They can certainly rock, as proven by their smashing out of Yes’ studio version of Heart Of The Sunrise (24/96) with thrillingly tight and real drums to the fore. Alan Parsons came through as DSD 2.8MHz files no problem (it’s good to quad-DSD), all our FLAC and WAV tests played fine (up to 384kHz), and the speakers absolutely excelled when blasting out The Eagles’ Life In The Fast Line at 24-bit/192kHz, again spreading the panned guitars wide while pumping out a bass that was tight and full. They go loud with glee.

YPAO Volume & YPAO Room Calibration

We were by now preferring not to engage the YPAO Volume option (as opposed to the room calibration, see below). This YPAO Volume slider (under the MusicCast app’s sound settings) had been on by default as a kind of loudness EQ “to hear balanced low, mid and high frequencies clearly at all levels”. It may be useful at lower levels, but for anything higher it often seemed to have a mildly deleterious effect when playing at a decent volume; on the Eagles specifically it had softened the bass pedal, taking realism out of the rhythm section, while mildly veiling the wonderful airiness up top that the Yamahas were otherwise delivering.

Happily you can toggle this YPAO Volume on and off easily at the top of the sound settings panels, so it’s easy to try for yourself, and develop a preference.

YPAO room calibration, though, is a different thing, combining a parametric EQ with what Yamaha calls RSC (Reflected Sound Control). Kudos to Yamaha for including a proper puck microphone with the NX-70As, rather than relying on phone speakers to achieve what is an extremely complicated job, attempting to measure room characteristics and then adjust the speaker EQ accordingly.

To do this, you construct the little cardboard stand for the puck, then attempt to balance it where your head might be for listening; you certainly won’t be limited by the length of the cable attached to the puck microphone, as this is long enough to wrap twice around the Moon and back. (Recoiling the YPAO microphone cable to fit back in the plastic bag is the key challenge facing reviewers when returning any so-equipped Yamaha review item.)

With the puck in place, you set the measurements off, and it’s very quick – slightly longer if you’ve attached a subwoofer. Two hisses, two whoops and it’s over. Accept the scan, and you can then toggle YPAO on and off to see if you like the results.

It seemed accurate, identifying and correcting a bass dip which we know to exist in our lounge room, pleasingly less critical of our music room’s response. We tried using the correction in the lounge: sometimes it seemed to clarify the upper bass, sometimes it seemed to mask the clarity of things, like Diana Krall’s vocal on Here Lies Love, softened back significantly, the spread and openness of the mids and highs also crushed, and everything slightly monofied. Of course that’s just us, in our room. Again it’s free to try, so try it.

Meanwhile there are plenty of other tone controls inside the MusicCast settings (with sophisticated Finite Impulse Response EQ filtering, we gather), so plenty more to play with. The app also links to a separate IP browser interface for network tweaks.

They worked well as HDMI TV speakers (or optical if no HDMI ARC); indeed the speakers proved ideal for movie sound, with dynamics and spread and especially dialogue clarity all in a league which no soundbar would match. (Yamaha also kindly adds a dialogue enhancer slider in the app settings, should it be required.) There’s apparently no attempt to respond to Atmos soundtracks with virtual processing; thank heavens for that. Stereo clarity is invariably to be preferred.

We almost forgot to mention the remote control. We had quickly became accustomed to using the MusicCast app for everything, especially as this app is not like some others which disappear or disconnect when momentarily not in use; the MusicCast app returns to being fully active as soon as selected. However, the physical remote can be very handy for quick actions, especially when the phone rings, and feels just that bit more sophisticated in the hand, especially when enjoying just a music session, screen off.

Verdict

Any final issues, however minor? We have to say no. The NX-70A speakers were easy to set-up, easy to address using an established and powerful app, and they sounded great. We even liked the clever packaging.

For their best sonic results just find the purest path to playback (keep Bluetooth and AirPlay for convenience use only), and get banging out your tunes. The Yamahas do not sound in the least bit processed or woofed up in the bass like so very many all-in-one systems, and especially the smaller wireless speakers. These are genuine hi-fi speakers, made active, wireless, and streaming.

Yes, at the price, you might attempt to build a separates system which combines a great streamer with a great amp and great speakers; you would potentially gain flexibility of replacement and repair/replacement. But you would lose all the convenience, the minimising of component count, and we don’t think you’d get a much better sound either. Yamaha is experienced in streaming, in amplification, and in loudspeakers. They’ve done top work in bringing all that together so effectively, so synergistically, in the NX-70A.

• See all our Australian reviews from Sound+Image and Australian Hi-Fi magazines

British loudspeaker manufacturer, Castle, has announced two new series of speakers, Tintagel and Walmer, each featuring one standmounter and one floorstanding model.

According to Castle, the Tintagel Series is “the accessible bedrock of Castle’s new line-up”, while the Walmer Series is positioned further upmarket, “utilising sophisticated material and technologies” for “a new level of performance”.

The four new models are the first loudspeakers from Castle since the Windsor Series released in 2023. Like the Windsor Series, all of the new speakers will be designed and manufactured in the UK.

The new Tintagel series aims to bring Castle's "typical warmth, craft and musicality" in hand-crafted cabinets that use real-wood veneers.

The Tintagel 1 is a two-way standmounter, with 13cm mid/bass advanced fibre driver and a 28mm silk dome tweeter. The speaker uses a large, rear-firing bass port for low frequency extension.

The Tintagel 2 floorstanders use a twin 15cm advanced fibre drivers alongside the same 28mm silk dome tweeter as the Tintagel 1. A downward-firing port runs through the speaker’s plinth, which Castle says makes the Tintagel 2 “easier to position” in your listening room.

The speakers’ 'advanced fibre' cones are made from a fibre blend designed to provide light weight and diaphragm damping. Castle says that the cones’ material qualities “avoid the hard, exposed character that can come from less controlled diaphragm materials”.

The silk dome tweeters use a large dome and shallow waveguide to control high-frequency dispersion for “a stable tonal balance, both on and off axis”.

The more expensive Walmer Series features two speakers, the Walmer 1 and Walmer 2, which are designed for listeners who want more "technical refinement" and greater speed, openness and scale above the Tintagel models.

The Walmer 1 is a two-way standmount speaker, featuring a 13cm woven carbon fibre mid/bass driver and a 12x45mm ribbon tweeter. The three-way Walmer 2 floorstanders, on the other hand, use the same ribbon tweeter and twin 15cm bass drivers and a 11.5cm midrange unit, both made from woven carbon fibre.

Ribbon tweeters were chosen for the Walmer Series speakers due to their lightweight diaphragms, which can “respond quickly to resolve fine detail with delicacy and natural extension", while it also offers a wider horizontal dispersion of sound.

The drivers' carbon fibre material has a high stiffness-to-weight ratio, which Castle says delivers “bass notes [with] cleaner leading edges, reduces low-level colouration and allows the midrange to retain fine detail without becoming brittle”.

The Walmer 2’s midrange unit is also housed in its own enclosure, which isolates the driver from low frequency pressure changes inside the cabinet, “elevating clarity through the most critical part of the audio band”.

Additionally, the Walmer 2 featues a mass loaded transmission line system for controlled bass extension. Castle says the objective was to retain the brand's "natural warmth and musical ease" while also adding precision and transparency without sounding overly analytical.

The Castle Tintagel and Walmer Series are available from September, in finishes of Walnut and Black Oak. Prices are as follows:

Tintagel 1: £1999 / $2749 / AU$3749 per pair

Tintagel 2: £2999 / $3999 / AU$5499 per pair

Walmer 1: £2499 / $3499 / AU$4748 per pair

Walmer 2: £4999 / $7499 / AU$10,499 per pair

MORE:

Rotel's first passive speakers in over 25 years tease "exceptional resolution and accuracy"

From legendary turntables to cutting-edge DACs: 33 debut products that defined hi-fi history

Check out our pick of the best speakers for all budgets, tested by our expert reviewers

Quiz! Can you name the first film in these home cinema formats?

The quality of passive standmounter speakers has increased significantly over the past few years. With Award-winning offerings from Dali, Bowers & Wilkins and Acoustic Energy, the category has seen fine-tuned tech steadily and continuously upping the sonic standards.

Back in 2023, the Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3, was a hit with our test team, resulting in back-to-back What Hi-Fi? Award wins. In this side by side comparison, we will be putting our hero of old up against a more recent five-star offering from Dali: the smallest standmounter in its Sonik series, the Sonik 1.

These speakers have different sonic characteristics, but they compete in the same 'entry-level' market from both brands. Both are highly capable standmount speakers at this price, and we've tested them against each other to help you make your choice.

Dali Sonik 1 vs Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3: price

The Dali Sonik 1 cost £449 / $900 / AU$849, while the B&W 607 S3 will set you back £599 / $1000 / AU$1149. The 607 S3 have been on the market for significantly longer than the Sonik 1, though, and we have seen their price fall as low as £449 / $900 / AU$1039 during sales events, bringing them closer to the Dali's ballpark.

The difference in price might not seem too dramatic across regions, but at this level, even a £50 / $100 / AU$200 disparity is enough to put the Dali Sonik 1 in the lead.

**Winner: Dali Sonik 1 **

Dali Sonik 1 vs Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3: build & design

The Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3 and the Dali Sonik 1 are of a similar stature. As such, neither of these speakers is going to dominate your listening space. While their relatively compact size might tempt you to use them on a shelf or desk, we suggest placing these speakers on dedicated stands, where you will be able to make the most of their sonic talents.

Both of these speakers have their own styles and are broadly on a par in terms of build quality. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, so we suggest taking a good look at the photos or see them in person, to choose your own aesthetic winner.

The B&W 607 S3 come in three vinyl finishes: black, white or oak, the last of which has a contrasting white front panel. Our test pair have a sturdy feel, and we are pleased by their overall design.

But they aren’t just a pretty face. Inside, the 607 S3 feature a host of trickled down technology and concepts from B&W’s more premium ranges, as well as features unique to the 600 Series.

The 607 S3 use a 25mm titanium dome in their tweeter. The tweeter assembly is decoupled from the front baffle to prevent vibrations from the mid/bass driver distorting the tweeter’s output.

Previous 600 Series models used aluminium domes, but B&W claims that titanium allows for better detail in high frequencies, alongside improved refinement.

The tweeter also features a rear tube-loading system to prevent unwanted standing waves from affecting its frontal output, as well as a grille design taken from Bowers & Wilkins’ high-end 800 Series.

The 13cm mid/bass driver is made from Bowers & Wilkins’ woven ‘Continuum’ material and loaded with a dimpled rear-firing port. Its motor-assembly design is inspired by the step-up 700 S3 range.

The drivers are positioned closer together than on previous 600 Series models, which the company claims improves driver integration.

Visually, the Sonik 1 are somewhat less flashy than the 607 S3, but those understated looks mean they shouldn’t draw too much attention to themselves, if subtlety is what you’re after in a pair of speakers.

Their MDF cabinets are clad in a smooth laminate, which, paired with the tweeter’s aluminium trim and the clean front panel, gives these speakers an attractive, sleek appearance.

So, what about the tech?

For drivers, the Sonik 1 use a 13cm mid/bass driver, alongside a 29mm soft-dome tweeter. The mid/bass driver is made from Dali’s proprietary mix of paper pulp and wood fibre, which the company claims provides rigidity, improved damping and light weight. The speaker’s tweeter is made from woven fabric.

The Sonik 1 also employ Dali’s patented SMC (Soft Magnetic Composite) technology in the mid/bass driver’s motor system to reduce distortion, while optimising detail and dynamic performance. Unlike the 607 S3, the Sonik 1’s drivers are connected through a single-wired crossover.

Both of these standmounters include proprietary technology in their designs, have pleasingly solid designs and come in similarly compact packages, so for this section, it’s going to have to be a draw.

**Winner: draw**

Dali Sonik 1 vs Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3: compatibility

In terms of their positioning, neither of these speakers is particularly fussy. The Dalis are more comfortable when positioned up against a wall, but both give their most balanced performance at a distance between 20cm and 40cm from our listening room’s rear wall.

One key difference is that the Sonik 1 have been designed to face straight out into the room, rather than the more conventional angling towards the listening position, which B&W suggest for the 607 S3. Indeed, we find that both speakers provide their strongest stereo image when we adhere to the manufacturer’s suggestions.

In terms of partnering equipment, the Dali Sonik 1 are highly adaptable and respond well to a variety of price-compatible amps, such as the Rotel A8 (30 watts per channel) and the Arcam A5+ (50 watts per channel), but they are also talented enough to make the most of more expensive amplifiers, such as the Arcam A15+ (80 watts per channel).

Sources such as the Rega Planar 2 turntable, Marantz CD70 CD player and the Cambridge Audio MXN10 music streamer will all work well with both sets of speakers.

The aforementioned amplifiers will work well with the 607 S3, too, but overall, they require a bit more care when pairing. This is because the 607 S3 have a more enthusiastic treble delivery that lacks the refinement of the Sonik 1, meaning they will sound better with smoother-sounding electronics.

Dali Sonik 1 vs Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3: sound

Right off the bat, the Sonik 1 impress us with an intricate, expressive sound. For speakers of their size, these standmounters are capable of conveying a serious sense of scale, both sonic and emotional.

Across their well-balanced frequency range, textures arrive with clarity and precision. Thanks to their “lush” midrange, vocal parts are delivered with a pleasing degree of presence and warmth.

Treble is expertly handled, and resists veering into harsh territory even when we blast The Smiths’ jangling classic, This Charming Man. But these speakers also handle bass well, and pack more than enough low-end kick when we play hip-hop tracks such as A Tribe Called Quest’s Show Business.

Rhythmically, the Sonik 1 are responsive and punchy across genres. Their nuanced dynamics really shine when listening to classical music, where the decays of instruments are conveyed with sensitivity and grace.

In our review, we say that the Sonik 1’s stereo image “retains focus and clarity throughout testing” and has “a satisfying sense of depth”.

Being a previous What Hi-Fi? Award winner, it goes without saying that the B&W 607 S3 have plenty of talent.

What we find particularly striking about these speakers, however, is how “entertaining, zippy and musical” they are, melding dynamic expression with a sophisticated, open sound.

Basslines land with tautness and impact, drum beats are “terrifically crisp and tightly marshalled”, and vocals, such as Bruce Springsteen's lead on Terry’s Song, “exude warmth and grit and crackle with emotion”. In other words, these speakers put in an impressive performance across the frequency range.

However, these standmounters aren’t as refined as the Sonik 1 in the treble, and poorer recordings or bright electronics will leave them sounding a little brash. Their drivers aren’t quite as well integrated as with the Sonik 1, either.

That said, the 607 S3 certainly extend a little deeper in the bass and have a snappier rhythmic performance than their rival.

**Winner: Dali Sonik 1 **

Dali Sonik 1 vs Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3: verdict

As reviewers, our job is seldom so exciting as when a new pair of speakers comes up against a previous What Hi-Fi? Award winner. Within their price range, both of these speakers shoot for the moon – and to great effect.

The Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3 are still a wonderful pair of speakers. They have a clear, lively and impactful sound and remain worthy of serious consideration. However, as time goes on, standards keep improving, and the Dali Sonik 1 are a great example of that.

As such, for a more mature, well-balanced and texturally detailed sound, we recommend the Dali Sonik 1.

**Overall winner: Dali Sonik 1**

MORE:

Read our Dali Sonik 1 review

And our Bowers & Wilkins 607 S3 review

Then, why not check out our best bookshelf speakers 2026: top standmounts for every budget tested

Our six-year wait for a new HomePod Mini might finally be coming to an end.

According to multiple online sources, including MacRumours and 9to5mac, Apple has been working on a major overhaul of its Home lineup: one that will not only include entirely new product lines, but the return of some of its most popular smart speakers.

That includes, at long last, a sequel to 2020's five-star HomePod Mini.

According to MacRumors, the firm's newly released macOS 26.7 release candidate beta software includes codenames referencing a number of unreleased products. One of those codenames was 'B525', and as the current HomePod Mini has the code 'B520', this would imply a second-gen sequel to the five-star smart speaker.

We also have references to 'HomeAccessory17,2' and 'HomeAccessory17,3', but it isn't currently known what these might be. As they are listed as a pair, it seems unlikely that either one refers to the HomePod 3, so they could be anything from home security cameras to smart doorbells.

Don't despair, HomePod 2 fans. According to 9to5mac, Apple is set to unveil a whopping 10 products during its September launch event, with two of those new products including the HomePod Mini 2 and, thankfully, a sequel to the HomePod 2.

Evidence for the third-gen mainline HomePod does seem a little sketchier, but it would make sense for Apple to update both of its established smart speakers at the same time. Apple has already lifted the lid on its AirPods with a camera via a leaked video, so it does seem that major launches are to arrive next month.

Apple has reportedly been delaying potential unveilings until it has its new Siri and Apple Intelligence features working, so it would make sense that both HomePods are ready to go, pending those improvements to Apple's own AI systems.

We've speculated before that, aside from upgraded Apple Intelligence for improved Siri performance, we might potentially see improved microphones, enhanced audio, better codec support and even some new colourways if one or more HomePods are set to arrive in 2026.

Prices are yet to be leaked, but hope springs eternal that Apple doesn't hike the price of the Mini's original £99 / $99 / AU$149 RRP for the second-gen sequel.

As for a concrete release date, all eyes now turn to Apple's September showcase event, which is expected to happen on the 9th of September.

MORE:

Apple HomePod 2 vs HomePod Mini: what are the differences?

From Technics’ iconic turntables to JBL’s Classic standmounts – discover five of the best hi-fi product revivals

Our pick of the best wireless speakers you can buy right now

After a long hiatus, Rotel has announced its return to making passive loudspeakers with the Amora 5 standmounts.

Employing a two-way design, the new speakers have been conceived to integrate naturally with Rotel's established roster of hi-fi separates, deploying what their maker describes as "carefully crafted drive units" held within a compact standmount design.

Alongside their wide frequency response, the Amora 5 have been built to deliver "exceptional resolution and accuracy", low distortion, and an "open, three-dimensional stereo image". To do so, each speaker pairs a 25mm silk-dome tweeter with a 16.5cm woven fibre composite mid/bass driver.

The tweeter is fixed using an aluminium surround ring for a rigid, secure mounting, while a geometrically shaped faceplate aims to minimise unwanted sonic diffraction.

The mid/bass unit, meanwhile, uses a rigid aluminium frame to maintain greater mechanical stability and driver alignment, helping to maintain more consistent driver performance.

Integrating the two drivers is a precision-tuned crossover, designed to deliver a balanced frequency response, clear stereo imaging, and a wide, open soundstage.

The Amora 5 are built using a rigid MDF cabinet, employed to help minimise unwanted sonic resonances. Each speaker also employs a rear-mounted reflex port, tuned to extend low-frequency performance while maintaining a more controlled bass signature.

According to Peter Kao, Rotel's Managing Director: “Rotel’s success has always been built on trusted engineering, long-term relationships, and a shared passion for music. With the Amora 5, we extend the Rotel experience through the final stage of the system, giving our global partners and customers a more complete path from source to speaker."

The Rotel Amora 5 are available now, in a choice of black or white finishes, priced at £999 / $999 per pair.

MORE:

Read our recent Dali Sonik 1 review

From Technics’ iconic turntables to JBL’s Classic standmounts – discover five of the best hi-fi product revivals

These are the best bookshelf speakers around

Reviewing tech is a funny business: not quite as subjective as critiquing music or art and certainly not as confined to cold, hard facts as investigative reporting. Technology reviews walk a constant tightrope between stats, specs and subjectivity.

Just three months into my new role as a staff writer here at What Hi-Fi?, that tightrope has been where I’ve spent most of my time, cutting my teeth, veering this way and that, and learning an awful lot with each pair of speakers I test in our dedicated listening rooms. Luckily, the experienced staff at What Hi-Fi? are always on-hand to make sure that the final verdict is the right one.

Having previously worked in recording studios, and beyond that spending hours immemorial listening to all sorts of music on all (and I mean all) sorts of systems – I’ll always have a guilty affection for the sound of heavily aliased YouTube downloads on my early teens Blackberry mobile – these ears have been around the block… and back again.

But every day is a school day, and in the process of reviewing floorstanding speakers, standmounters and active speakers with Bluetooth from brands such as Dali, Monitor Audio and Fyne Audio, some of the things I’ve learned have come as a genuine surprise.

Lesson one: tighten your spikes

The first of these revelations arrived while testing a pair of floorstanders. After screwing in the spikes, getting them upright, positioned and plugged in, the speakers sounded muddy in the low end, somewhat unfocused in terms of their soundstage and dynamically, more than a little bit flat. In other words, they sounded pretty disappointing.

When I reported my dismay to our technical editor, Ketan Bharadia, his eyes lit up – not quite the reaction I had expected.

“How tightly did you screw the spikes in?” He asked.

And, lo and behold, once we turned the speakers on their heads and used a spanner to screw in the spikes, ensuring they were all level, all the issues I had been having with their sound cleared up.

This dramatic effect on sound quality arises because loose spikes add mechanical instability to the precisely engineered cabinets, allowing them to vibrate excessively against the floor, hindering the transmission of energy between the drivers and the air. Lesson learned.

Lesson two: Be fussy about positioning

A slightly more obvious surprise has been how significantly small adjustments in positioning can affect the sound of a pair of speakers.

While testing, we spend a lot of time finding the optimal placement for the speakers under review. Some manufacturers, as I discovered while reviewing Dali’s excellent Sonik 5 floorstanders, design their speakers to face straight out into the room, while others suggest angling them in towards the listening position. It is always worth consulting the manufacturer's advice on this front.

But angling is far from the only consideration. Generally, moving speakers closer to a rear wall will make them sound bassier, while bringing them forward will improve the stereo image at the cost of low end.

Angling speakers will have an effect on stereo imaging, as will widening the gap between them – the wider apart the speakers are, the broader the soundstage becomes, but beware taking things too far and causing a central ‘hole’.

Ultimately every speaker and room are different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all method for placement. However, because they are part of one system, it’s worth making sure your speakers and room are working together as effectively as possible.

My main lesson here: experiment with positioning for longer than you think you should.

So, with spikes screwed in and speakers in position, we can finally get down to some serious listening. And it is here, dear reader, that things get really interesting.

Lesson three: Get rhythm(ic drive)

While evaluating the sound of a speaker, there are certain obvious criteria: is the sound clear and free of distortion? Are the frequencies well balanced? Are dynamics impactful and expressive?

All fair, vital assessments of a speaker’s performance. But another critical feature, which I hadn’t thought much about before I arrived at the What Hi-Fi? offices, is the quality of a speaker’s rhythmic drive.

“Cut the jargon, boffin!” I hear you cry. “What do you mean by rhythmic drive?”

Rhythmic drive, put simply, describes a speaker’s ability to convey pace and energy. It’s a measure of how well a speaker provides a sense of propulsion and forward momentum.

If a speaker has weak rhythmic drive, fast, complex rhythms will feel sluggish and underwhelming. Conversely, a speaker with strong rhythmic drive will sound snappy and alert, pulling you along irresistibly with the music.

Stomping feet and tapping toes are a handy litmus test for this particular quality.

In general, the body’s response to music can be revealing. Wincing might indicate too much volume or harsh high-frequencies; feeling relaxed could arise from a well-balanced frequency response; unexpected tears might mean the speakers are squeezing every last drop of emotion out of that one Sufjan Stevens track that still reminds you of your ex – or perhaps the speakers are just that terrible.

All of which is to say, technicalities aside, that a great pair of speakers should make you feel. Music is expression and listening is an emotionally involved process. At the end of the day, a great pair of speakers shouldn’t distract from the communication between the artist and the listener. In the very best of cases, top-notch speakers will make that process even easier – just make sure you take the time to set them up properly.

MORE:

The ultimate music tracks to test your hi-fi system

How to set up and position your speakers in 4 simple steps

How we test and review products on What Hi-Fi?

We recently tested Dali’s Sonik 5 floorstanding speakers, which so impressed us that we awarded them a five-star review. So, when the opportunity arose to test the entry-level standmounter speakers from the same range, the Dali Sonik 1, we jumped at the chance.

Sonik is Dali’s newest entry-level speaker range. The series also includes a larger standmounter, the Sonik 3 (£599 / $1200 / AU$1199) as well as wall-mounted, home-cinema and floorstander options, which top out at the Sonik 9 floorstanders, costing £2199 / $4500 / AU$4099.

Dali says the Sonik series has been designed to replace the discontinued Oberon range. In practice, this makes the Sonik 1 the successor to the five-star Oberon 1. Not insignificant shoes to fill. Notably, although they are currently in the process of being replaced, the Oberon 1 are still available for a price of around £400 / $550 from certain retailers.

But, returning to the present, the crucial question is, will the baby of the bunch uphold the Sonik family name, or see to their fall from grace?

Price

The Dali Sonik 1 are currently priced at £449 / $900 / AU$849, which places them among the cheaper speakers that Dali makes.

At this price, their main rival is the former Award-winning B&W 607 S3, which cost £599 / $1000 / AU$1149, although we have seen these available for as low as £449 in the UK during sales events. We also have the older Oberon 1 and the smaller, even more affordable Dali Kupid (£299 / $599/ AU$599) in our test rooms, so we used all three speakers for sound comparisons during testing.

Build

The Dali Sonik 1 are the smallest standmounters in the Sonik range, measuring just 27.4 x 16.2 x 23.1cm (hwd), meaning they will have no trouble looking at home, even in smaller rooms.

While the Sonik 1 are small and will fit on a bookshelf, we suggest placing them on dedicated speaker stands to make the most of their sonic capabilities. Dali has tried to make these speakers as flexible as possible by also including rear brackets for wall mounting, which will be a welcome addition for anyone running low on floor space.

The MDF cabinets are clad in a smooth laminate and are available in four finishes: natural oak, white, walnut and black ash. Our test pair’s walnut finish looks classy for laminate, lending an air of aesthetic finesse when paired with the tweeter’s aluminium surround and clean front panel.

The speakers feature a 13cm mid/bass driver, tuned with a rear port, and the same 29mm lightweight woven fabric soft dome tweeter as featured on the Sonik 5 floorstanders. The mid/bass diaphragms use Dali’s proprietary mix of fine-grain paper pulp reinforced with wood fibres, which the company says provides rigidity, improved damping and light weight.

The mid/bass drivers across the Sonik range use Dali’s patented SMC (Soft Magnetic Composite) technology in the motor system to reduce distortion, optimising detail and dynamic performance. Both drivers are connected through a single-wired crossover.

The Sonik 1 have a sensitivity of 86dB/w/m and a nominal impedance of 6 ohms. These figures are fairly conventional for a pair of standmounters at this level, so these speakers are unlikely to present any system-matching problems when paired with price-compatible amplifiers.

Compatibility

Ideally, speakers of this price should be fairly unfussy, and could see themselves partnered with a budget streaming amplifier such as the WiiM Amp Ultra (£499/ $529/ AU$899). They can also be used in an affordable separates system, featuring the Rotel A8 amplifier (£399 / $449 / AU$649) paired with a Cambridge Audio MXN10 network player (£399 / $499 / AU$799), Marantz CD 70 CD player (£499 / $750 / AU$1000), or a Rega Planar 2 turntable (£525 / $895 / AU$1149).

During our testing, we tried the speakers with both the Rotel A8 and the step-up Arcam A5+ amplifiers (£749 / $1200 / AU$1595), and we are pleased to confirm that they work well in both cases, providing more than enough punch and expression. Notably, however, the Soniks are talented enough to really come to life when paired with even more expensive amplifiers, such as the Arcam A15+ (£1199 / $1099 / AU$2295), which provides an extra portion of textural detail and dynamic nuance.

For our music sources, we stream hi-res music from our reference Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition music streamer and play CDs from our Cyrus CDi player. Both of these are more capable than the sources that would typically be used with these entry-level speakers, but we have chosen them in order to really put a spotlight on the Dali speakers’ performance.

Falling in line with Dali’s suggestion, we find that the Sonik 1 sound most well-balanced when facing straight ahead with a gap of around 20cm between the back of the speakers and our testing room’s rear wall. When angling the speakers in towards the listening position, as might conventionally be expected, we found that the stereo image narrowed and high frequencies became too prominent.

Bring the Sonik 1 further into the room, and we find they begin to lose out in terms of bass authority, which is what we would expect for such a small speaker. Up against our test room’s wall, bass increases and the speakers stay nicely controlled, but we prefer the more articulate balance that leaving a little space provides.

Sound

We had every hope that these standmounters would echo the performance of the five-star Sonik 5 floorstanders, and that certainly appears to be the case. Much like the Sonik 5, these standmounters impress us immediately with their intricate and expressive sound.

Their capacity for scale, both sonic and emotional, comes as a welcome surprise given their dainty stature.

Beginning with Norah Jones’ Don’t Know Why, acoustic guitar and piano are delivered with a shimmer that complements the speakers' full-bodied presentation.

The same is true of Jones’ vocals, and we can’t help but appreciate how well-integrated the speakers’ drivers sound, boasting eloquent expression across the frequency range.

Thanks to their lush midrange, Jones’ voice has real body, evoking a palpable sense of presence in our test room.

In treble-heavy recordings such as This Charming Man by The Smiths, the Sonik 1 keep a firm handle on the high-frequencies, delivering guitars with an appropriately jangling sheen without becoming fatiguing.

For a more rhythmically driven track, we play A Tribe Called Quest’s Show Business, and the Dalis have no trouble providing the kind of low-end kick that hip-hop thrives on – for their size, at least. Kick drums and basslines hit hard, but never obscure the vocals or percussion, even when we crank the music up to almost uncomfortably loud volumes.

At low volume, too, these speakers hang on to a sense of musical momentum and clarity, so it doesn’t all have to be windowsill-rattling beats. Most alternatives sound a little lifeless when listened to at such levels, but the Sonik 1 retain an impressive amount of character.

In terms of textural detail, there’s no doubt that the Sonik 1 outperform their predecessor, the Oberon 1. Whether it’s the subtle passing of fingers across guitar strings, or an inward breath before a vocal line, we notice details through these speakers that we miss on the outgoing Oberons.

The Sonik 1 have a strong sense of rhythmic drive and are highly responsive to transients. While rivals like the B&W 607 S3 sound snappier overall, they are somewhat more tonally uneven and, in relative terms, coarser in the treble region.

Dynamically, the Sonik 1 handle intricate shifts, such as the decay of vocal reverb in You Sun Nah’s Kangwondo Arirang, with sensitivity and grace, bringing the track’s most delicate minutiae to the surface with an immersive, intricate sound.

On classical recordings, such as Minnesota Orchestra’s rendition of Infernal Dance Of King Kashchey from Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite, orchestral stabs and sweeping ebbs in the dense arrangement are conveyed with equal amounts of refinement and gusto.

Classical music provides a great test of the speakers’ stereo image, too, which retains focus and clarity throughout testing. Notably, the Sonik 1 have a satisfying sense of depth, and during Infernal Dance Of King Kashchey, the relative positioning of the orchestra’s sections is blatantly apparent, with the woodwind section sitting comfortably behind the grand, dramatic strings.

Verdict

We are pleased to say that the smallest speakers from Dali’s new Sonik range walk firmly in the footsteps of their floorstanding sibling, the Sonik 5.

With an expressive, well-balanced sound, these standmount speakers are an excellent pick for anyone seeking serious sonic performance in a compact package at this price.

The Sonik 1 will also forgive less than ideal placement, making them a strong choice for music lovers without a dedicated listening space. All things considered, we highly recommend these talented and adaptable speakers.

Review published: 17th August 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Compatibility 5
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the B&W 607 S3

Also consider the Dali Kupid

Read our Dali Oberon 1 review

Best bookshelf speakers: top standmounts for every budget tested

Monitor Audio has announced the release of the latest generation of its long-running Silver Series of loudspeakers. The Silver Series 8G comprises seven new models designed for both stereo and surround sound systems, with the company stating that the new range is “as potent as it is flexible”.

Promising to be Monitor Audio’s most capable Silver series yet, the range has been updated to deliver more “clarity, control and emotional impact than ever before”.

Topping the range are the Silver 500 8G floorstanding speakers, followed by the Silver 300 8G floorstanders, and the Silver 100 8G and Silver 50 8G standmounters. For home cinema systems, there are a Silver Centre 8G and Silver AMS 8G Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers. Unlike the previous Silver Series 7G range which originally launched in 2021, the 8G series also features a wall-mountable model, the Silver On-Wall 8G.

All speakers in the 8G range use Monitor Audio’s proprietary Ceramic-Coated Aluminium / Magnesium (C-CAM) driver material, which promises to be both lightweight and rigid. Notably, the mid/bass drivers of the Silver Series 8G feature an updated rigid surface technology (RST III), which sees the speaker cone’s geometry altered to increase structural rigidity while minimising unwanted resonances.

Monitor Audio has also updated its C-CAM gold dome tweeter for the 8G series, tweaking a design that has been used by the company since 1982. The latest-generation tweeter features a vented rear chamber, a new shorting ring (for reduced distortion and an extended high-frequency response), and the same Uniform Dispersion (UD) Waveguide II as seen on the Silver Series 7G.

The crossover network has also been updated throughout the 8G range. According to Monitor Audio, the Silver 8G speakers feature “higher quality components throughout” with the new crossover network ensuring “a cleaner, more transparent signal path for tighter driver integration and a more coherent soundstage”.

All speakers use through-bolt driver bracing, which allows the drive units to be securely braced to the rear of the cabinets and tightened to a user-specific torque, to reduce unwanted driver resonances and improve structural rigidity. The cabinets also feature updated bass-reflex ports with an enlarged diameter and flared geometry to prevent port chuffing.

The new Monitor Audio Silver Series 8G are available from this month in three finishes: High Gloss Black, Satin White or European Walnut. The European Walnut veneer is made from real, sustainably sourced timber, to help achieve the “rich grain and colour of exotic woods” without harvesting rare or endangered trees.

Prices are as follows:

- Silver 500 8G: £2650 / €3100 / $3300 (per pair)

- Silver 300 8G: £2000.00 / €2400.00 / $2600.00 (per pair)

- Silver 100 8G: £1500.00 / €1800.00 / $2000.00 (per pair)

- Silver 50 8G: £800.00 / €1000.00 / $1050.00 (per pair)

- Silver On-Wall 8G: £450.00 / €550.00 / $575.00 (each)

- Silver Centre 8G: £800.00 / €1000.00 / $1050.00 (each)

- Silver AMS 8G: £900.00 / €1100.00 / $1200.00 (per pair)

The new Silver Series 8G has seen a jump in price between the two generations, with an increase of as much as £925 on its flagship model. With such hikes across the range, there’s one question on our minds: will the extra expense prove worthwhile?

MORE

Monitor Audio Bronze 50 7G review

Best floorstanding speakers 2026: budget to premium models tested by our experts

Monitor Audio’s versatile hi-fi and home cinema system boasts “genuinely high-fidelity sound”

If you’ve been eyeing up a convenient, streaming-centric wireless speaker system to blast tunes in your home, Samsung is unlikely to be the first brand you think of. After all, there are established brands and products from the likes of Sonos, KEF’s excellent wireless speaker systems such as the LSX LT II or even wallet-friendly alternatives such as the WiiM Sound. Allow the Samsung Music Studio 7 to make its case for a spot in your home.

And now it’s possible to place one, two or more in your home thanks to a AU$300 discount at Samsung direct as part of its 48-hour-only Secret Sale. This isn’t the first Samsung Secret Sale to ever exist, and in previous examples there have been huge savings on TVs and soundbars (some of which are also available this time around), but it is the first time I’ve seen the new speaker model on sale. If you’re a hi-fi fan on a budget and are looking for a simple, convenient and fuss-free speaker, the Music Studio 7 could be the one.

The Music Studio 7 launched in April this year, alongside the Music Studio 5, after an official unveiling at CES 2026. Samsung hasn’t had a huge stake in the wireless speaker market, it must be said, other than with its slightly disappointing Music Frame. But you can bet we were still keen to see and hear if and how the company could improve upon that previous effort.

Well, my colleague Jez Ford has recently published his Australian review of the Music Studio 7 and, to put it simply, he loves it. And while he admitted its AU$749 RRP could be considered “a low price” given its talents, I’m of the opinion that it’s a little high considering the Award-winning Apple HomePod 2 is available for AU$549 RRP, while the excellent and versatile Sonos Era 300 retails for the same AU$749. That’s big competition.

Which is why a AU$300 saving on the Music Studio 7 makes it much easier to recommend, especially since you’ll get the absolute best performance if you own two and set them up as a stereo pair.

The Music Studio 7 — and smaller Music Studio 5, which is also on sale — benefits from tech developed at the company’s Audio Lab in California — which is also where the company’s award-winning soundbars have been developed. While Samsung hasn’t explicitly said which technologies they are, we reckon some “patented Immersive Waveguide technology” is highly likely. This proprietary tech claims to “deliver uniform directivity, spanning from 1kHz up to an ultra high-frequency of 35kHz”.

It can conceivably be compared to the Sonos Era 300 and Apple HomePod in both size and feature set. While it can function perfectly fine as a standalone unit, its multi-driver setup only reveals its true power when you wirelessly pair two together. It is possible to group up to 10 Samsung audio devices together, though we haven’t had first-hand experience of such a configuration.

It supports Dolby Atmos thanks to dedicated upward-firing and side-firing drivers, along with Samsung’s own Eclipsa Audio spatial audio format, which it developed in collaboration with Google — though we would note that there’s just not a whole lot of Eclipsa Audio content out there right now.

In our Samsung Music Studio 7 review, we found the speaker really did perform at its best with a second unit (which is why the AU$300 saving is so enticing, as it lets you pick up a pair for under AU$900) and when connected via HDMI, with audio coming from a TV source or media-streaming device.

Streaming initially presented a few issues, but we later found that ‘grouping’ the speakers, rather than just ‘pairing’, produced better results. When grouped, both speakers operate in stereo mode individually. When paired, each speaker adopts either a left or right channel configuration. And after switching, we found that turning on the ‘Space Fit Pro’ automatic calibration setting produced a noticeable, positive effect. As Jez notes, it “filled in exactly the midbass we had been missing from vocals and presented all that material with a warmer heart”.

When connected via HDMI, though, and with Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ album playing, Jez found “the stereo combination had an unerring ability to handle the highest dynamic peaks at the end… without any hint of congestion”.

And as for its spatial audio prowess, we said the Music Studio 7 pair “had a genuinely immersive experience, even hearing stuff from behind, when there was nothing there”.

Of course, you don’t just have to play music through them (despite the name), as the HDMI input means they can be used instead of a TV soundbar. In this mode, we found using a pair “did seem to genuinely push crowd sound around us in the opening live number” in A Star Is Born. It “emerged absolutely massive, the guitar solo clearly panned left, and bass content rather too much, even if loaded up for effect on this opening”.

While you’re certainly not short of options for mains-powered wireless streaming speakers, Samsung’s latest entry is absolutely worth considering as a noteworthy contender against Audio Pro, Sonos and even as a most cost-effective alternative to the likes of KEF, especially if you already own Samsung AV gear.

With a significant discount applied when you use the code SECRETAUG, a duo becomes considerably more attractive.

You’ll need to hurry, though — this 48-hour sale ends this Wednesday (August 19) at 10am AEST.

MORE:

View more of the best wireless speakers

I thought Bluetooth would ruin my vinyl experience – these KEF speakers proved me wrong

View our top Father's Day gift ideas

We had been anticipating this Music Studio 7 since last year, when we had reviewed a Samsung soundbar which turned out to be one of the last products to emerge from the company’s California Audio Lab under Allan Devantier. The Lab continues; Mr Devantier has moved on to a company intending to revolutionise magnets in loudspeakers by avoiding rare-earth metals and other cunning stuff.

It was Devantier who almost singlehandedly revolutionised Samsung’s soundbar performance after creating the Audio Lab in 2014. For its test facilities he incorporated ideas from the legendary National Research Council of Canada audio rooms created by his guru and collaborator Floyd Toole at Harman, from where Devantier had been headhunted not long prior to Samsung’s purchase of the entire company and all its audio brands.

We had exchanged a few questions with Mr Devantier for the soundbar review, but we had not known he was shortly to leave Samsung; we found out only after publication, when he linked to our review on his LinkedIn account.

“The last interview with me as the Audio R&D Leader at Samsung is part of the review of the HW-QS700F SoundBar that the Audio Lab in Valencia California and I were heavily involved in,” he wrote. “Fitting that they decided to mention my decades-long collaboration with Floyd Toole.”

And then he added: “Be on the look-out for reviews of the Music Studio 7 which features 2 technologies invented at the Audio Lab in Valencia California. I first proposed the concept to management a L O N G time ago. I am so happy we were finally able to bring it to the market. It’s a fitting swan song. Thanks to the entire team at the Valencia [California] Audio lab and especially Felix Kochendörfer, Matthew McDuffee and Yuan Li.”

So we made an early request, and finally we have the Music Studio 7 in for review. Samsung’s publicity for the speaker doesn’t clarify which are the two new invented technologies mentioned by Devantier, though the heavily plugged “patented Immersive Waveguide technology” might be a frontrunner for one of them.

Nor is there any mention in despatches of those three names from Devantier’s Audio Lab. Samsung’s press releases instead emphasise “renowned industrial design studio Erwan & Ronan Bouroullec” from Paris, and indeed we were asked if we would like to interview Erwan Bouroullec.

Not really, we replied; while we're sure M. Bouroullec is très magnifique et accompli and all that, the industrial designers oversee the outside of products, by and large, while we’re far more interested in the inside. They also speak nebulous design language (“I consider sound to be like air and light: fundamental elements of a room's atmosphere”, says Erwan), and several of our previous interviews with industrial designers have been, well, disastrous; we recall a slightly furious debate with a pair working for Bang & Olufsen who had decorated a waterproof loudspeaker with materials that weren’t waterproof, so you couldn’t then get it wet. They thought this very cool; we thought it idiotic, and the antithesis of good design.

But we digress. Mr Devantier whetted our appetite for the Music Studio 7. What has Samsung delivered here?

Build & drivers

In brief, this is a wireless streaming speaker. It has only two physical inputs (optical and HDMI eARC; the USB-A slot is for service only), plus a variety of streaming options. At the price (currently RRP A$749 each in Australia, though we've seen it at A$599 during promotional periods), it might be considered Samsung’s equivalent of Apple’s HomePod, or the Sonos Era 300.

You can buy just one, which might well be enough for a bedroom or study scenario with streaming. But we found that the HDMI input proves essential to their best performance, and if you’re using them for TV sound, we’re not sure how you’d put just one of these chunky speakers in front of your TV.

So this points towards their use as a stereo pair; they link wirelessly, so you can pop them either side of your TV, making a full music and movie system.

It is an unusual streaming speaker in a number of ways, and we certainly won’t diss the quality of work by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec (fraternal designers who over nearly 30 years have designed everything from jewellery to architecture), because we like the exterior very much, including the way that a small light behind the front ‘Dot’ moves clockwise as you increase volume and anticlockwise when you reduce it.

“Their goal was to move away from the traditional, aggressive look of high-tech audio gear (which usually features exposed black cones and foam surrounds) and instead turn acoustic physics into modern art,” says Samsung. Job done.

The Bouroullec design input is perhaps more obvious on the smaller Music Studio 5, with its almost triangular base and curious stand-up circular frontage rather like a ‘Napoleon's hat’ tambour mantle clock (so suitably French-influenced!).

The Studio 7, however, is a far more conventional speaker shape, but again with no drivers visible at all. It presents as a minimalist rectangular box with nicely-radiused corners; the height-to-width measurements are 268 x 184mm, a pleasing 16:11 ratio though rather lower than the golden one, so that they appear slightly squat.

We were shocked at the packaging in which they arrived. There almost wasn’t any; the cardboard box was only slightly larger than the speaker, leaving the front baffle protected by a mere centimetre of sculptured cardboard padding, covered by a thin sheet of cardboard.

No damage? No damage, indeed nothing that can be damaged, because that larger circle on the front is not an exposed driver: it’s solid as a rock, a flush-mounted waveguide, presumably, moulded directly into the front matte-finished baffle. The baffle looks impervious but is actually a tightly punched grille that is both audibly transparent and visually so, if you hold a torch up to it. We tried breathing through it; no problem.

Our torch revealed a tweeter at the bottom behind the flat section; indeed this is described elsewhere as a Super Tweeter which “can capture ultra-high frequencies up to 35kHz” (though we assume it’s actually delivering rather than ‘capturing’, unless it’s listening for bats).

Also at the front, behind that Dot, our torch revealed a deeply-coned woofer, about four inches in diameter when measured across its wide roll surrounds; these and the cone profile indicate this is a long-throw design designed to move a lot of air for its size.

The centre of this driver lies directly behind the ‘Dot’, though what you actually see through the ‘Dot’ seems as solid to an inquiring tap as is the depression around it; we could not ascertain how it integrates directly into the baffle structure.

We think it fires from a tuned acoustic chamber, projecting sound forward. But it was confirmed by Samsung that the ‘Dot’ structure in front of this driver is NOT the aforementioned “patented Immersive Waveguide technology”. That is actually used on the supertweeter below: “Samsung's proprietary 'Immersive Waveguide (Patented)' delivers uniform directivity, spanning from 1kHz up to an ultra high-frequency of 35kHz,” they confirmed. The waveguide shapes and directs the sound waves – like a lens on a camera, but for sound instead of focusing light, as Samsung neatly puts it. One of its key goals is the delivery of a wide sweet spot for listening.

But the ‘Dot’ above is not mere industrial design. Samsung adds that the ‘Dot’ is meant to “visually represent the physical ‘origin of sound’ while quietly doing the heavy lifting of audio dispersion behind a calm, minimal facade.”

It is also apparently signature stuff from Erwan Bouroullec: “From the Pico and Punto coverings for Mutina to Cappellini's Cloud bookcase and the Maap lamp for Flos, he has explored the expressive potential of the dot and its repetition for years,” reported Archiproducts when the Music Studios were announced.

All this from a little circle; oh, the brilliance of industrial design.

But what we really wanted to know was where all the rest of the drivers are, and what they’re doing.

The Music Studio 7 is advertised as a Dolby Atmos-compatible speaker, and a graphic on Samsung’s product page shows sound emerging not only from the speaker frontage but also flooding sideways from each side, and upwards from the top. In one of the graphics, these sound beams then magically veer towards the listening position, though we presume they are really intended to bounce off ceilings and possibly side-walls (Samsung’s images are marked as AI and for illustrative purposes only).

Such side-bouncing can be a problem in Australian architecture because often the listening rooms are wide and simply don’t have side walls, being either open-plan or open to outdoor spaces. But as we’ll find, the Music 7 did manage this task well.

They can receive Dolby Atmos signals via Tidal Connect or Amazon's top music tier, or via any number of sources piped via HDMI.

The Music Studio 7s are also marked as able to play Eclipsa Audio, an open-source spatial audio format developed by Google and Samsung; this ability has also been integrated into some recent Samsung TVs. There seem no movies or commercial video yet available in Eclipsa, though there is some YouTube content and "select Samsung TV Plus content", and we note that Miami’s Classic Master USA mastering facility is also doing Eclipsa music masters. It’s early days, but if Eclipsa does eventually take off properly, the Music Studio 7 is ready to handle it.

As for the rest of the drivers, Samsung’s literature talks about “five advanced speakers delivering true surround sound”, stating that each Studio 7 alone delivers 3.1.1-channel sound.

Yet there are clearly seven drivers here. Using our torch-technique we peered beneath the side and top surfaces, seemingly aluminium, again punctured through with a fine grille pattern.

On top there is a single driver angled slightly forward, presumably bouncing off the ceiling; the angle looks like it would bounce off a normal ceiling height to serve a listening position some three metres distant. The driver is a little 40mm diameter cone with a large and prominent 20mm dustcap; we considered whether this might actually be a coaxially-situated tweeter dome, but Samsung confirms it as a single driver.

On each side of the Studio 7 there is a similar 40mm driver in the bottom section of each side, apparently firing directly sideways rather than angled to attempt the side bounce.

So that’s five drivers already, yet the top section of each side hosts a large curved-rectangle (racetrack) driver, some 95mm x 60mm, which must therefore be passive.

The centre driver behind the Dot seems to be considered the ‘subwoofer’ (it fired when we sent through an LFE signal only), augmented by the passive racetracks.

So there’s genuine LCR plus height plus bass, and the 3.1.1 claim is justified, though it’s not a direct signal they’re playing. Samsung shared with us engineers’ comments explaining that phase control signals based on the left, right and top channels are added to the front channel, to prevent the directivity of each channel from spreading unnecessarily.

We have no idea about either the amplification type, the DACs used or the materials from which the drivers are made.

Streaming and other tricks

Streaming is supported in a number of ways. With Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect, you simply use those native apps and select the Studio 7 as the output, sending music direct from the internet to the speakers at the best quality for which you are paying.

Other music can be streamed via AirPlay 2 or Google Cast; Apple currently throttles AirPlay 2 to a fairly meagre 256k AAC (despite endless ongoing rumours this may soon be raised), whereas Google Cast can go to CD quality and above, generally to 24-bit/96kHz depending on implementation, making it the preferable system here.

There is also Roon, the paid music organisational software which supposedly delivers best possible quality from a file-based music collection and from some streaming services to devices around the home. (Samsung benefits here by owning Harman, which now owns Roon!)

If you use a Samsung smartphone, DLNA casting is also integrated directly into the Samsung Music app, and should yield full-quality file replay, depending on your settings.

And there’s Bluetooth, version 6.0, but including only the basic SBC codec plus Samsung's own Galaxy-ecosystem SSC codec. So Bluetooth might be best kept for occasional convenience only, rather than regular use. There's no provision here for the new Bluetooth LE using the LC3 codec or Auracast broadcasting.

With the rear USB-A slot turning out to be for service only, the only physical inputs are the optical digital and HDMI eARC; both are likely considered as inputs for your TV audio, though only the HDMI connection will bring Dolby Atmos across from your TV.

The TV connection can do rather more if you’re pairing the Studio 7, or preferably two of them, with an actual Samsung TV – though we would say, after testing, that they’re good to go with any TV brand/model that offers HDMI ARC or eARC; don’t reject them just because you don’t have a Samsung TV.

But if you do have a suitably recent and compatible Samsung TV, then you can connect that wirelessly to the Studio 7s using Samsung’s Q-Symphony technology, which then integrates the TV’s own speakers into the overall sound, for better or for worse; it wasn’t something we could check. Indeed you can apparently connect four (or five?) speakers and the TV using Q-Symphony, Samsung then claiming a 15.0.5-channel layout (which we’re not going to begin trying to work out!).

There’s also talk of wireless Dolby Atmos being possible from a compatible TV, but there’s enough compression on Atmos signals already; we’d very much recommend using a cable.

Pairing two Studio 7s without Q-Symphony was our main listening configuration, and we think it probably a purer path than adding in the TV drivers. Allan Devantier once confirmed to us that audio purists (“like us”, he said, including himself) should not consider using Q-Symphony with its soundbars, advice surely doubly true here with the even more hi-fi Studio 7s.

With the speakers linked together and set up either side of our TV, how did this affect their driver use? It seemed, with both stereo and Atmos material, that both Studio 7s then shut down their inner facing side tweeter, though the passive side radiator kept pumping. This makes sense; in our scenario the inner tweeters were now firing uselessly behind the screen of the 75-inch Samsung TV, so turning them off and rebalancing the output is an excellent idea.

Both outer drivers, both top drivers and both forward tweeters continue firing with both stereo and Atmos material. From playing Atmos test channels through them, the front Super Tweeters, once the speakers were paired, seemed to take on both a share of the centre signal and their respective left or right signal as well, while the side speakers were also taking a share of left and right signals while handling all surround information. So clearly some cunning algorithms are overseeing job-sharing for the drivers to achieve the best effect.

There are a few technologies on top of this. Samsung’s ‘Sound’ app has a slider to invoke ‘SpaceFit Sound Pro’, which it says adapts the sound to the room, though at first we couldn’t imagine how, as there are no test tones, no microphone waving process involved, and Samsung has no mike position out in the room. But after reading up we gather it uses far-field microphone arrays within the speakers to measure (continuously) how the audio bounces off your walls, ceiling, and furniture, then using EQ to compensate accordingly. We try it out below.

There’s also Active Voice Amplifier (AVA) Pro, which adjusts voices to overcome specific background noises, and ‘Auto Volume’ which both keeps different sources at similar levels, and works within sources to avoid spikes. The first is useful input matching; the second likely involves dynamic range compression, so is again ‘not for the purist’.

Plus there are a few listening modes and on-the-fly EQ adjustments available, which we’ll encounter during our listening.

The speakers are listed as allowing Alexa control, but we think the day for Alexa control of audio gear has passed, at least in Australia. More interestingly when we opened Samsung’s SmartThings app (we were looking for a way to DLNA-cast to the speakers), it immediately found and registered the speakers within SmartThings in addition to the ‘Sound’ app we’d used to set them up, yet SmartThings seemed to maintain our ‘Sound’ settings, even clearly pointing us back to that app as a more convenient and dedicated method of control. Good work.

Listening sessions

Set-up was as simple as any wireless speaker we’ve reviewed, and easier than many of them. Although weighty enough at 5.6kg each, the composite back panel includes a handgrip which makes them easy to carry around, and little possibility of damage given all the drivers are hidden away.

The power cord plugs upward underneath from the back, and in nice attention to detail, the black speaker has a black mains cable and the white speaker a white one! Samsung had sent us two Music 7s – one black (LS70H), one white (LS71H).

Getting the first unit online required no hunting for pairing buttons on the back: the speaker was instantly visible in Samsung’s Sound app as soon as we powered it up. There was even a sticker on the top telling us to hold down two buttons for a built-in demo – it sounded great, and should impress people in-store!

There are five rectangular press buttons on top: + and – for volume, then a music note in the middle (play/pause/next track, but also can be set to Spotify Tap, launching Spotify Connect without need for the app), and finally a circle on the left (multifunction) and a circle with a line through it on the right (mic on/off).

Hang on, what microphone? Turns out this is the one used for ‘SpaceFit Sound Pro’ and AVA Pro. These are continuous functions, requiring continuous microphone monitoring of the room. If you’re nervous about privacy, this button allows you to turn the mike off. We see this more often on products where there’s a voice assistant, and we often do turn it off, since this doesn’t much affect other functionality. But as we’ll see, we ended up very much wanting the SpaceFit on, and mike muting would disable this useful function.

Once we’d got the first speaker online, we whipped out a phone and started throwing tunes, initially via AirPlay. Out flowed Olivia Dean sounding lively, friendly and punchy, good bass support. But we were later to hear this playing through the same speaker, transformed. How? Read on.

Paired up

We really wanted to use these speakers as a stereo pair. It’s easy, almost encouraged indeed, to link them together within the Samsung Sound app (above). Once done you can access their settings together in the app, including a ‘Device Control’ option which we set to be our left speaker, as that would receive the HDMI cable.

We then opened up Spotify and later Deezer to throw some tunes to the paired stereo set. We expected to find them offered as a pair, and under the ‘Connect’ list it listed the left speaker, showing an icon of two linked speakers.

But it also listed each individual speaker alone as a Google Cast option (third screengrab above), which is a bit confusing.

We chose the two speaker option and started to play. It didn’t begin well. Stevie Wonder’s Superstitious emerged just all broken apart, bass faux, horns thin like sandpaper at short range, softening only as we sat back further away.

Carpenters, it’s hard to go wrong with Carpenters, but here there was no depth to it, no silence behind the soundstaging, and none of your classic warmth. Judy Blue Eyes from CS&N: soft and dull, though with a full bass.

We punched the sound mode to ‘AI Adaptive Sound’, tried ‘Standard’, preferred being back on ‘Music’. ‘Standard’ is in fact the purer choice, playing the stereo through left, right and centre direct, while ‘Music’ additionally fed the sound to the height driver. But this extra spread seemed non-destructive in sonic terms, and we preferred it, though things were still often sounding thin.

We experimented with speaker positioning, not forgetting that there’s that ‘Space Fit Pro’ option still to try. Pushing the speakers back to within 20cm of the wall certainly strengthened the bass, and things picked up with Long Train Runnin’ from The Doobie Brothers, supercrunchy guitar opening, now a fuller bass, but still becoming sufficiently unpleasant to play much higher than the lower side of enjoyable critical listening. We wondered if there might even be a timing mismatch between the speakers.

But we thought – perhaps we’re feeding it less than optimal source material. The casting, the streaming, the network: too many variables, even if Spotify Connect or Deezer via Google Cast should play well enough.

So we took it straight to the good stuff, supplied via the HDMI cable. Since these are Dolby Atmos speakers, we loaded Dolby Atmos music discs into a Blu-ray player, which was attached via HDMI to a Samsung TV which was attached via HDMI to the black Studio 7, so that it emerged playing across them both.

The first disc in the tray was the recently-released Atmos mix of Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’. And this was immediately magnificent. No longer any need to restrain volume levels: we could nudge it stop after stop using the TV remote, and what a wide and wonderful world of sound opened up. Buckley’s vocal was held completely pure and isolated at the front, with swirling perfection all around, the bass now entirely unfettered in its ability to dive deeper towards what we might consider subwoofer territory for any other speaker this size.

The stereo combination had an unerring ability to handle the highest dynamic peaks at the end of Grace without any hint of congestion, banging out the climax like a well-resourced power amp and speaker combination, yet also having the low-level detail to allow a thrillingly delicate handling of the quick-silver sliding guitar that opens Last Goodbye, and to overlay upon that an astoundingly weighty and real kick drum. Judging as a fine hi-fi system, we might have said the bass could perhaps have a tad more definition, but heck, these are AU$749 speakers.

Leaning back in the chair, allowing the mind to wander and accept the cues being thrown out by the Music 7s, we had a genuinely immersive experience, even hearing stuff from behind, when there was nothing there. If they’re doing sidebouncing stuff, they’re lucky it was winter so there was a side wall at all. But the effect was not only effective, but unobtrusive, non-artificial. And normally we have to work with a system like this to get the effect happening: here it just happened.

They were equally hi-fi if a little less successful in the room-spreading stuff with the Atmos mix of Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’. Then we loaded the ultimate Dolby Atmos music disc: The Flaming Lips’ ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’. Track 10, All We Have Is Now, starts in the surround channels: Wayne’s vocal back right, electric piano back left. And Wayne really did come from a semi-rear right position, and elements panned wide on both sides, even if most of the rest was still coming from the front. The Lip’s effusive bass content poured out, and the full picture was musically enjoyable, very impressive from two speakers at this price, if not as magnificently open and wide as a full Atmos system can deliver. Very impressive stuff.

And of course this bodes well for movie Atmos soundtracks. From Blu-ray we played ‘A Star is Born’, which we’ve heard many times on large systems. The Atmos soundtrack did seem to genuinely push crowd sound around us in the opening live number Black Eyes, which emerged absolutely massive, the guitar solo clearly panned left, and bass content rather too much, even if loaded up for effect on this opening. We were encouraged to try the AI Adaptive mode again: it may be the go for movies, adding enthusiasm and size.

We also looked to notch back the bass delivery: there are two options: straight bass and treble EQ sliders, or a separate control for woofer. Taking either bass slider down to -3 sorted out the excess, and it’s easy to tweak on the fly since these controls are available reasonably easily within the Sound app – just three taps from the home screen to get to the Woofer slider, once you’ve learnt the way. Having to drop the bass on speakers this size is remarkable, and shows how effective Samsung’s team has made the combination of solid and effective speaker design in concert with algorithmic control of driver travel and the like, something which played a key part in the success of those first Californian-designed soundbars. Something similar is surely again in evidence here.

Back then, in 2017, we had interviewed Mr Devantier and he told us about “distortion-cancelling technology” developed by the team's Pascal Brunet, a software-based amplifier-distortion cancellation. And later, when we thought to Google those names which Mr Devantier had thrown out on his LinkedIn post, we found that two of them, Yuan Li and Felix Kochendörfer, had co-authored with Pascal Brunet in 2022 a paper revealing results of using trained time-delayed neural networks to create an AI control algorithm for driver behaviour, instead of the previous model-based control. There was also consideration of Long Short-term Memory and a fascinating Nonlinear Autoregressive Network with exogenous inputs (‘NARX’), but the neural networks won out in the end.

Presumably something similar is used here, an AI-style feedback system inverting errant loudspeaker driver behaviour at higher volumes; indeed this is most likely what Samsung calls 'AI Dynamic Bass Control'. This is not an effect to switch on and off with a slider in the app; it’s the inherent control system behind at least that big Dot-fronted woofer. The effect is a bit like Bjørn Erik Edvardsen’s soft clipping used in NAD amps in the 1980s: you can push beyond the natural limits, pulling back just before distortion occurs, thereby achieving maximum air-shifting and a remarkable sense of power even from relatively small enclosures and drivers. Remember that all the active bass here is coming from a single driver in each Studio 7, the driver behind that Dot, with only passive radiators in support. It’s an amazing result.

If the driver tech/bass control is the speciality of Ms Li and Mr Kochendörfer at the Samsung Audio Lab in California, what of the other name, Matthew McDuffee, the Lab’s Principal Audio Engineer? We find him coauthoring papers on implementation of simultaneous deconvolution, which relates to in-room speaker system equalisation. That fits in with the goals of 'SpaceFit Sound Pro', which we are about to encounter below.

Putting all this together, we might place our bet that the two new technologies from the Lab, which Allan Devantier mentioned in concert with those three names, are AI Dynamic Bass Control, and SpaceFit Sound Pro. So perhaps not that ‘Immersive Waveguide’ acoustic lens after all, given that waveguides have been around since the 1990s since Geddes differentiated them from horns in 1989 (and they’re all ‘immersive’, really, by dint of operating in a 3D world).

So, technical discussion aside, we were loving everything coming through HDMI. But was all the streaming stereo stuff still sounding not so impressive? The relative quantities of the two media types would not weigh well for the Studio 7 in that case.

We played from other sources, including stereo from the Blu-ray player (Atmos discs have high-res stereo too), and this maintained the quality, at the expense of course of much of the immersion. Back on streaming, we played from Apple Music and our own phone collection via AirPlay 2 (the Apple app usefully provided a volume control, see below); it was OK, but male vocals seemed a bit thin, lacking in mid-bass, and the bass itself less rounded than we’d hope for the material playing.

On a whim, we unpaired the two speakers and sent the same tunes to a single Studio 7. Smaller, similar. When we went back to pair the speakers again, we found we could ‘group’ them, rather than ‘pair’ them, so that both speakers played in stereo. This actually gave a rather nicer bass response, though it caused some issues with stereo staging, since the inward speakers were now firing sound behind the television and creating all kinds of slightly phasey interactions as the left moved right and the right moved left. Having said that, for a real party, this is how we’d run them.

Through all this, we had been trying all the sonic tweaks available – happily not a crazy number of them compared with some competitors, which is a credit to Samsung.

We kept on with 'Music' mode for music, sometimes AI mode for movies. Initially we didn’t get any useful result from ‘Space Fit Pro’, and we had left it off.

Later, however, we realised that its effects take a while to appear: it’s not a simple switch flick to hear the difference. Once it had taken a minute to adjust, flicking the switch to remove it most certainly revealed the difference. It had filled in exactly the midbass we had been missing from vocals and presented all that material with a warmer heart. We are impressed, then; well done Mr McDuffee! We recommend you at least try this.

There are also Channel Level adjustments to push the side and top channels higher (or lower) as you might like. This option is also handy for hearing exactly what is going on from the various drivers.

Advanced Sound Settings include bass enhancement (not generally required), and ‘virtual’ on top of AI (not generally pleasant).

We moved our streaming sessions to using music apps playing on an AppleTV media player through the TV, and comparing them with streaming from the phone. Spotify: not much difference, since Connect was already playing direct; it was just slightly smoother via the AppleTV. Deezer seemed clearer this way, perhaps higher-res or less squeezed coming from the media player through HDMI that it had been from the phone, even though we had thought that was via data-friendly Google Cast.

We then rather tardily realised that the Samsung TV itself can host these apps, removing a link in the chain. We loaded Deezer as an app on the TV, and just played from there. Just as good! It’s a reminder that our televisions can now be used as hubs for music playback via their digital outputs, as well as for mere TV and movie fare (and here also extended smart-home operations via Samsung’s SmartThings).

While the better paths for playback certainly edged up the streaming quality, the main thing which overcame our initial uncertainty with the sound was that ‘Space Fit Pro’ correction; we are much impressed with that, especially with on-the-fly adjustments for bass easily to hand. But the ultimate playback experience came with high-quality files and very particularly with real Atmos material, whether music or movies. For the money, this is an astounding big and relatively hi-fi sound compared with the normal compressed sound of most rivals. It’s well superior, in some cases.

Right at the end, we went back to one speaker, and plonked it right in front of the TV, part blocking the screen. We re-ran Black Eyes from 'A Star Is Born', and its single-box drivers still managed to spread the crowd into an almost immersive presentation, although the left-right cues were inevitably reduced; the guitar solo, for example, panned less left than with speakers either side of the TV.

But we also played Olivia Dean again, and instead of AirPlaying from our phone, we ran it in Atmos from Apple Music on our AppleTV 4K through the TV into the Music 7 by HDMI. And this was the transformation we mentioned earlier: from friendly and punchy to clear, wide and wonderfully hi-fi – the lesson being that while the Music Studio 7 (or two of them) can do great things with compressed streaming signals, the better the source signal you give them, the better they sound. Which sounds like a ‘duh’, yet we fear very few people do take the trouble.

General issues

Problems? We’d really like a remote control; it would much improve the music listening experience when streaming from the phone. If you’re Google-Casting your music across from your phone, as we were from Deezer, then the TV remote no longer controls the Samsung volume; indeed if you try to use it, it may instantly return you to the HDMI input and cut off your music.

While Spotify and Apple include volume sliders in their apps, these can be quite coarse, and the volume buttons on the side of the phone (an iPhone, sorry Samsung) were extremely coarse: each tap jumped 10 full steps of the resolution available within the Samsung Sound app’s slider. And of course most of the time we were choosing music in the Deezer app, with no volume control at all, so we had to keep popping back to the Samsung Sound app, or else make do with the coarse control via our phone buttons. Or, of course, walk over and press the buttons on the speakers themselves.

We’d suggest investing in a programmable remote to overcome this, but does the Studio 7 even have an IR receiver built in? We think not.

Oh, and by default the speakers talk to you, in a synthesised female voice which interrupts every time you change a sound mode, talking over your music, and sometimes quite loud. Awful. Can you turn this off? Yes, thank heavens, under the ‘Voice Guide’ option in the Sound app.

As a final thought, we’d love to hear how the Studio 7 would sound without all the grilles. Grilles like this are not 100% audibly transparent, and very solid grilles cover every driver here. Without these things, might sound be more open and airy? (Though the speaker would then also fall into pieces and probably destroy its acoustic design.) We just wonder.

Verdict

Returning to the industrial designers Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, Ronan was once quoted in an Institut Français Exhibition feature saying: “I find perfection extremely boring… The charm is the balance between the perfect and the imperfect.”

He should mention this to his brother Erwan, because the industrial design work on the Music Studio 7 has no imperfections we can see to weigh against its apparent perfection. The Samsung Audio Lab team has taken everything they’ve learned about soundbars since 2014 – rigid grille construction, speaker distortion cancelling, room acoustics – and applied it to a pair of rock-solid streaming speakers which we suspect that few companies other than Samsung could bring to market at such a low price. They’re a tribute to the Lab, to Devantier and his team.

No doubt they’ll find some way to tweak them up for a Mk.2 in a year or two, just as they’ll upgrade those neural networks controlling the big woofer and improve the sound processing. But aside from wanting a remote control, we wouldn’t change a thing here: the Music Studio 7 is a near-perfect product in a perhaps perfect form.

Devantier says he proposed this concept to management “a L O N G time ago”. Hopefully they’re quicker to recognise its success and will commission more along the same principles. This could be Year Dot for a new breed of Samsung hi-fi.

• See all our Australian reviews from Sound+Image and Australian Hi-Fi magazines

For a consumer audio brand, trying to stand out in the ever-crowded portable Bluetooth speaker market must be as gruelling as it is for a rookie influencer to gain flocks of TikTok followers in the fashion and beauty space.

After all, it’s a lucrative pie that every speaker manufacturer, new and old, seemingly wants a slice of. Harman Kardon has been munching on it for longer than most, and yet it clearly feels it still needs to offer something extra to attract the attention of music lovers.

Build & design

Experts in etymology may well guess that, for the Luna 2 Bluetooth speaker, that ‘extra something’ relates to the Latin root of ‘Luna’ – ‘to shine’. Specifically, this Harman Kardon model offers a light show alongside an audio one, via an ambient light ring at its base.

We’ve previously encountered such approaches to catch the eye, primarily through speakers with bold, multicoloured ‘party’ lights that can turn living rooms into miniature discotheques. But Harman Kardon’s is a classier affair.

Rather than streams of garishly bright light pumping out of LEDs with the intensity of a ‘cocktail bar’ neon sign, the Luna 2’s ring light serves as a subtler, elegant enhancement to its already aesthetically pleasing design. It moves in accordance with the music and also visualises volume adjustments, though the effect is rather muted in bright daylight, and you can turn it off altogether if you prefer.

Even with the light ring deactivated, the pill-shaped, pencil case-sized Luna 2 is one of the more stylish speakers in its category, available in Classic Black, Warm Sand or, as pictured, a cool Ice Mint.

Thoughtful design elements include shiny accents around the anodised aluminium grille; a sloped, grippy rubber enclosure that keeps the profile compact and makes it easy to hold. The positioning of the USB-C charging socket on the side of the speaker, as opposed to the customary rear placement, makes it easy to plug in a cable if your speaker is placed near a back wall.

A USB-C cable isn’t supplied with the Luna 2 – an eco-conscious decision by Harman Kardon – but you’ll likely have one in your household already.

Despite not appearing as rugged as some portable speakers, like those from JBL and Bose, its IP67 dust/water-resistance rating means it can weather the elements – reassuring if your Sunday afternoon picnic or weekend camping trip turns soggy. Uncharacteristically, the British weather behaved itself during our testing period, but the speaker did survive us briefly running it under the tap.

Features

Completing the design are six soft-press buttons for power, Bluetooth pairing (two devices can connect simultaneously), volume up/down, light on/off, and Auracast.

Auracast is an increasingly prevalent feature of wireless speakers nowadays, allowing compatible speakers to synchronise their playback. You can even sync the Luna 2’s lighting with that of multiple light-enhanced Auracast-enabled speakers, though we didn’t have another to hand to test this feature.

AirTouch is the name Harman Kardon has given to its stereo pairing functionality, where two Luna 2s will automatically configure for true stereo sound when moved within close proximity of each other.

This can also be managed in the Harman Kardon One app, where you can also change the speed, colour theme and brightness of the light ring; select one of four audio EQ modes (the default Signature Sound is the clear winner) or create your own; and see battery status.

The claimed 12-hour battery life holds up well in real-world use, with five straight hours of playback on mid-to-high volume draining the battery by just less than 40 per cent. That spec is rather miserly in today’s market, though; the JBL Charge 6 offers double that playtime from a single charge.

Sound

That What Hi-Fi? Award winner from JBL is the Luna 2’s natural rival, and performance-wise sets a high bar for portable Bluetooth speakers under £200.

The Luna 2 makes a solid first impression as we get our testing underway with Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club, which plays to the Luna 2’s biggest talent – midrange insight.

Roan’s strong pop soprano is faithfully delivered, well projected, and soars through the soundstage with plenty of space around it. It isn’t every day we come across such an expressive and articulate vocal delivery from a speaker of the Luna 2’s size and price.

There’s weight and dynamic variation to the piano underneath, and a sense of musical flow as the keys act as the track’s melodic backbone. And thanks to a well-tuned 62mm x 82mm woofer and passive radiator, which sit beside a 20mm tweeter, the Luna 2 produces a tight, prominent bass that allows the synth beat to make itself duly known.

That the open, spacious soundstage has clear instrument separation and precise imaging helps the presentation sound more lucid than most at this level, too.

Unfortunately, the Luna 2 conforms to its name where higher frequencies are concerned. Its treble is a little bright and edgy, even after tens of hours of use.

We play Wet Leg’s catch these fists, and while the intense shimmering cymbals aren’t really a fair fight for any budget Bluetooth speaker, they are more listenable through the Charge 6, which offers greater treble subtlety and refinement.

The JBL rival is bigger sounding and fuller in the bass, too, but what makes it the more enticing speaker is its greater dynamic punch and rhythmic cohesion. The Harman Kardon isn’t flat or ponderous sounding by any means, it just doesn’t pin down a rhythm with the adept timing and effortless flow of the benchmark-setting Charge 6.

Verdict

Harman Kardon’s latest effort may not shine above the best-in-class competition, then. But the Luna 2 does produce one of the most articulate and vocally impressive performers this sort of money can buy, and does so from a portable design that isn’t just necessarily practical but also promises to soundtrack your al fresco adventures in elegant style.

Review published: 13th August 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Features 4
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the JBL Charge 6

Also consider the JBL FLip 7

Best Bluetooth speakers tried and tested for every budget

As part of our 50th anniversary, we’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the What Hi-Fi? archives, poring over back issues of the magazine. We have been reliving good times and the bad and revisiting some of the most memorable audio innovations from the past half-century.

But let’s return, for a moment, to the present. Recently, we’ve had a bulky, impressive-looking pair of PMC M2B SE speakers in our test rooms for review. You can read all about them on our hi-fi and audio editor, Kashfia Kabir’s, most recent Substack post.

Those speakers got us thinking: of all the eye-catching models that have come through the What Hi-Fi? test rooms over the years, which are the weirdest-looking pairs of speakers we have ever laid eyes upon? As it happens, there have been a few strong contenders, many of which arrived around the dawn of the new millennium.

As the year 2000 rolled around, a unique hysteria swept the globe. Fearing the effects of the so-called ‘millennium bug’, many people refrained from booking flights while others stockpiled supplies in case of an apocalypse. Speaker manufacturers, it seems, also went slightly off-piste.

We highlight here five pairs of speakers which we think fit the bill. What do you think? What are the strangest-looking speakers you've ever laid eyes on? Let us know in the comments!

NOTE: To read the full-size text of the magazine images below, click on the arrow sign on the bottom-left corner.

Beauhorn Virtuoso Reference (2000)

Is it a wardrobe? Is it a door? Nope. Somewhat unbelievably, it's a speaker.

Designed by British manufacturer Beauhorn, the Virtuoso Reference showcased the company’s affection for the art of cabinet making – perhaps a little too blatantly for some tastes.

With a 20cm Lowther DX4 driver taking care of the speaker’s entire frequency range, and a sensitivity of 106dB/W/m, this speaker packed some unusual but hefty punches. The doorknob at its centre, we should clarify, is actually an outsize phase plug, designed to improve high-frequency dispersion for a more even and natural sound.

The driver alone cost £540 at the time of writing, and the speakers would have set you back £4946. Not an inconsiderable price even now.

In our review, we said the Beauhorn Virtuoso Reference were capable of producing “wall-shaking levels of volume”, even while connected to an amplifier with a power rating of just seven Watts per channel.

Sonically, we thought these speakers were “fantastically fast and direct”, their lack of a crossover paying dividends, “with sky-high levels of detail and wide-ranging dynamics”, when listening to classical music.

Their gifts don’t come in a small package, however, with the speakers measuring more than a metre tall and 70cm deep.

While playing pop music, as you might have guessed from their gaudy aesthetics, their performance wasn’t “quite as flawless” and they lacked a “certain degree of weight and drive”.

Still, it’s hard not to admire that, as humanity faced a new horizon, Beauhorn stuck to its guns and built these retro wooden giants.

Artifice Audio A1 (1997)*

There is always a bit of preamble before you can get your speakers sounding their best. Conventionally, we would anticipate needing to spend time nailing the positioning and a few days of running them in. Less often does spending five minutes exhaling into a blue PVC bag come to mind.

But that’s exactly what you had to do to get the inflatable Artifice Audio A1 up and running. Of course, you also needed to spend about the same amount of time balancing the pressure between the speakers.

Their materials, or lack thereof, meant that these speakers could be released at a bargain price of just £85. For those savings, however, you would have to negotiate a particularly idiosyncratic quality of the speakers.

Namely, we said that, given a loud signal, the Artifice A1 started “jerking in time with the music like a demented weeble”. But that was part of the plan. By dissipating resonances in the air, the speaker operated under something closer to an ‘infinite baffle’ principle.

Their heavy bases also meant that, despite their grooving tendencies, they stayed put on speaker stands – but if they did fall, they could bounce away unharmed.

In our review we said, “The bouncing speaker performs especially well with high-impact dance music, which benefits from the ever-changing direction of the 15cm doped-paper drive units.”

It wasn’t all good news. We thought the Artifice A1 were “about as attractive as swimming pool armbands”, and found the movement of the drive units caused serious trouble in terms of sound-staging.

B&W Emphasis (1997)

Pushing the concept of a horn speaker close to its visual limit, the B&W Emphasis was the brainchild of Morten Villiers Warren, a furniture designer who approached the company to see if his design fantasy could be made into a functioning reality.

The Emphasis used the same metal dome tweeter as B&W’s Silver Signature Series, mounted on a metal tube growing out of the body next to the main driver, which was a 16.5cm gold Kevlar unit. The more astute hi-fi heads among you will recognise that it was the main driver from B&W’s 600 Series of the time.

Behind the main driver, the horn technology came into play, using the folded fibreglass body as a quarter-wave loading device. In practice, this meant that the body used the rear-firing energy from the mid/bass driver and tuned it for low frequency extension.

But, as Christopher Nolan’s version of J. Robert Oppenheimer once said (repeatedly), “Theory will take you only so far.”

At a price of £6500 in 1997 – an eye-watering £13,200 in today’s money – it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect these speakers to deliver truly top-tier sound. Despite a “good degree of treble clarity”, however, we thought that the Emphasis’s “bass extension [was] hardly reasonable” for the price.

We also found that the speakers “lacked some of the dynamic appeal” that other speakers could deliver, struggling to keep pace with hacking rock and roll test tracks.

Nonetheless, the speakers received a solid overall rating of four stars.

CarfraeHorn (1999)

A seriously premium offering, the CarfraeHorn loudspeakers cost £12,000 in 1999, which would equate to £23,600 today.

Standing at 2.2m tall, these door-sized horn speakers based their design around a tractrix contour – a mathematically derived shape that gives sound waves a clear path through the horn.

The horn itself was made from curved sections of birch ply, while everything else was built from solid maple, a material chosen for its sonic character and good looks.

As the price tag foretells, no expense was spared in the design of the CarfraeHorn. The speakers’ Lowther DX3 drive units, which cost £600 each, were mounted directly into 4cm thick tubes of solid hardwood.

Thankfully, all those premium materials resulted in a listening experience that we described as a “real treat”.

In our March 1999 review, we said that “the detail these speakers produce is breathtaking”. With “a wonderfully evocative soundstage” and “tremendous presence”, the only real issue we could see with the CarfraeHorn loudspeakers was their unwieldy proportions.

KEF KHT 2005 (2001)

Picking up What Hi-Fi? in the early 2000s, you would have been hard pressed to find a magazine that didn’t include several surround speaker systems. As DVD continued to take the world by storm, many of our readers were on the hunt for their first home cinema sound system.

But, as we noted in this June 2001 review of the KEF KHT2005, not everybody wanted to pack their living room with audio hardware. Indeed, many who did may have had partners, or flatmates, who didn’t… some things never change.

As such, we thought this KEF system was one of “the most attractive” subwoofer/satellite combinations we had ever come across, replacing as it did dull rectangular boxes with something curvier and different. Then, as now, a balance between looks and sound was crucial to earn the five-star review that these speakers gained.

So how much tech did £800 get you at the start of the century?

In this case, five egg-like, cast aluminium satellites each used a 10cm KEF Uni-Q driver and featured rotatable, wall-mountable stands, while the 150W subwoofer employed a single, downward-firing 20cm bass driver, and included a healthy variety of connections. The subwoofer even featured a phase-invert control, for easier positioning within a room.

Sonically, we found that the KEF KHT2005 delivered a “quite sensational performance for a package of its type”. At the time, many such speaker systems lacked in midrange performance, whereas the KEFs shone in this regard, making vocal nuances and inflections all the more audible.

They performed equally well with movies and music, and we found these speakers capable of a “meaty sense of cinematic scale”. Closing emphatically, our review said: “It's superb, we can’t really put it more clearly than that.”

*The Artifice Audio A1 was featured in the April 1997 issue of What Hi-Fi? as an April Fools Day prank.

MORE

“When the DVD format arrived, “Home Cinema” really took off, helped by the rapid development of TVs” – veteran AV experts discuss the biggest shifts in TV and home cinema during What Hi-Fi?'s 50-year lifetime

10 of the most exciting hi-fi products we saw at High End Vienna 2026

12 of the world's most expensive loudspeakers

What do you miss most about the 1980s?

You don’t have to have actually been around during that heady period to know just what the decade gave us, from classic action cinema to New Wave tunes and the rise of hip-hop. Maybe you miss the Yuppies, the shoulder pads and the big hair, or maybe the cosy family sitcoms accompanied by a piping hot chicken Kiev.

Or maybe you miss the tech. More specifically, you miss the audio trends of the decade, from stacked hi-fi systems to portable cassette players, boomboxes and foam-capped on-ear headphones. Those were the days.

If you do find yourself hankering for that bygone era, Philips might have just the thing. To mark its centenary last year, the Dutch manufacturer announced it would be reviving its classic Moving Sound range of products from the 1980s, with the new ‘The Roller’ emulating the radio-and-cassette design of the original model, now repurposed as a Bluetooth speaker.

Modern streaming and sleek, feature-laden designs are all well and good, but Philips is looking to put the fun back into audio – and what’s so wrong with that?

Price

The Roller (MS60) will set you back £169 in the UK and $229 when it launches in the USA later this year. This, for UK buyers, is the same launch price as the five-star JBL Charge 6 (£170 / $199 / AU$200). The Charge 6 has seen a few price drops in the intervening months, however, and at the time of writing you can pick one up for £129 in the UK and $160 in the US.

If you want something that’s about the same size but costs a good deal more and comes with our firm recommendation, the JBL Xtreme 5 can currently be yours for £300 / $300.

Build

The 1980s never really went away, at least not for Philips.

The Roller’s design takes direct influence from Philips’ combined radio and cassette player of the same name (the D8007 and its D8008 sequel to be specific), whereby a central body is flanked by integrated circular speakers built into the casework, topped by a rigid carry handle.

Naturally, changes have been made to see The Roller keep up with the demands of the 21st century. The cassette deck and radio display housed at the centre of the original have been replaced by a crisp, clear LCD colour screen, while an array of control buttons is found directly above. Around the back, charging and physical audio playback are handled by a USB-C port, and we’re pretty sure they didn’t have those in 1987.

Despite its relative portability, The Roller is not a particularly small speaker – it’s about the size of an elongated shoebox. While its price puts it in more direct competition with the JBL Charge 6, Philips’ colourful throwback is closer to JBL’s burly Xtreme 5 in terms of its size. In essence, it’s a Bluetooth boombox with a retro design and a modern feature set.

It is, however, a little lighter, weighing in at a more reasonable 2.3kg when compared with the 2.9kg of the current-gen Xtreme, and while it isn’t lightweight, it’s not a chore to lug from place to place if you’ve been to the gym a few times this year.

It’s well-made, too. While some may baulk at its novel aesthetics, The Roller feels far more substantial and robust than a mere toy. The speaker’s IP67 rating will keep it properly protected from dust ingress, water splashes and even some light liquid submersion, and as we run our hands across its exterior, tapping and probing as we go, we’re struck by how substantial and well-made everything feels.

There are no rubberised bumpers or shock absorbers to speak of, so we wouldn’t feel confident dropping our test speaker from any great height, but the overall quality of construction is impressive given The Roller’s fun-focused aesthetic and reasonable price. The plastic body and metal speaker grilles are of an admirably weighty standard, while a quick spray with a garden hose proves that those waterproofing credentials check out.

Whether we’re actively using it or just admiring its show-off retro aesthetics, we very much enjoy our time with The Roller. It looks particularly fresh and funky when sporting its bright yellow finish (you can go for black if you’re more conservative), and while there’s a touch of the Fisher-Price here, we don’t mind. The Roller is supposed to be fun, and that’s just what it is.

The various controls are chunky and respond with a satisfying click, and we particularly enjoy the customisation options available for the colour display. It’s not often that a Bluetooth speaker comes with an actual display screen, but with Philips’ retro offering, your display will show the song you’re playing and the speaker’s current battery life. You can even add novel animated widgets – like a spinning virtual cassette deck – in a nod to The Roller’s heritage.

The good times don’t stop there. The Roller comes with customisable lighting effects which can be cycled through or switched on/off either via the app or using the on-unit buttons. Are they strictly necessary? No. Are they a nice touch that adds a dollop of fun to an already exciting recipe, like a few colourful sprinkles dusted over an already-eye-catching sundae? We think so.

Features

Despite its retro appearance, Philips’ The Roller has been kitted out with a number of modern-day features.

The Roller boasts Bluetooth 6.0, and while there isn’t any hi-res codec support to speak of – you’ll have to make do with standard SBC – Auracast is available, meaning you can connect it to any number of Auracast-enabled speakers at once. That includes most of JBL’s current-gen offerings and other members of Philips’ Moving Sound range.

Thanks to its rear-mounted USB-C port, The Roller can double as a portable power bank for charging your phone or similar portable device. You can also use the USB-C port for direct listening, but only via USB-A to USB-C rather than USB-C to USB-C, which seems odd considering we can’t imagine many listeners using their laptop, say, as a source for a portable speaker. No matter how you listen, audio processing is capped at 16-bit/48kHz.

Battery life is decent for a speaker of this size and type. The Roller will grant you around 24 hours of playtime from a single charge, which is the same as the standard runtime offered by the rival JBL Charge 6 and the larger Xtreme 5.

Glance at the array of rectangular controls at the top of Philips’ 1980s-inspired speaker and you’ll notice a bright pink button etched with the letters ‘M/S’. Give it a press and you’ll activate The Roller’s ‘Moving Sound’ mode, which adjusts the digital signal processing by shifting the bass to a higher frequency and reducing its deepest low-end output, increasing the resultant dynamic headroom and allowing sound to travel more convincingly in outdoor environments.

In our experience, activating the mode has its trade-offs. It’s undoubtedly better for outdoor listening by granting a more forward, muscular and entertaining presentation, but you do lose a little clarity and refinement as part of the deal. A matter of taste and context, then.

Beyond the physical buttons, controlling your speaker is performed via the Philips app. It’s a useful platform for making certain tweaks to your experience, such as selecting the widget you want displayed on the display screen or adjusting the pattern of the speaker’s light modes, but we’re disappointed to see that no customisable equaliser, or indeed any sound profile presets, are included.

Sound

With our mature adult hat on, we’ll get our po-faced caveat out of the way and reveal that, perhaps unsurprisingly, you can buy more sonically sophisticated Bluetooth speakers at this level.

The five-star Charge 6 doesn’t go as loud as The Roller, but the JBL class-leader puts music together in a more convincing manner. It’s clearer, more detailed and far more musically nuanced, with a layered, cohesive performance that can make The Philips speaker seem somewhat unrefined by comparison. For outright sound quality, the Charge 6 remains the one to pick.

When we remove our businessman’s bowler and don the backwards baseball cap of youth, however, we’re far more inclined to take The Roller for what it is: a brash, bold–looking speaker that makes a similarly brash, bold sound. Thanks to its 60 watts of RMS power feeding a pair of 25mm tweeters alongside twin 9cm woofers, Philips’ substantial Roller really is capable of putting the “boom” into boombox.

With the volume dialled up towards the higher reaches of social acceptability (sorry, neighbours), the opening bars of System Of A Down’s Highway Song nearly take our ears off. Power and punch are not in short supply, and while that extends across the entire frequency range, there’s a particularly large helping of muscular bass to really give the tune some kick.

Hard rock and hip-hop appear to be where The Roller is the most comfortable, and again, that isn’t much of a surprise given its fun-focused, boombox-esque nature. Turnstile’s SLOWDIVE sounds big, bold and suitably crunchy – enough to get heads banging – while Black Veil Brides’ epic Saviour II and Eminem’s hard-edged The Way I Am are given similarly powerful treatment.

Those qualities remain no matter how or where we use our bright yellow test speaker. Thanks to its assertive presentation – and that handy ‘Moving Sound’ mode – The Roller’s rich, full-bodied reproduction carries confidently when we take the speaker outside for some fun in the sun.

Big dynamic swings are generally communicated with the appropriate heft, as evidenced by the crashing thumps peppered across Rosalía’s ever-dramatic Berghain, even if The Roller can struggle fully to tease out the subtler shifts bubbling away in the background.

On the subject of The Roller’s blind spots, detail levels are adequate but not outstanding, with subtler nuances generally lost at the expense of that irrepressibly ‘have at ’em’ approach. Listen to subtler fare, such as alt-J’s Every Other Freckle or Agnes Obel’s The Curse, and the JBL Charge 6 will handle such delicate tunes with a lighter, more skilful touch.

Such relative weaknesses aren’t quite enough to temper our affections for Philips’ fun-focused ‘80s-inspired Bluetooth boombox. Subtlety and nuance may tend to fall somewhat by the wayside, but in terms of pure fun factor, The Roller really knocks it out of the park.

Verdict

If you’re serious about getting the best-sounding Bluetooth speaker at this price, buy the JBL Charge 6. It’s smaller and not as enjoyable to look at, but musically, it’s in a league of its own.

If you want something that’s a bit off the beaten track, though, The Roller is a cheerful charmer. Its funky design will likely appeal to younger listeners who want something quirky and unique, as well as audio veterans who still hanker to have their '80s boombox held proudly upon their shoulders.

All told, Philips has done a marvellous job in putting the fun back into portable audio.

Review published: 11th August 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 4

MORE:

Read our review of the JBL Charge 6

Also consider the JBL Xtreme 5

Read our Bose SoundLink Plus review

Best Bluetooth speakers tried and tested for every budget

TAD was originally founded in 1975 as a premium sub-brand to help Pioneer sell high-end speakers to the professional market. The brand’s name is an acronym for Technical Audio Devices – not a particularly poetic name, but that hasn’t stopped the company from developing into a standalone high-end manufacturer of considerable repute. Currently, its product range includes pretty much every part of the audio chain from digital electronics to stereo speakers.

The original Micro Evolution One speaker first hit the market in late 2016. The new TX version on test here was introduced last year, and features many detail improvements without changing the basic formula. The TAD ME1TX remains a beautifully made, immaculately engineered standmount that puts detail resolution, sonic precision and transparency at the top of its priorities.

It may come as a surprise to many that a speaker costing this much is only the entry model in TAD’s speaker range, though that fact does provide a good indication of the brand’s positioning in the hi-fi hierarchy.

Build & design

Standing just over 41cm high, the ME1TX speakers are relatively compact, but unusually for such small speakers, they are a proper three-way design.

The midrange and higher frequencies are handled by TAD’s CST (Coherent Source Transducer) driver array that positions a 25mm beryllium dome tweeter in the throat of the 9cm magnesium cone midrange. It is a similar arrangement to KEF’s Uni-Q technology and offers plenty of advantages on paper.

Aligning the acoustic centres of the two drivers improves overall dispersion characteristics and benefits integration.

In practical terms, this means the ME1TX should deliver a wide listening sweetspot and maintain its sonic characteristics more consistently as the listener moves around the room.

A 9cm driver is too small to deliver much in the way of bass, so TAD’s engineers have chosen to partner its CST array with a 16cm woofer.

This woofer uses a multi-layer aramid composite cone with a corrugated surround made of foamed polycarbonate, and vents through the enclosure’s sides behind the 5mm-thick steel plates mounted on either side. Having the vents on either side is said to cancel out any vibrations generated by them.

The ME1TX’s cabinet is a substantial affair and weighs in at a hefty 21kg each. Be careful when you lift them out of their packaging, as that weight can catch you by surprise. The impressively rigid construction consists of MDF panels braced internally by birch plywood.

The addition of those steel plates on the sides adds mass and rigidity, while also giving the engineers a fixed boundary for the air coming out of the vents to interact with.

This TAD speaker’s build quality is exquisite, just as the price demands. The monitor’s fit and finish is flawless, as is the attention to detail, right down to the quality of the biwire speaker terminals and shorting wires used between them to allow single-wiring.

There are two finish options for the ME1TX: the deep gloss black of our review sample and a silver-white combination that looks just as smart.

Compatibility

At this level, careful system matching is a must. The ME1TX has a lowish claimed sensitivity at 85dB/W/m coupled to a demanding 4-ohm nominal impedance, so in electrical terms, it makes sense to go for an amplifier with plenty of drive.

The bulk of our testing is done with Burmester’s 088/911 MkIII pre/power (180 watts per channel), though even PMC’s 95 watts per channel Cor integrated also drives these speakers well. Our main sources are Naim’s ND555/555 PS DR music streamer and a Technics SL-1000R/Kiseki Purpleheart MC record player.

The performance of any standmount speaker is highly dependent on the quality of the partnering support. TAD makes dedicated metal column stands for the ME1TX, and they work well in visual and sonic terms.

Given the price of the speakers, it will come as no surprise that these chunky stands are pretty premium too, selling for £2995 (around $2900 / AU$3599) for the pair.

While it is tempting to position relatively small speakers right up against a wall, we would avoid doing that in this case. In our 3 x 7 x 5m (hwd) test room, these speakers sound best around 50cm into the room and angled in towards the listening position. Such a placement retains a convincing tonal balance but also gives us a focused soundstage.

Sound

If you are expecting sonic fireworks, then these TAD speakers will leave you disappointed. These monitors are as understated as they come, preferring to allow the music and recording to take the limelight.

Their presentation sounds pure and unvarnished to our ears, almost a blank canvas that leaves any energy and drama to come from the music itself.

If the source material doesn’t bring the fun, the ME1TX won’t help out. Equally, that applies to the partnering system. If there are any shortcomings anywhere in the system chain, then these speakers won’t hide that fact. That just isn’t their purpose. We would avoid bright or lean electronics in general, as such a balance just doesn’t work with these speakers.

However, given that these are impressively transparent and highly revealing monitors, they will also allow the listener to dig deep into the production of a piece of music and analyse every aspect for good or bad.

It wasn’t long before we started to think of these TAD speakers as an audio microscope, something that allows us to hear low-level details with a class-leading clarity most alternatives just don’t have.

Time after time, we hear a small piece of detail, a subtle reverb or an extra sense of space between notes that other speakers simply ignore. It is the TAD’s superpower, and goes some way to justifying this speaker's high price.

We also appreciate the ME1TX’s tonal neutrality. They sound wonderfully even-handed throughout their operating range, giving them the ability to render voices and instruments in a convincingly balanced way.

As we work our way through Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the live recording of Keith Jarrett’s Köln concert, and Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard And Soft set, we marvel at the effortless way these speakers bring instruments and voices to life.

Their exceptional composure leaves the listener confident that the speaker won’t fudge any aspect of the sound, even when the music becomes demanding. When it comes to control and sonic stability, we have heard little that betters these standmounts.

We are big fans of coincident driver arrays, and our time with these TAD monitors just reinforces that view. Once optimised, these speakers deliver excellent stereo imaging and a wide listening sweetspot.

Their soundstage even stays stable when we move around the room, and the tonal character doesn’t shift notably. Image focus is terrific, as is the way the ME1TX layer their expansive presentation to create a proper three-dimensional soundfield.

These are relatively small speakers, but unlike many rivals, they don’t exceed the expectations set by their size by producing a generous dose of bass. The laws of physics aren’t bent, and you certainly won’t be looking around for an additional bass driver or subwoofer hidden in the room’s corner.

However, the bass they do produce is proportionate, articulate and beautifully integrated. If you have a larger room, we would suggest adding a subwoofer or, preferably, going for one of TAD’s bigger models.

The modest amount of bass also limits the sonic authority on offer, and to a certain extent, contributes to the speaker’s slight restraint with large-scale dynamics.

The JBL Summit Ama and the Fyne Audio F1-8 are similarly sized to the ME1TX, but both convey the dynamic contrasts of the Beethoven symphony with greater conviction and muscle. Billie Eilish’s thumping basslines come through with greater heft, too, through these alternatives.

Rhythmic drive is surefooted rather than enthusiastic, though these TAD speakers still do a good job of conveying the musical momentum and bristling energy of a song like Michael Jackson’s Jam. We can’t recall an alternative that does better when it comes to outright clarity and the ability to unravel this song’s dense production. Every crash and bang on this track hits the mark, without a hint of exaggeration.

Even so, it is hard to escape the feeling that these speakers prefer to deliver the music in a slightly aloof, dispassionate way rather than to get on the dance floor, metaphorically speaking. The ME1TX are about control, precision and organisation more than they are about verve or drama.

Verdict

There is no denying that these TAD ME1TX standmount speakers are beautifully engineered and offer more insight into the production of a recording than pretty much any standmount we have heard. Given a carefully chosen partnering system and recording, they can certainly deliver moments of musical magic.

However, their measured approach won’t appeal to all, so take a good, long listen before you consider buying.

Review published: 6th August

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Compatibility 4

MORE:

Read our review of the JBL Summit Ama

Also consider the Wilson Benesch Discovery 3Zero

Read our Fyne Audio F1-8 review

Best bookshelf speakers: top standmounts for every budget tested

Some albums are considered tough to listen to, but Zaireeka by The Flaming Lips might just be the most challenging of the lot.

While Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music assaults your ears with jagged shards of noise, and Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica often sounds like a work of musical absurdity, Zaireeka is a logistical challenge first and a sonic one second.

Originally released in 1997, Zaireeka is the kind of exercise in wilful experimentation that only a band as eccentric as The Flaming Lips could get away with: it comes split across four discs that you must listen to simultaneously to hear the songs fully.

At the time, and for many years afterwards, wrangling four separate hi-fi systems into the same room in order to listen to Zaireeka as intended just wasn’t practical for most people.

When I bought my copy as a skint but pretentious student in 2005, I had no idea how I was going to play it. I considered it more of a musical investment for the future.

As the popularity of iPods and speaker docks grew, listening to Zaireeka became more feasible, but I still only ever owned one of each at a time. And while the advent of multi-room music systems removed most of the technological barriers, logistical and financial ones still remained.

When the Sonos Play was launched earlier this year I decided the time had finally come. Could four of these wireless speakers allow me to realise a 20-year-old dream and listen to Zaireeka for the first time?

Not suitable for children

So why the Sonos Play? Technically any four Sonos speakers would do the job because they all allow you to play a different track on each one simultaneously. But while using the top-of-the-range Era 300 might seem like the obvious choice for my little sonic experiment, the Play made most sense for more practical reasons.

Before The Flaming Lips recorded Zaireeka, the band conducted a proof-of-concept experiment that involved playing up to 50 unique cassette tapes on the stereos of as many parked cars, giving them complete freedom over the positioning of each giant four-wheeled speaker. I needed the same flexibility just on a much smaller scale, so the battery-powered Play meant I wouldn’t be limited by my plug sockets when placing each one.

The Play is also compact enough that I can easily accommodate four of them in what an estate agent would euphemistically call my ‘cosy’ living room, but with three Class H amps, two tweeters, a mid-woofer driver, and dual passive radiators inside each one, they still punch above their weight (which, at 1.3kg, is fairly heavy for a portable speaker).

The most difficult part of the setup process was getting Sonos’s Mac app to recognise my laptop’s music library, which includes MP3 versions of Zaireeka’s four discs, but with the help of a very useful YouTube video I eventually had it ready to go.

(The album is on Spotify but unless you have four separate accounts, plus four separate devices to log into them on, you’ll only be able to play one ‘disc’ at a time.)

Zaireeka’s artwork includes a warning: “This recording contains frequencies not normally heard on commercial recordings and on rare occasion has caused the listener to become disoriented. These extremely high and low frequencies can cause a person to become disoriented, confused or nauseated. DO NOT listen repeatedly at high volume. Make sure infants are out of listening range. Zaireeka should not be listened to while driving.”

Having removed all newborns from the vicinity and made sure I was at home rather than behind the wheel of a Ford Fiesta, I placed a speaker at each corner of my living-room rug and parked myself in the middle.

Sonos’s smartphone app isn’t the most intuitive but it didn’t take long to get the first track of each disc cued-up on a different speaker, and the volume on each one set to the same level.

Ideally you want to start them all at exactly the same time, but the app only offers that function for grouped speakers that are playing the same song, so I staggered the start points slightly, hit play on each one from the Your System screen, and a couple of seconds later my quartet of wireless speakers burst into life.

A hi-fi seance

There is no ‘correct’ way to listen to Zaireeka, no ‘correct’ way to organise the speakers, and no ‘correct’ place to position yourself among them, but it quickly became clear that disc one was where most of what could be considered lead vocals and drums would be coming from, so I decided to rearrange the speakers slightly.

I positioned one at each of the four main points of a compass and sat facing ‘musical north’. To the uninitiated it would've looked like I was taking part in some sort of hi-fi seance, but it gave the whole thing a focal point that seemed to work pretty well for a first listen.

Over the next 45 minutes Zaireeka envelops me in an ever-changing sonic cocoon. Ghostly vocals swell from all sides during Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand; on Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) the bass moves from one speaker to another like a game of pass the parcel; at the start of Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair a rocket takes flight and I feel like I might ascend into the sky with it; a quartet of organs tessellate beautifully towards the end of The Train Runs Over the Camel, But Is Derailed by the Gnat; and at one point during A Machine In India I’m completely engulfed by the sound of a buzzing swarm of insects.

When track six, How Will We Know? (Futuristic Crashendos), comes around, I finally understand what that warning on the front cover was all about. The song includes sounds so high-pitched that I almost start to wonder whether the noise is actually coming from inside my brain. I’ve never heard anything like it on any other record, probably because it’s genuinely unpleasant.

The final track is the closest thing on Zaireeka to a conventional song, but in every other sense it’s still pretty bonkers. A spoken-word vocal tells an odd little story about pet dogs and giant plastic insects, before it bursts into a whole chorus of Wayne Coynes singing the song’s title, The Big Ol’ Bug Is the New Baby Now, from all four speakers at once.

The slight differences in timing give it the feeling of a mass crowd singalong, before the album ends by trapping you in the middle of a pack of ferociously barking dogs.

Hard of hearing

Over the following few days I listened to Zaireeka about half a dozen more times, experimenting with different speaker layouts and listening positions, including placing them at different heights and moving around the room as it played. One time I didn’t synchronise the discs particularly well and some parts sounded a bit wonky, but these choices and variations are all part of the reason this album exists in the first place.

In the liner notes Wayne Coyne says his intention was to make songs that would sound different every time you played them. “I wanted to abandon song structure but not abandon the song,” he writes – and Zaireeka succeeds in doing that pretty well.

The tracks on it are more abstract than the band’s most famous songs; there’s nothing here as immediate as Do You Realize? or Race for the Prize. But I haven’t paid attention to an album like I did with this one in a long time. Everything about it requires some element of active participation rather than just passive consumption.

It’s still not exactly easy to listen to. My quartet of Play speakers removed most of the previous obstacles, but if I hadn’t been able to borrow them from Sonos in order to write this feature, a financial one would still remain. To buy them would have cost me £1136 in total – that's a lot of money for playing just one album.

But this is a one-off musical proposition that I waited over two decades to experience. Sure, some of the tracks from the record can be heard as standard stereo mixes on The Soft Bulletin Companion, but that completely misses the point.

Listening to Zaireeka is supposed to be more difficult than the other albums in your collection – and that’s exactly what makes it so uniquely unforgettable.

MORE:

I went to a listening session held in total darkness, and I'll never hear this classic album the same way again

I listened to David Bowie in a 360-degree show, and now I've seen what spatial audio can do

Interview with The Flaming Lips: the band that filled a record with blood

We ask a lot of our stereo speakers. By our reckoning, a great home set-up should be, among many things, clear and expressive, powerful yet capable of nuanced dynamics, and characterful without imposing excessive tonal colouration.

A speaker designer’s core task is to balance these often juxtaposed requirements and strike just the right balance between them.

To see which models we think fit the bill, you can check out our list of the best hi-fi speakers that we've tested, covering all budgets and types.

That alone is no small task, but many hi-fi manufacturers also build monitors for use in recording studios, where the role of the speaker is somewhat more forensic; less about enjoyment, more about analysis and finding faults.

But studio speakers still require enough character to keep artists from feeling too self-conscious while listening back to their performances.

While pondering what was beginning to seem like the fairly herculean task of speaker design, we decided to talk to leading speaker manufacturers, to find out how their approaches differ when it comes to designing professional studio and home hi-fi speakers.

"PMC’s hi-fi loudspeakers are generally passive, which reflects the more traditional approach of the home-audio market. This gives customers the freedom to choose their own amplification, source equipment and cables, and to build a system that suits their room, budget and personal preferences. PMC also offers active domestic models, bringing the benefits of closely matched amplification to home listeners.

"Appearance is another practical difference. Hi-fi models are designed to sit comfortably in the home and are available in elegant, furniture-quality finishes. Studio monitors tend to be more functional and durable, often with matte-black cabinets suited to professional installation.

"Despite these differences, neither range is designed to sound clinical or matter of fact. PMC loudspeakers combine exceptional accuracy with a natural sense of ease, a wide and immersive sound field, and ultra-low distortion. That makes long sessions enjoyable, whether someone is creating a hit record or film score, or listening to the finished result at home.

"This consistency from studio to living room is a key part of PMC’s reputation: the music can be enjoyed by the listener with the same energy, emotion, and intent as those heard by the people who created it."

"Our objectives are always the same: to make the best performing, flattest frequency response, lowest distortion speaker that we can, whether we are doing it for hi-fi or professional use.

"Of course, there are certain situations, such as a large format studio monitor, where you wouldn’t want to put the port on the side or the back of the speaker, in case the studio wanted to mount it in a wall.

"The addition or omission of a grille also varies between our professional and domestic ranges. Generally, people don’t want grilles in professional contexts, while, on the domestic side of things, they’ll demand it. It can be quite tricky to design a grill that protects the drive units, has minimal impact on the acoustic performance of the speaker and looks good, too.

"The other difference is finishes. Our pro customers are generally more accepting of a functional, painted finish. All our consumer models, on the other hand, are available in a range of different veneers. We are open to discussing specific requirements with all of our customers."

"For any kind of speakers, whether a home listening hi-fi system or in a studio, room acoustics play a major role in sound quality. Genelec loudspeakers feature room response controls via rear-panel DIP switches, allowing users to compensate for the effects of placement and room acoustics.

"For those seeking an even higher level of adaptation, our SAM models add a measurement microphone and DSP-based room correction (via GLM software) that measures the in-room response at the listening position and applies correction filters offering highly precise adjustment to the listening environment.

"One thing worth flagging: the line between 'studio monitor' and 'domestic hi-fi speaker' is genuinely blurry at this point. Our flagship models like the 8381A, 8380A or The Ones are marketed for both use cases, since the underlying technology doesn't change between them.

"Whether in a control room or a living room, the goal stays the same: a listening experience that remains faithful to the original recording, with reliable performance for decades."

"Aside from that, there are some specific design requirements for each use case that result in different practical designs. For instance, a near-field studio monitor needs all drivers to be close together, so a tall design with drivers spread out, as is common in domestic products, would not work.

"Part of this consideration also lies in the expected SPL output. A near-field studio monitor typically does not need as loud an output as a domestic speaker or a far-field studio monitor designed for larger rooms. Again, these are design considerations based on the use case, more than inherent technical differences between studios and living rooms.

"Another perhaps more obvious difference is that generally studio monitors are treated as workhorses, so the look and feel of the finish matters less – as long as it is sturdy. For this reason generally more care has been put into the look and feel of domestic cabinets, as home users tend to value this aspect more, and are often not satisfied with a simple black box."

MORE:

What are studio headphones and should you buy a pair?

I heard a Dolby Atmos mix in a professional recording studio – and it’s changed my view of spatial audio

Our pick of the best speakers 2026

A new Sonos product is just weeks away. CEO Tom Conrad announced the September launch in the firm's third quarter earnings call. And while he stopped short of revealing the device itself, he did hint that it will be focussed around AI.

Noting that "conversational computing and predictive intelligence are moving into the home," he bigged up Sonos' 20 years' experience in solving the issues this brings, which he defined as "sound, form, systemness, and intelligence."

(If anyone knows what "systemness" is, we'd love to know.)

Unsurprisingly, he said Sonos is uniquely well placed to take advantage of the AI boom thanks to its ecosystem of multi-room-enabled speakers, which encompasses soundbars, home speakers and portable models.

While all AI models will soon offer the same abilities, he thinks what will differentiate systems is "what surrounds the [AI] model in a real home: the hardware that can converse with quality across every room, the system that already knows the shape of a home and the way a family lives in it, the connectivity to reach the speakers, services, and devices that turn a request into coordinated action.

"That’s the operating environment for AI in the home, and Sonos has spent twenty years building it."

So, we can hazard a guess that we'll see a new speaker, but the biggest changes will likely be on the inside, pivoting the Sonos platform to encompass more AI abilities.

Sonos' most recent launch was the Play earlier this year, a portable speaker that earned four stars. It recently launched its new mobile app in beta, in an attempt to win back customers frustrated at the notorious botched app launch of 2024.

That disastrous move introduced bugs while removing certain existing features, and ultimately led to the then-CEO stepping down. Since then, Sonos has been on a major charm offensive to win back customers' trust, even cancelling its rumoured set-top box in order to prioritise fixing existing problems.

A move to AI does bring big opportunities for Sonos, but also a fair amount of risk. Will customers weary of having been put through the wringer over the last couple of years really want a whole new direction and focus for the platform? Or will they just want a bit of stability following all the chaos?

It all depends on what exactly Sonos is offering.

We'll bring you any rumours concerning the launch in the run-up to September.

MORE:

Sonos Play vs Move 2: what are the differences?

The best multi-room systems

And the best Sonos alternatives for the naysayers

The LS Luxe is the latest active wireless speaker system to emerge from KEF’s hi-fi oven. And, from what we have heard from our testing, it’s undoubtedly one of the finest.

KEF had previously laid down a benchmark with the outstanding LS50 Wireless II in the early 2020s. The Luxe builds upon that Award-winning legacy in some style. For us, it’s five stars all around.

That is provided you get the best out of the LS Luxe, of course. This is an outstanding system with serious ability, and while KEF’s latest is capable of putting up with less-than ideal sources, stands and situations, you’ll want to pamper it as much as possible if you want to see just how stellar your five-star system can be.

With that in mind, this is how you coax the maximum performance from the mighty KEF LS Luxe.

Get a pair of S-Luxe speaker stands

The £3500 / $4000 / AU$6375 asking price for the LS Luxe is not mere pocket change, so we understand that would-be buyers might be put off at the prospect of having to part with a further £800 / $800 for a pair of dedicated S-Luxe stands. The LS Luxe is an unfussy, fairly forgiving wireless speaker system, so surely your own stands will do?

To some extent, they will. We spent a good chunk of time listening to the Luxe sitting atop our own Custom Design FS104 Signature stands, and there is no question that the resultant performance remained an enjoyable one. This is a talented system, after all.

Clarity, punch, dynamism and control remained in ample supply, and we don’t doubt that we could quite happily have lived with the Luxe perched upon our in-house plinths.

The thing is, KEF’s latest system is so good, you’ll want to get the best out of it. To do that, you’ll want the S-Luxe stands. £800 / $800 is not a small sum, but the dedicated plinths allow the Luxe to soar to new heights across practically every area of sonic performance, all while matching the speakers’ aesthetics and providing stability by screwing into each cabinet’s base.

Yes, you could put standard petrol in a Ferrari, but it’s a Ferrari. It needs premium, dude. Premium!

Use the app to fine-tune your listening

For getting the most out of your shiny new KEF system, you will need to download the accompanying KEF Connect app.

Naturally, this is the place from which you’ll find the streaming services you want, do a bit of EQ tinkering and check your general settings. But the depth of tweakery on offer allows you to really get into the nitty-gritty of optimising your system’s performance.

For a start, we’d strongly urge you to check out the app’s calibration settings.

KEF’s ‘Room EQ’ digital signal processing helps you fine-tune your sound to your listening space. It’s worth spending a bit of time with the app’s calibration parameters, wherein you can adjust your Luxe’s sonic output depending on factors such as room size, the distance you have placed your speakers from your wall, and how damped your listening space is.

You can also choose the level of depth you want to go into when tinkering with your settings, with a ‘Basic’ mode for more casual changes sitting alongside an ‘Expert’ mode for listeners who want to dig into the minutiae of their experience.

Either way, you should notice a big difference.

Use the interconnect cable

We know it’s not particularly attractive to look at, but if you want to get the best sound from the LS Luxe, the provided interconnect cable is a must.

The Luxe is capable of accepting PCM files up to 24-bit/384kHz, but if you are using a wireless connection between your speakers, this is downsampled to 24-bit/96kHz. Connecting the master and slave speakers using the included cable, however, pushes playback up to 24-bit/192kHz.

It’s totally worth it in our book. Wires have always been a more efficient means of transmission than wireless methods, and the sonic dividends you’ll reap from having that interconnect are significant. Everything sounds crisper, cleaner and more defined, with more punch and authority than a wireless connection can provide.

And the cable is literally included in the box. Aesthetics aside, you’ve got nothing to lose. And, if you also end up picking up a pair of S-Luxe plinths, they are designed so that you can hide your cables away at the rear of each stand.

Get the right look for your space

This isn’t a design that will suit everyone.

The speakers themselves, designed by Ross Lovegrove, continue the distinctive aesthetic language of Lovegrove’s previous collaborations, with smooth, edgeless cabinets that have elicited mixed responses in our offices. Some of us like their looks; others are less keen; some have found that the aesthetic has grown on them over time.

The point is, the LS Luxe is designed to be an artistic statement, as well as a musical one. With that in mind, you’ll want to make sure that the speakers will fit in with your listening space. You could find that they stick out like a sore thumb if you try to place them in your panelled reading room or Victorian boudoir. Whatever a boudoir is.

Our advice? Find a physical retailer and go to see the LS Luxe for yourself. Partly to figure out if the design will fit with your space, partly because you may be able to hear them for yourself, and partly because you’ll be able to appreciate the different finishes on offer.

From what we have seen, the shiny, luxurious texture of our silvery ‘Dusk Titanium’ test sample is very different from the matte finish of the ‘Mineral White’ option or the rather foreboding visage of the ‘Eclipse Black’ colourway.

These things make a big difference, especially as this is going to be a purchase that you may well be planning to keep for years or even decades.

Experiment with positioning

Thanks in part to its signature Uni-Q driver array, the LS Luxe is impressively unfussy about placement. The Uni-Q array has always been a winner when it comes to producing a supremely well-integrated, consistent sound that times brilliantly – and with the LS Luxe, it's the same old story.

Naturally, we experimented with positioning when testing KEF’s latest; and you should too.

Not all listening spaces are born equal, however, and while we found that our test sample performed around its best with the speakers firing straight ahead on their dedicated stands sitting roughly 30cm from the back wall of our smaller 3m x 4m x 7m listening room, that won’t be the case for everyone.

It’s always worth seeing what works for you in your listening room to optimise the performance you receive, even with a system as unfussy as this one. Moving a little closer or further to or from your back wall will affect the resultant bass output, while you might find that you prefer the way the speakers sound when they are angled slightly towards you.

We advise you not to use the Luxe on a desktop unless you really have to. The speakers will perform admirably when plonked on a desk or table, but you’re simply not going to get close to revealing the limits of their considerable abilities.

To us, it just seems like a bit of a waste.

MORE:

Read our KEF LSX II LT review

And our KEF Coda W review

Our guide to the best speakers we have tested and recommend across all budgets and types

Picking a pair of floorstanding speakers is quite the challenge. We have rated the latest efforts from PMC, Fyne Audio, and ProAc all rather highly as of late, and there are some impressive options from Q Acoustics and Acoustic Energy to be mindful of, too.

With an overwhelming influence of British audio brands present on our list of the best floorstanding speakers, I have been searching further afield to scope out some alternative options. And one of my most recent voyages took me all the way to Mississauga, Canada.

This city, 28km southwest of Toronto, is home to speaker manufacturer Paradigm, as well as its sister brands Martin Logan and Anthem. Paradigm's latest speaker release is its Premier v2 range, and as the name may suggest, it’s a successor to the brand's original Premier speaker range.

Along with a fascinating factory tour and some interesting discussions with key members of the Paradigm team, I had a chance to listen to the top-of-the-range floorstanding speakers from this newly updated series.

The Premier 820F v2, as you’re about to find out, made a strong first impression, but with this much competition in the market, can it displace some of the British stalwarts on our list?

Price

Paradigm has shared pricing for its Premier V2 range in the US, but UK pricing is currently unconfirmed. What I can say, though, is that the Premier 820F floorstanders I heard cost $1300 per speaker, so that's around £980 based on current currency conversion, or $2600 (around £1960) for a pair.

That puts these speakers in the mid-range of the hi-fi speaker market and in direct competition with the Award-winning Fyne Audio F502S (£2300 / $2800 / AU$3000) floorstanding speakers.

The PMC Prodigy 5 also loom large as 2024 Award-winners, priced at £1995 / $2510 / AU$3399.

Paradigm also sells another, slightly smaller, set of floorstanders in this range – the Premier 720F v2 – as well as two pairs of standmount speakers (the 120B v2 and 220B v2), alongside two centre channel options: the 520LCR (which can be used as either a centre, left or right channel) and the dedicated 620C v2 centre channel speaker.

With Premier in the name, it should come as no surprise that this series is destined for use in home theatre rooms in a 5.1 surround sound (or larger) arrangement.

Build quality

The Premier 820F v2 are a sensibly styled pair of speakers and, in many ways, they look and feel a touch more premium than their price tag may suggest.

At the core of the design is the vortex-like spiral waveguide, which has become a staple on the company’s other, more premium speaker ranges. It looks good, and it serves a purpose, which we’ll divulge shortly.

These speakers sport clean, sharp lines with prominent, protruding metal-spiked feet on the bottom edge of each speaker, which look pleasingly industrial and help to reduce unwanted vibrations.

I saw these speakers in both walnut and black-walnut finishes, and found them eye-catching yet not too distracting for those who want speakers to blend into their listening space. Paradigm will also offer these speakers in a piano-black option for fans of high-gloss finishes (and dusting).

Features

Paradigm has loaded the Premier 820F v2 speakers with a helping of trickle-down speaker technology from its more premium ranges.

These include combined aluminium, magnesium and ceramic (‘AL-MAC’) tweeters, alongside an aluminium and magnesium (‘AL-MAC’) midrange driver, which are designed to produce lifelike and natural-sounding vocals and instruments.

The phase-aligning waveguide (the vortex-style one that I mentioned above) plays a key role in focusing sound towards the listener without having to worry about awkward room layouts.

Paradigm has also outfitted these three-way floorstanders with its 7-inch Carbon X bass drivers, which, alongside the high-volume enclosure, move a considerable amount of air to produce “visceral, controlled bass and expansive soundstaging”.

The inclusion of a rear-facing port also aids bass. These speakers weren't placed too far into the room, and as you can see from the photographs I took in Paradigm's home theatre room, they're not all that far from the corner of the room.

Despite this, the bass doesn't feel boomy or overblown, as we'll continue to find out in the sound section below.

Finally, the industrial-styled feet I touched on earlier also have a special role. They are officially called "Outrigger Shock-Mount Isolation Feet", and they work by physically decoupling the speaker from the floor to control vibrations and resonance.

Inside each foot is a system of springs and an isolation layer, which Paradigm says will achieve “cleaner, more detailed soundstage and tighter bass across any surface”.

Sound

Paradigm’s goal here was to produce speakers that prioritise the original artist’s intent, and that became quickly evident during my demo session.

I must reiterate that this hands-on review doesn’t reflect our final judgement. We’ll need to test these speakers in our dedicated listening room with our reference amplifier and the appropriate comparisons as we do with all What Hi-Fi? reviews, to attach a final star rating.

Paradigm paired these speakers with an amplifier from its sister company, Anthem, for this testing, with music being streamed on Tidal via the Control4 wireless home automation system.

With that in mind, these speakers ticked a plethora of boxes during my listening session, which took place in Paradigm’s sound-treated home theatre space. Aside from a few specially selected tracks, I was also given free rein to stream tracks to the speakers for quite some time.

Paradigm suggested a live rendition of Trouble's What You're In by Fink, which exposed the 820F v2’s strengths immediately. The sense of space revealed here was superb; this recording takes place in the Union Chapel, London, before a live audience, and the Paradigm speakers did a stellar job of recreating the ambience of the venue with this track.

I also felt that the speakers balanced warmth and crispness nicely, with a full-bodied and textured approach to vocalist Fin Greenall's lyrics.

Despite sounding crisp and detailed, the speakers didn’t verge into sounding too revealing or analytical, which also meant that they really drew me in – especially during this track.

I then switched to Taylor Swift’s The 1 (I know; I couldn’t help myself). This is still a fairly slow and stripped-back track, all things considered, but it certainly has more elements compared with the previous track.

The track is underpinned by a melodic piano and simplistic looping percussion, both of which had plenty of texture and depth when being played through the Premier 820F v2.

Swift’s vocals were equally textured, especially during the harmonised sections of the track, and without sounding reductive, these speakers just sounded very listenable and enjoyable. The comforting, warm sound and oodles of detail certainly helped, as I'm sure did the comfy leather recliner I was sitting in.

Finally, I tried Alaska by Maggie Rogers on these speakers, which once again adds more elements compared with the previous track. Here, I got a sense of how the speakers handle the low end – and Paradigm’s mission statement seems to ring true.

The size of these cabinets and the larger bass drivers did their job in delivering a controlled and punchy dose of low end, which juxtaposed Rogers’ sweet and crisp vocals that lean towards the higher frequencies on this track.

Early verdict

We’ll need to properly test these speakers on our side of the pond to draw up any sort of final verdict, but my initial run-in with the Premier 820F v2 left me feeling quite positive.

While I am most interested in trying them in a surround-sound arrangement alongside some cinematic content, this musical demonstration of the stereo pair proved to me that these floorstanders are worth keeping an eye on.

MORE:

Read our full Fyne Audio F502S review

As well as our PMC Prodigy 5 review

And check out our picks for the best floorstanding speakers

Q Acoustics’ new 3040c floorstanding speaker completes the brand’s most affordable 3000c speaker range, two years after the first model launched.

A step down from its 3050c sibling, it promises to bring the “performance, design, and technological advances” of the 3000c series to a floorstanding form factor.

Like other models in the 3000c series, it features Q Acoustics’ C3 driver platform. C3 (‘C-cubed’) stands for Continuous Curved Cone, and combines the powerful bass response of a traditional straight cone with the superior midrange clarity and high-frequency control of a flared cone. This makes for a “controlled bass performance, expressive midrange and smoother integration with the high-frequency driver,” according to Q Acoustics.

But it also takes technology from the brand’s flagship Concept series. Its tweeter has a floating design that is hermetically sealed and mechanically isolated from the baffle, reducing internal pressure and midrange vibrations. Combined with the vented inner chamber, it should create ultra-low distortion and less colouring, as well as a lower crossover point and seamless transition between drivers.

Point to Point (P2P) bracing on internal areas of the cabinet creates a more focused stereo image and wider soundstage, while Helmholtz Pressure Equaliser (HPE) tubes nullify internal pressure to improve the frequency response.

Like the 3050c, it has a solid aluminium stabiliser design, with top-adjustable spikes for making it level. And it benefits from the 5000 series’ low-profile terminal panel with recessed binding posts that let you place it closer to a wall in order to maximise floorspace in smaller rooms.

The speaker cabinet features Q Acoustics’ signature curved profile, with no visible joints or bolts for a streamlined, minimalist look. And it comes in four finishes: Satin Black, Satin White, Pink Oak or Claro Walnut.

The 3040c is out now in the UK; it comes to the US in October. At £599 / $1099 (AU$TBC), it's priced just below the 3050c (which costs £749 / $1199).

MORE:

Read our Q Acoustics 3000c series hands-on review

And our Q Acoustics 3050c 5.1 with Q SUB100 review

The best floorstanding speakers around

KEF is to active speaker systems what Spain is to international football at the moment.

From the Award-winning LSX II active wireless stereo system to the Bluetooth-ready Coda W active standmounts, the brand’s blending of features and performance is where KEF has really shone over the past few years.

Acting as a step-up from the fiercely talented (and multiple Award-winning) LS50 Wireless II, the new KEF LS Luxe once again integrates amplification and streaming into a compact stereo system, incorporating all of KEF’s know-how into what is a decidedly more premium standmount package than the company has made before.

At £3500 / $4000 / AU$6375, we’re moving into more high-end territory compared with the £2199 / $2999 / AU$4295 LS50 Wireless II, with KEF claiming that the LS Luxe is the result of six years of research and development. Given how well the product performs, that time has been extremely well spent.

Build & design

“A presence designed to hold the room before a single note is played.”

That’s how KEF has described the LS Luxe’s looks, and while subjective tastes are likely to dictate exactly how you feel about the cabinets’ distinctive styling, there’s no question that the speakers themselves are capable of drawing the eye before they even have a chance to grab you by the ears.

The cabinet exteriors have been designed in collaboration with Ross Lovegrove, the Welsh designer with whom KEF previously joined forces when crafting the mighty Muon floorstanders, the portable Muo Bluetooth speaker, and the distinctive Mu headphones/earbuds range.

The LS Luxe very much continues the distinctive design language of Lovegrove’s previous collaborations, typified by their rounded, edgeless cabinets which, when sporting their ‘Dusk Titanium’ finish, positively gleam thanks to their luxuriously polished exteriors. That pebble-like speaker design will not be for everyone, and it may depend on which of the three finishes – Eclipse Black, Dusk Titanium or Mineral White – you choose.

What’s less up for debate is the tangible high quality of the speakers’ construction.

Pick up each speaker and you’ll feel how weighty and substantial they are, with everything about the LS Luxe – from the finish of their curved shells to the seamless integration of the driver array and front baffle – speaking of a product constructed with genuine care.

That design isn’t just for show, either. That curved form aims to improve performance by reducing the build-up of internal standing waves within the cabinet, whereas the use of durable ‘Bulk Moulding Compound’ (BMC) composite material reduces the need for excessive internal bracing, allowing for greater internal volume within the speakers to aid their low-frequency performance.

Turn the speakers around and you’ll see an equally distinctively designed aluminium heatsink, which is crafted to provide a greater surface area to more efficiently dissipate heat generated by the active electronics within. A flared reflex port also sits at the rear of each unit, designed using KEF’s ‘Flexible Port Technology’ where the port’s walls use a flexible material to reduce internal resonances.

At the heart of each speaker is KEF’s 12th-generation Uni-Q driver array, where the tweeter sits in the middle of the mid/bass unit in pursuit of more even sonic dispersion, better integration and improved time alignment. KEF’s now-familiar Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT), which absorbs rearward sound from the back of the tweeter dome, is also incorporated in pursuit of a cleaner, purer sound.

In terms of power, 280 watts of Class D amplification are directed to powering the mid/bass unit, while 100 watts of Class A/B amplification drives the tweeter.

That Uni-Q driver assembly is mechanically decoupled from the cabinet to reduce panel vibrations. Incorporated within the driver assembly is a decoupling chassis that damps the vibrations of the motor system, preventing them from feeding into the cabinet panels. The aim is to improve clarity and reduce distortion.

KEF has included a suitably premium-feeling remote control with the LS Luxe, as well as a speaker interconnect cable to optimise performance and an HDMI cable for use with your TV or home cinema set-up. Two power cables are also included, with both speakers requiring mains power – something to bear in mind when setting up your system.

What you don’t get included in the LS Luxe’s standard sale price are dedicated stands. If you want to get hold of a pair, KEF sells a set of S-Luxe stands for £800 / $800 / AU$1230 which you’ll have to put together yourself and screw into the base of each speaker.

That’s a considerable outlay on top of an already premium purchase, but our testing found that these stands help to optimise performance, secure the speakers in place and, thanks to their complementary aesthetic, and help them look their best. In other words, we feel that these stands would be money well spent.

Features

The KEF LS Luxe offers a suitably well-stocked connectivity suite to go with the system’s premium outlay.

KEF has been generous with the array of physical connectivity options on offer. Around the back of the primary speaker unit, you’ll find HDMI eARC, 3.5mm analogue, optical and coaxial inputs, while each of the two speakers has a dedicated output for adding a single subwoofer or a pair if necessary.

On the streaming side, the system uses KEF’s W2 Wireless Platform, which we’ve already experienced in the brand’s established LS wireless range. This grants access to popular streaming services such as Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect, Qobuz Connect and Deezer, along with internet radio.

There’s also the further convenience of AirPlay 2, Google Chromecast and Bluetooth 5.3, while UPnP compatibility means you can stream hi-res music from a connected external NAS drive. Roon Ready support is slated to arrive in 2027.

Hi-res file support depends on how you choose to set up and listen, with KEF’s new system capable of handling PCM files up to 24-bit/384kHz alongside DSD128. If you’re using a wireless connection between your speakers, those higher resolution files are internally downsampled to 24-bit/96kHz, whereas connecting the master and slave speakers using the included interconnect cable pushes playback up to 24-bit/192kHz.

Further technologies seek to enhance the LS Luxe’s performance beyond mere hardware. This is the first speaker product to feature KEF’s ‘Velocity Control Technology’, as seen in the brand’s five-star XIO soundbar, where the speed of cone movement is measured, and any differences between that and the expected value are compensated for in real time. The result is lower distortion levels.

Additionally, a proprietary ‘Music Integrity Engine’ tech uses digital signal processing algorithms to maintain accuracy and tonality no matter the volume at which the LS Luxe is played.

For getting the most out of your shiny new set-up, you’ll want to download the comprehensive and easy-to-use KEF Connect app, from which you’ll be able to control and set up your speakers. You can tweak the sound yourself using a customisable equaliser, while KEF’s ‘Room EQ’ digital signal processing helps you fine-tune your sound to your listening space.

It’s worth spending a bit of time with the app’s calibration settings, as, while the LS Luxe isn’t a prima donna in terms of positioning, you’ll certainly notice a difference when you tinker with the app’s various parameters, such as room size, the distance you’ve placed your speakers from your wall, and how damped your listening space is.

Sound

We decide to give our review sample the best chance possible to showcase its talents by screwing each speaker tightly to their dedicated S-Luxe stands, using the provided inter-speaker cable for the highest transmission rate possible (24-bit/192kHz), and kicking off with some hi-res wireless streaming via Tidal.

Naturally, we experiment with positioning, and find that they perform best with the speakers firing straight ahead and sitting roughly 30cm from the back wall of our 3m x 4m x 7m listening room.

Thanks in part to that updated Uni-Q driver array, the LS Luxe is gratifyingly unfussy about placement, producing a supremely well-integrated sound that remains consistent no matter our listening position.

What we discover is a wireless system with poise, control and, dare we say it, genuine grace. Like a fine wine or one of those acclaimed French arthouse movies, the KEF LS Luxe needs a little time for its true spectrum of talents to be appreciated.

The LS Luxe does not reach out and grab us by our lapels; instead, it reproduces our music with an even-handed, mature yet authoritative nature that slowly but inevitably places us under its bewitching spell.

This is a sonic signature we’ve heard before, from the more affordable LSX II and LSX II LT stereo systems and the established LS50 Wireless II. But the Luxe piles on extra helpings of detail and precision to that confident, articulate presentation we’ve experienced from KEF in recent years.

Listen to Massive Attack’s Atlas Air, and you’ll get a clear indication that for clarity, textural detail and overall scale, the LS Luxe is considerably ahead of the LS50 Wireless II, anchored by a taut, authoritative bass reproduction that sinks low without sagging like a bulldog’s floppy jowls.

While what we’re dealing with is a standmount speaker system, the scale and authority showcased belie the Luxe’s compact form. We load up Hans Zimmer’s Why Do We Fall? from the Dark Knight Rises soundtrack, and our reward is a rendition that soars with so much power, scope and grandeur that it’s hard to resist the urge to don our cape and cowl and go out looking for bad guys to bring to justice.

Punch and panache live side by side, with the LS Luxe knitting music together so expertly that even truly demanding tracks can’t catch it napping. Whether it's the gale-force hurricane of Slipknot’s Before I Forget, the magisterial grandeur of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture or the carefully curated strangeness of Yosi Horiko’s Bubbles, the Luxe barely breaks a sweat.

Interlocking rhythms are expressive and nimble, while dynamic ebbs and flows are communicated confidently without sounding artificial or overdone.

We use our Cyrus CDi player connected to the optical input to test the internal DAC, and again, that core character is firmly intact as we spin Jeff Buckley’s Grace, and the LS Luxe excels at revealing the intimacy, delicacy and emotion of the seminal record. We also connect the Luxe to the Cyrus using a 3.5mm to RCA adapter cable, and we continue to receive a high standard of performance.

While most of our listening is done using the S-Luxe stands, we also place the speakers on our tried-and-tested FS104 Signature plinths, and while the performance remains impressive, it isn’t as crisp and dynamic. The speakers themselves are just about compact enough to be placed on a desk, but at this premium price, they’re best suited to being listened to on stands.

Switching to Bluetooth will also result in an inevitable drop-off in clarity and precision, but the LS Luxe still retains its even, mature nature when playing through this less-than-ideal streaming medium. They do their best to shine, but it’s clear that we’re placing a limit on the system’s considerable abilities.

Verdict

The LS Luxe feels like another milestone in KEF’s recent history of providing outstanding wireless stereo speaker systems.

Yes, it’s a good deal more expensive than the LS50 Wireless II, and no, that distinctive curved design won’t be for everyone – but in terms of performance, this is a mightily impressive addition to KEF’s catalogue.

If you’re willing to pay that premium price – and fork out a bit extra for some dedicated stands to get the best out of them – then slick performance and outstanding sound will be your reward.

Review published: 30th July 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Features 5
• Build 5

MORE:

Read our review of the KEF LS50 Wireless II

KEF LS Luxe versus KEF LS50 Wireless II: which five-star wireless speaker system is better?

Also consider the KEF LSX II

Best active speakers: our experts pick the top pairs with integrated amplifiers

KEF has a new pair of active wireless speakers. The LS Luxe sits above the Award-winning LS50 Wireless II, and its distinctive aesthetics are the brainchild of renowned designer Ross Lovegrove, the man behind KEF’s ultra-high-end Muon speaker, Muo Bluetooth speaker, and (rather disappointing) Mu wireless headphones.

We have already given our verdict, so check out our exclusive KEF LS Luxe review to see what we make of it.

The LS Luxe speaker system is touted as KEF’s “most ambitious creation to date”, with numerous proprietary technologies helping it “set a new definition for wireless hi-fi”. Bold claims, but then these active speakers with network streaming do offer a lot of impressive technology.

One such example is a 12th-generation 6.5-inch Uni-Q driver array supported by KEF's 'Metamaterial Absorption Technology' (MAT). Uni-Q has been at the heart of KEF’s speakers for years – this driver array puts the tweeter at the acoustic centre of the woofer, meaning more even sound dispersion, with a wider sweet spot and minimal distortion.

The MAT technology claims to absorb 99 per cent of unwanted rear sound from the tweeter for clearer highs, and, because the Uni-Q assembly is mechanically decoupled with a flexible chassis, it isolates vibrations for greater sonic integrity.

LS Luxe also has the same Velocity Control Technology (VECO) as the Award-winning XIO soundbar, making it the first speaker to feature the tech. VECO – recipient of our recent Innovation Of The Year Award – is a closed-loop system whose velocity sensor monitors the Uni-Q driver in real time, so the amplifier can instantly correct any movement inconsistencies to improve the bass and reduce distortion.

We’re not done with the acronyms quite yet. KEF’s 'Music Integrity Engine' (MIE) promises more detail, accuracy and better tonality even at lower volumes, and uses finely tuned digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms to maintain definition.

Each speaker has a 100W Class A/B and 280W Class D current-drive amplifier inside, to deliver “high output with lower distortion for pure, dynamic sound”.

KEF’s W2 wireless platform brings native support for streaming services such as Tidal, Amazon Music, Qobuz, Deezer and more, as well as QPlay, AirPlay and Google Cast. You can also stream from a local NAS drive or music server.

KEF’s new system is capable of handling PCM files up to 24-bit/384kHz alongside DSD128. If you’re using a wireless connection between your speakers, files are downsampled to 24-bit/96kHz, whereas connecting the speakers using the included interconnect cable pushes playback up to 24-bit/192kHz.

In terms of wired connections, you get HDMI eARC, analogue, optical and coaxial inputs, letting you hook up a TV, CD player or games console. Each speaker also has a subwoofer output for beefing up the low end.

The KEF Connect app lets you fine-tune the sound to match your environment and preferences, while Advanced Room EQ DSP will analyse your surroundings and optimise the sound accordingly.

KEF is making a big deal of the Luxe’s design, describing it as “a functional work of art that captivates the senses and enriches its environment”. In fairness, it does look quite distinctive.

Its rounded, low-diffraction form, robust materials, flexible decoupling chassis and advanced bulk moulding compound should make it sound even better than the LS50 Wireless II, claims KEF, with greater clarity and deeper bass.

The KEF LS Luxe comes in three finishes: Dusk Titanium, Eclipse Black or Mineral White, and it costs £3500 / $4000 / AU$6375 per pair. You can also buy dedicated S-Luxe floor speaker stands for £800 / $800 / AU$1230 per pair.

We have reviewed the LS Luxe, and awarded it five stars across the board. Read our exclusive KEF LS Luxe review for the full picture.

MORE:

Read our exclusive KEF LS Luxe review

Check out the KEF LS50 Wireless II review

Hi-fi in 2076? How engineers envisage the next 50 years of music listening

Quad has announced the release of two new speakers as part of its Elegan Series: the standmountable Elegan 1 and the floorstanding Elegan 2.

According to the company, the Elegan Series are “spiritual successors” to its L Series speakers, which gained popularity in the early 2000s.

The Elegan 1 are priced at £749 / $995 / AU$1699 per pair, while the Elegan 2 cost £1499 / $1995 / AU$3499. Both speakers are built around the company's woven Kevlar driver technology, which sees the speakers’ cones formed from lattice-woven Kevlar.

Quad claims that using Kevlar, which has a high tensile strength and light weight, allows the speaker cone to deliver “precise pistonic behaviour over a wider bandwidth, reducing unwanted resonance and improving midrange clarity”.

The Elegan 1 is a two-way design, pairing a 16.5cm Kevlar mid/bass driver with a 25mm fabric-dome tweeter. Quad says the Elegan 1 speakers are best suited for smaller rooms and near to mid-field listening.

The Elegan 2, on the other hand, is a three-way design, which uses dual 16.5cm bass drivers alongside a 12.5cm midrange driver and the same 25mm fabric-dome tweeter. All drivers other than the tweeter use woven Kevlar cones, and the midrange driver is housed within its own internal chamber, which Quad says ensures “clarity and expression” across the midrange.

Both models feature high-frequency waveguides, which the company claims “optimises dispersion and supports a smooth transition into the midrange”.

The speakers also employ high density cabinet walls, internal bracing and damping materials to control panel resonance. Quad says that the speakers’ structural integrity is reflected by their “significant weight”, with each Elegan 1 speaker weighing 8.9kg, while the Elegan 2 weigh 27.8kg per speaker.

The Quad Elegan 1 and Elegan 2 speakers are now available in deep matte black or walnut wood veneers, priced at £749 and £1499 per pair, respectively.

MORE

Read our Quad 3 review

Check out the first-ever speakers from 22 legendary hi-fi brands

Browse our list of the best speakers you can buy in 2026

If you've been eyeing a pair of Monitor Audio's statement Hyphn floorstanding speakers, your choice of potential finishes just got a lot more extensive.

That's because Monitor has announced that the Hyphn are now available in over 200 custom colourways. Customers can select from a variety of Matte, Gloss and Metallic finishes across a range of over 200 colours, with each custom-finished Hyphn cabinet painted and assembled by hand in the UK.

For those unfamiliar with the Hyphn, the heavyweight floorstanders were built to commemorate Monitor's 50th birthday. Each speaker boasts a total of 11 drive units in total, including a micro pleated diaphragm tweeter surrounded by six midrange units and four bass drivers.

The cabinets, which you can daub in practically any colour you like, are formed using mineral and acrylic stone and then precision milled, resulting in what Monitor Audio describes as a totally rigid structure "that provides the perfect platform from which the drive units can operate".

The three original Hyphn finishes – Matte Heritage Green, Matte Black, and Pure Satin White – remain available. The Hyphn will set you back £70,000 / €82,500 / $92,500 per pair for the standard paint editions, while adding a custom finish will bump that up to £80,250 / €92,500 / €102,500 per pair.

MORE:

The annual What Hi-Fi? Home Cinema Week is here!

15 legendary hi-fi brands that are still going strong today

Best speakers 2026: budget to premium models tested by our expert reviewers

Last year, we gave Monitor Audio’s Bronze 50 7G standmounter speakers a five-star review, singing their praises for clear sound and punchy presentation. Consequently, when the floorstanding speakers from the same range, the Bronze 300 7G, arrived at our testing facility, we found ourselves waiting with bated breath to see if they could carry the Bronze 50’s flame.

Priced at £1000 / $1400 / AUS$2199, these floorstanders situate themselves at the top end of an increasingly competitive price bracket. Rivals include the Award-winning Fyne Audio F501E, which deliver punchy bass and cohesive presentation, and the recently five-star-rated Dali Sonik 5 that impressed us with expressive dynamics from a compact size.

Through experience, we know that a competitive market can sometimes lead to exciting progress in audio. “Iron sharpens iron,” as the famous proverb goes. But the real question is, will these Monitor Audio Bronze 300 7G speakers manage to rise to the challenge?

Build & design

The Bronze 300 7G are large speakers, standing at 100.5 x 26.9 x 39.2cm. But thanks to their tasteful design, they look sleek and sit comfortably in our listening room, avoiding the dominant appearance of similarly sized rivals, such as the Fyne F501E.

The MDF cabinets are wrapped in a satin vinyl finish that is available in three colours: black, white and walnut. Our black test pair have a pleasingly well-constructed feel, and their real wood front ply panels contribute to an overall sense of solidity and understated style.

Care is taken with the internal bracing, which is strategically placed between the drivers and the back of the enclosures to improve structural rigidity.

The speakers also feature Monitor Audio’s proprietary rear-firing HiVe II ports, positioned at the top and bottom of each cabinet, which are lined with grooves to reduce port turbulence, preventing chuffing sounds.

Spikes can be screwed into the speakers’ robust metal feet, and height can be adjusted by spinning the circular rubber pads that the spikes screw into. Assembling these parts is simple, and we find that they hold firm throughout testing.

The Bronze 300 7G floorstanders are a two-and-a-half-way design, and see the lower driver solely dedicated to handling bass in order to augment the low frequency output of the midrange driver above it.

The bass and midrange drivers are both 15cm in diameter, while the higher frequencies are looked after by one of the company’s trademark 25mm gold dome tweeters. All of the driver diaphragms are made from the company’s C-CAM (ceramic-coated aluminium magnesium) material, which it claims is lightweight and rigid.

The drivers are linked through a bi-wired crossover, and the resultant sensitivity is 88dB/w/m, with a nominal impedance of 8 ohms – fairly typical figures for a pair of floorstanders of this type.

The minimum impedance of 4.4 ohms suggests these speakers will work best with a beefier amplifier, which is typical for floorstanders of this type.

Compatibility

When it comes to positioning, these floorstanding speakers are more or less par for the course.

Monitor Audio recommends placing the Bronze 300 7G in an isosceles triangle arrangement, with a gap of 20-36cm from the back of the speaker to the rear wall.

In our 3 x 4 x 7m (hwd) test room, we settle at the top end of that range, as that achieves our preferred tonal balance, gives an expansive stereo image and avoids a dominant, ponderous low end.

When it comes to partnering electronics, we find the Bronze 300 7G work better with the smoother, more relaxed Arcam A15+ stereo amplifier than they do with the somewhat more front-footed Naim Nait XS 3 integrated. In the case of the latter, the speakers edge towards a slightly relentless presentation.

Sound

Monitor Audio suggests giving the Bronze 300 7G a minimum of 50 hours to settle, and, indeed, we find that their sound improves drastically after a few days of playing, shifting from a somewhat clinical and lean sound to a more pleasantly balanced, texturally detailed presentation.

Listening to The Bill Evans Trio’s rendition of My Foolish Heart, cymbals sit atop the mix for a sparkling, well-proportioned shine, while the brushed snare swells from beat to beat with satisfying texture.

Separation is the Bronze 300 7G's forte, and across our music library, the speakers reveal individual instrumental parts with striking clarity. Listening to the Minnesota Orchestra’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s I. Non allegro, instrumental tones arrive defined and crystal clear. Even in dense orchestral arrangements, we have little trouble picking out individual parts.

These are a responsive pair of speakers, too, and they don’t miss a beat when it comes to transients. Throughout Leonard Cohen’s Steer Your Way, the plucked acoustic guitar is presented with a crispness that leaves us feeling as though we are sitting right in front of the guitarist’s fingers.

Although their low frequency performance is leaner than certain rivals, we enjoy the speakers’ agile bass handling, which allows their natural midrange to shine. Vocal lines take centre stage, and Cohen’s lyrics arrive with all the depth and melancholic passion we expect from the godfather of gloom, without blurring or exaggeration.

In the treble frequencies, these speakers bring recordings to life with a vivaciousness that keeps us on our toes, without becoming shrill or domineering. If poorly partnered, they can veer towards a fatiguing sound, but careful system matching will avoid this, highlighting their many strengths.

One of those strengths is the Bronze 300 7G’s stereo imaging, which we find to be layered and stable. While listening to Simon and Garfunkel’s Song For Kathy, we are confronted by a striking sense of focus, as if Paul Simon were sitting between the two speakers in our test room.

As we move around the room, we are pleased to find that the image remains distinct, within the expected constraints of a conventional driver array, which suggests that these speakers have well-controlled dispersion characteristics and good integration between the drivers.

Tonally, these Bronze 300 7G are balanced, with nothing unpleasantly standing out, but we feel they are somewhat lacking in natural warmth. During Song For Kathy, we would have preferred some more richness in the lower notes of the delicate acoustic guitar.

Across the genres we play during testing – from Rachmaninoff to D’Angelo’s Spanish Joint – we are in no doubt as to the Bronze 300 7G's many strengths. They routinely turn in a capable performance that brims with insight.

However, we don’t think these speakers are necessarily the most entertaining listen available at this price, with rivals such as the Dali Sonik 5 delivering music with greater enthusiasm and rhythmic drive.

Verdict

The Monitor Audio Bronze 300 7G pair an aesthetically classy, well-constructed design with a sound that is balanced and impressively detailed, to provide an enjoyable listening experience that shines during dense arrangements. But the standards of the class are so high that even an accomplished pair of floorstanders such as this doesn’t quite make the top grade.

Review published: 16th July 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Compatibility 4

MORE:

Read our review of the Fyne Audio F501E

Also consider the Dali Sonik 5

Best floorstanding speakers: budget to premium models tested by our experts

A good pair of floorstanding speakers come with virtues aplenty: extended bass, thanks to larger enclosures and extra woofers, no need for an additional subwoofer and a sense of scale and authority that most bookshelf speakers can’t rival.

Best of all, finding a quality option in the £700-£1000 price bracket has recently become easier, with numerous brands developing their entry-level offerings.

Last year, our favourite was the Fyne Audio F501E, which came out on top as 2025’s Product Of The Year at the What Hi-Fi? Awards. It would be sensible, then, to pick up a pair and go forth with unwavering confidence in your choice. Well… not so fast!

Fantastic speakers though the F501E are, they have recently come up against tough competition from Dali’s Sonik 5 speakers. Designed to replace the company’s Award-winning Oberon 5, the Sonik 5 have a sound that gives speakers north of their price a serious run for their money, as do the Fynes.

So, which should you go for? Let’s get stuck into it.

Dali Sonik 5 vs Fyne Audio F501E: price

The Sonik 5 cost £899 / $1800 / AUS$1749, while the F501E are available for £999 / $1299 / AU$1999. So, right off the bat, there’s a £100 disparity between the speakers. But considering the larger size of the F501E, you quite literally get more speaker for your money.

But, because the F501E have been on the market for longer than the Sonik 5, we think they are more likely to see a discount during big sales events. Indeed, we have seen discounts of as much as £100 this year, which, when they strike, bring the speakers down to the same price for UK customers, making this a draw.

**Winner: draw**

Dali Sonik 5 vs Fyne Audio F501E: build & design

The Sonik 5 are smaller than the F501E in all dimensions. Standing at just 83cm, compared with the Fynes’ 98cm, these speakers have a significantly smaller footprint and will fit into most listening spaces with ease.

Admittedly, due to their diminutive height, some thought is necessary when it comes to positioning the speakers, especially if you are planning on sitting close to them, which, from our test room’s sofa, leaves the tweeters well below ear height.

The Sonik 5 are available in four finishes: natural oak, white, walnut or black ash. Each of the finishes has a fairly unobtrusive look, which we think is particularly well exemplified by our walnut test pair.

The cabinets’ high-grade laminate looks convincingly wood-like, with a pleasant, natural feel. Overall, these speakers have a subtly refined air.

That impression of refinement is only enhanced by the build quality. Although they are not heavy speakers, they are appropriately solid and well-constructed, and the included magnetic grilles connect firmly and complement the speakers visually.

Inside the cabinets, the Dalis employ a two-way design, using a 29mm soft-dome tweeter and two 13cm mid/bass drivers made from the company’s trademark mix of fine-grain paper pulp reinforced with wood fibres. A flared reflex port at the back of the speakers optimises airflow to reinforce bass.

Due to their reflex port, the Sonik 5 sound best when placed slightly away from the wall, so we wouldn’t recommend tucking them in too tight.

The Fynes, too, are sturdily built, and are now available in a walnut finish alongside the original black option. While their basic aesthetic does leave a somewhat monolithic impression, costs saved on aesthetic tweaks have afforded the inclusion of Fyne’s proprietary Isoflare driver technology within their entry range for the first time.

The IsoFlare design, which sees a 19mm titanium-dome tweeter mounted at the centre of a 12.5cm multi-fibre mid/bass woofer, is said to result in improved sound dispersion and integration between drivers.

Unlike the Dalis, the F501E use a two-and-a-half-way design, and the lower 15cm multi-fibre driver is tuned by a downward facing port in a configuration that the company calls Basstrax. Here, the port fires onto an upward facing cone to disperse low frequencies evenly across 360 degrees, making these speakers adaptable to different placements.

Fyne has also used a fluted surround to the mid/bass driver which it claims terminates the cone more effectively, for reduced distortion and improved clarity.

In terms of design, choosing between these speakers will depend heavily on buyers’ tastes and listening spaces. Both speakers have serious strengths: the Dalis take the lead for aesthetic charm, while Fyne’s Isoflare design works wonders in terms of stereo imaging.

As these speakers excel in different areas, at this stage, it’s neck and neck.

**Winner: Draw**

Dali Sonik 5 vs Fyne Audio F501E: compatibility

The petite Sonik 5 are unlikely to dominate most listening spaces, while the Fynes will need a bit more room to sit comfortably.

The Fyne’s Basstrax system does a lot to make the speakers less fussy about placement, though. In our 3 x 7 x 5m (hwd) test room, we find they sound best when positioned about 70cm away from the wall, but they don’t prove too particular about being placed closer.

The Dalis are somewhat more choosy about placement and need to come further into our test room – 80cm from the wall – to avoid bass dominance. Additionally, due to their compact height, we suggest tilting the Dalis slightly upwards when listening close, so that the tweeter axis lines up with your ears.

For stereo imaging, we think the Fynes sound best angled slightly in, while the Dalis perform better when facing straight out into the room. Thanks to their Isoflare design, the Fyne’s have a more precise stereo image than the Dalis, which remains stable as we move around the test room.

The Fynes have a slightly higher sensitivity of 90dB/w/m compared with the Dalis 88dB/w/m, and a claimed impedance of 8 ohms rather than 6 ohms. Both speakers work well with a range of amplifiers, from Arcam’s A5+ (50 watts per channel) and Naim Nait XS3 (70 watts per channel) to PMC’s Cor (95 watts per channel).

**Winner: Fyne Audio F501E**

Dali Sonik 5 vs Fyne Audio F501E: sound

The Sonik 5 are a highly talented pair of speakers. We are impressed by how much they do with their humble dimensions, with punchy bass, intricate dynamic tracking and a stable soundstage.

Across the frequency range, textures are presented with finesse. The Dalis’ midrange, in particular, wrings every last drop of emotion from vocal parts, with palpable humanity and warmth across genres.

Basslines are tight and well-textured, contributing to the Sonik 5s’ propulsive rhythmic drive. Thanks to the dynamic precision of these speakers, which brings out the fine details in decaying notes, percussive hits and basslines alike, their neat low frequency performance doesn’t diminish their rhythmic power.

In our review, we say that the Sonik 5 have a “layered soundstage, which retains focus and precision, even in dense arrangements”. Width is no issue for these speakers, either, and they can be positioned quite some distance apart before holes begin to appear in the stereo image.

The F501E won 2025’s Product Of The Year at the What Hi-Fi? Awards, so there isn’t much question about their sound quality.

The sophisticated and muscular sound of these speakers impresses us right away, with an ability to effectively convey a variety of sonic worlds, from “the majesty of a full blown orchestra” to A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory.

Speaking of low end, the Fynes have no trouble generating authority and punch on command. But they are also highly proficient in terms of treble, managing to handle “less than perfect recordings” with grace, “avoiding edge and undue harshness”, thanks to their balanced tonality.

Bass is taut and tuneful for price-standards, but while they might be capable of delivering more bass than the Dalis, we find that the Dalis reveal textures and dynamic subtleties in low frequencies that the Fynes sacrifice to their more powerful sound.

Nonetheless, the alignment of the drivers’ acoustic centres contributes to a well-integrated sound, with a stereo image that remains stable even as we move off axis. Improved driver integration also lends the Fynes’ midrange a crisp and forthright tonality that lets vocal lines shine through with emotional sincerity.

We find that the F501Es, a highly expressive pair of speakers, “track rhythms with determination while communicating changes in musical momentum in a natural and convincing manner.” They are rhythmically sure-footed and composed, but the Dalis take the lead here, with their snappy, more powerful sense of rhythmic drive.

While they may not be able to dive as deep as the Fynes in terms of bass, the Sonik 5 creep ahead in terms of textural detail, while also providing emotive dynamics with more than enough punch.

**Winner: Dali Sonik 5**

Dali Sonik 5 vs Fyne Audio F501E: verdict

Talk about a clash of titans. Both of these speakers boast performances that competitors will have difficulty matching. The Fyne F501E is the current What Hi-Fi? Award winner, so it’s something of a shock to see them beaten by the Sonik 5.

That’s not to say the Fynes aren’t excellent speakers in their own right. If you have the space to accommodate these towers, they are a rewarding listen with more extended bass than the Dalis and an exceptionally well-integrated sound.

But for a more precise performance, propulsive rhythmic drive and unobtrusive looks we recommend the Dali Sonik 5.

**Overall winner: Dali Sonik 5**

MORE

Read our Dali Sonik 5 review

And our Fyne Audio F501E review

How to choose the right speakers and get the best sound

Then, why not check out our guide to the best floorstanding speakers you can buy for every budget

Rejoice, Sonos fans! After months, even years, of turmoil and trouble, Sonos is making serious steps towards fixing the app that, after a disastrous redesign in 2024, threatened the company's future and forced its then-CEO to step down.

Now, Sonos is doing everything it can to repair the damage. We reported in June that CEO Tom Conrad had written on Reddit detailing some of the changes set to come to the platform, promising that the Sonos team had spent "hundreds of hours" watching people use the app to find its weak spots.

Now, Sonos is ready to put it all into practice, making the new version available in public beta form for Android and iOS users. Any customer with app version 87 can switch on 'Enable Improved Navigation' in their Settings to access the Beta as Sonos collects feedback over the next few months.

That new beta iteration touts some promising upgrades, including improved navigation, more intuitive system tab controls and an overhauled volume tuning system, as well as what Sonos terms 'Quality-of-life fixes' across Now Playing, playlists and iPad views.

The new changes are currently rolling out in their beta form as part of an opt-in public test phase, with changes set broadly to become the default once feedback has been gathered. This could be in the autumn, but no definitive date has been given.

Has Sonos learned from the mistakes of its past? You can switch to the updated version of the app in your settings and judge for yourself.

MORE:

Which Sonos speaker should you buy?

Check out our recent Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker review

Sonos Play vs HomePod 2: which should you buy?

Active speakers – speakers with built-in amplification directly powering the drive units – have become more and more popular these days. Their space-saving form negates the need for separate boxes for amplifiers and trailing cables, reducing clutter and making for neater systems.

Most active speakers these days also come with built-in DAC and digital inputs, sometimes a phono stage, and more often than not hi-res network streaming or at least Bluetooth included for ultimate all-in-one convenience. Acoustic Energy bucks this trend by keeping its new AE Active speakers purely analogue.

This new model builds on the five-star, Award-winning AE1 Active speakers we tested back in 2018 and have highly recommended since, and features updated acoustic technology and refined design for a new generation.

Build & design

The Acoustic Energy AE Active are a fully active two-way design, with 50W of Class A/B amplification powering each drive unit. That’s a total power output of 200W, with the amplifiers being refined in this new generation to improve dynamic capability. Each speaker has its own mains plug for power, with the revised amps fed by high-quality linear power supplies to ensure a consistent, low-noise performance throughout the frequency range.

The 40-year-old Acoustic Energy brand continues its tradition of using metal drivers in its new active speakers. The 27mm aluminium dome tweeter has a new rear chamber for reducing distortion at certain frequencies in the crossover region, and is combined with a dedicated waveguide to deliver a wide soundstage.

These speakers use the same 12.5cm mid/bass driver that was developed for the recent AE1 40th Anniversary passive speakers. This is a “pure-piston” ceramic/aluminium cone that is low in mass but very stiff, and has been engineered to minimise cone flex and distortion.

The analogue filters have been improved to minimise any phase disturbances. There is a rear-facing bass slot port that has also been updated, while internally the cabinet has had extensive bracing and internal damping panels to further improve performance.

The cabinets themselves have been subtly refined, with a neater trim around the drivers that overall looks rather smart and subtly elegant. The speakers are available in three finishes: high gloss black or white, and a new natural walnut wood veneer. Our sample’s wood veneer finish feels lovely to the touch, with a smooth texture and high quality finish throughout.

The standmounts have a fairly compact footprint and look most at home on dedicated speaker stands, although they could be placed on a large, sturdy desk if you are using them as nearfield monitors. You’ll just need to make sure both speakers are within reach of a mains power socket.

Features

The AE Active speakers eschew any digital or streaming elements entirely. Acoustic Energy says it experimented with modern features such as wireless streaming, switch mode power supplies, Class D amplification and DSP, but ultimately didn’t want to compromise the pure audio performance. The AE Active have a fully analogue signal path that avoids any digital processing entirely in the quest to preserve the original audio file’s integrity.

As such, you get two analogue inputs: a pair of balanced XLR inputs and a pair of stereo RCA inputs.

On one hand, this purist approach is commendable, but it’s a little old-fashioned and won’t appeal to everyone, particularly those looking for an easy solution. There’s a reason most active speakers these days – such as the KEF Coda W, Fyne Cubitt 5 and Cambridge Audio L/R S – come with Bluetooth and a variety of digital inputs to work with modern sources including TVs and laptops.

On the other hand, this pared-down approach does keep the Acoustic Energy rather flexible and future-proof. The speakers have integrated volume control, which means you can directly plug in a source such as a CD player or hi-res music streamer. You can also plug in a preamp or an external DAC to widen the connectivity, and it allows for a potential upgrade path down the line.

On the back panel on both units, you’ll find bass and treble controls to fine-tune the sound to the room they’re in, especially if dealing with less-than-ideal placements. One new feature is the auto on/off switch that lets you choose between leaving the speakers on permanently or activating standby mode after 15 minutes of inactivity.

That the active speakers come with built-in volume control is great news – this means they don’t require a separate preamp with volume control to function, such as the more premium ATC SCM20ASL active speakers do.

The only real complaint we have is with the placement and design of the volume controls. The dials are placed on the speakers’ back panel – this might be fine if the speakers are within reach on a desk, but it’s not practical if they’re on stands and you’re on your sofa. No, there is no remote control included here.

The bigger issue is that there are independent volume controls for each unit, with no clear markings on the dials. This means there is more chance of the volume not being perfectly level and balanced between the units, as you have to set them individually. We would much prefer it if there was one volume control that controlled both speakers’ levels.

A preamp or source with volume control comes in handy here, such as the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition music streamer we used throughout testing, so you can take the guesswork out of it.

Sound

Placed on stands and with the Naim Uniti Atom HE streamer playing a variety of radio, WAV and hi-res FLAC songs, the AE Active don’t take long to show their talents.

The control they have over every note is astounding at this level. The piano notes in Alicia Keys’ Fallin’ sound tremendously composed and land with solidity and confidence. Each note starts and stops with unerring punctuality, with the rhythm of every song we play being marshalled with a kind of military precision that is hugely impressive.

The amount and quality of bass coming from these not-particularly-large cabinets is also impressive, and we had a blast playing tracks with intense basslines just to hear what these AE Actives can do. There is real muscle and impact to the basslines of Major Lazer’s Pon de Floor, but there’s agility and texture here too. It’s all pulled taut and has the immediacy that is inherent in active speaker designs.

The busy arrangement and high-octane energy of the track are handled with ease by the speakers, too, with every note sounding crisp and positioned accurately in the soundstage – but without ever losing the party vibe.

Dynamically, the AE Actives are fantastic. The snappy transient response of these active speakers means sudden shifts in quiet-to-loud moments are brilliantly and speedily communicated, while slow-burning moments – such as Clint Mansell’s instrumental Moon soundtrack – sound fluid and retain their sense of tension.

Play Kate Bush’s Watching You Without Me and the AE Active reveal high notes with the right mix of clarity, headroom and bite, but without any undue brightness or sharpness. The overall sound from these active speakers is rather clean and with low-distortion throughout the frequencies, which also means we can enjoy listening at high volumes without hardness or woolliness creeping in.

The stereo imaging is similarly focused and composed, with voices showing off just how well integrated the AE Actives' drivers are. The speakers have no problem revealing the different voices, intonations and personalities in Eminem’s Stan. From The Unthanks’ delicate, nuanced vocals on Mount The Air to Eminem’s rapid-fire, ferocious rapping on Godzilla, the AE Actives reveal the character and intensity of every song with a good amount of detail and nuance.

The Acoustic Energy speakers are just about transparent enough that you are aware of the distinct recording qualities of albums from different eras, but they don’t make too much of a fuss over the quality of each track. The overall sound could perhaps be a little more fluid and airy-sounding, and they may struggle to fill very large rooms. When listening in our larger 3m x 7m x 5m (hwd) test room, the AE Actives sound a touch dynamically restrained, but they come to life in our smaller 3m x 4m x 7m room, with a bit of breathing room from the back wall to balance the bass performance.

We swap to a price-equivalent separates amplifier and speaker pairing of the Arcam A5+ and Acoustic Energy AE300 Mk2 (both current Award-winners in their respective categories), and find this offers a more relaxed and wider soundstage. They sound rather soft in the bass, though, and don’t go as deep either. Overall, they can’t match the speed, precision and agility of the AE Active speaker.

Verdict

The Acoustic Energy AE Active are a niche product in today’s audio landscape, but they are a tremendously talented and capable pair of active speakers. They are a viable alternative to a traditional separates pairing at this price, and could well be the last chain in your hi-fi system you’ll have to update. Highly recommended.

Review published: 14th July 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Features 3

MORE:

Read our review of the KEF Coda W

Also consider the ATC SCM20ASL

Best active speakers: our experts pick the top pairs with integrated amplifiers

Bose has been conspicuously absent from the premium wireless multi-room speaker space of late.

Denon has recently unveiled its revamped Home 2 series of versatile smart speakers, Apple has plenty of iOS fans enjoying the talents of its HomePod 2 and HomePod Mini, and Sonos continues to cling to its multi-room supremacy courtesy of the established Era 100 and Era 300. Bose, conversely, has tended to focus on the portable end of the market in the past couple of years – until now.

Most of the above contenders are locked into their brand’s own dedicated ecosystem, and most have been designed to co-operate with their extended family of connected siblings. Brands these days aren’t just offering you products – they’re pledging a way of life.

That’s certainly the impression we get from Bose and its new Lifestyle range. The US brand launched the Ultra Speaker wireless speaker alongside a Dolby Atmos soundbar and a new subwoofer, teasing a “reimagined approach to home audio" from a new range of products clearly designed to work alongside one another and tie you into a particular ecosystem.

That begs a very important question: what is Bose’s Lifestyle Ultra Speaker offering that the likes of Sonos and Apple don’t already have covered?

Price

The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker’s price differs depending on the finish. The speaker currently sits at £300 / $299 / AU$550 if you go for the standard Black or White Smoke colourways, but if you want to push the boat out and go for Driftwood Sand, that’ll be a hefty increase to £349 / $349.

You can pick up the Award-winning Sonos Era 300 for £359 / $359 / AU$649, offering stern competition for Bose straight out of the gate. You can also get yourself a still-excellent HomePod 2 for £299 / $299 / AU$479 if you’re into the Apple way of life.

Build & design

Bose’s new wireless speaker might be closer to the Sonos Era 300 price-wise, but in terms of its size and shape, it’s more akin to the form of the cheaper and smaller Era 100.

If that shorthand comparison doesn’t help you out much, then imagine a speaker that stands about as tall as an average notebook, with a curved, fabric-covered front panel. It’s a compact and neat design, and while the hourglass configuration of the larger Era 300 may catch more admiring (or quizzical) glances, the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker fulfils its brief as a subtle sentinel capable of blending into your audio or cinema set-up.

Bose tends to make its products to a high standard, and the Ultra Speaker is no exception – this is a product that feels built to last.

At the top of the unit are a series of touch-capacitive controls, including volume, a play/pause toggle and a Bluetooth pairing button. We understand that some users feel that touch controls grant a sleeker, more premium appeal, but we find the buttons’ lack of feedback here – be it physical or auditory – undermines the experience somewhat.

Knowing that the speaker has actually registered an action with an accompanying small sound or click would be much more useful than simply having to guess, especially with tricky tasks such as trying to perform a connection reset. You get a chime when toggling the microphone on and off, but that’s about it.

Taking care of sonic duties are a trio of drivers – a 25mm tweeter and a 7.6cm mid/bass driver alongside a 3.8cm up-firing driver – designed to disperse sound evenly around your listening space. Bose doesn't disclose the specific power rating, but we do know that the drivers are powered by Class D amplification.

Like its soundbar and subwoofer siblings, the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker uses Bose’s ‘CleanBass’ technology, which combines a rear-firing bass port with digital signal processing to deliver “deep, tight bass”. We’ll get to that later on.

Features

The Ultra Speaker is built, at least in part, to play ball with the rest of the members of its new Lifestyle product family. The speaker can be used on its own or in a pair for stereo playback, or you can add them as surround channels when used with the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar. Do be aware that the speakers aren’t backwards compatible with any of Bose’s older soundbars.

Stereo pairing is a nice asset to have, if you can get it to work. While getting our two test samples to play ball with each other works reasonably well most of the time, the resultant sound is often so out of sync that it becomes unlistenable. We’re not the only ones to have experienced this issue, so let’s hope that Bose will come to the rescue via a firmware update soon.

Stereo pairing bugs aside, the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker has ample streaming connectivity. Connecting to your wi-fi network gives you access to streaming features such as Google Cast, Apple AirPlay 2 and Spotify Connect, as well as the Alexa Plus voice assistant which you can connect via the app. Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect aren’t available at launch, but we're told both will be arriving via a firmware update down the line. It’s worth noting that there’s no ethernet port for a wired connection to your home network.

If you want a multi-room set-up, the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker is accommodating in this regard. You can use the Bose app to create a stereo system or integrate other Lifestyle products, such as the Lifestyle Ultra Soundbar, into a neat home cinema system, or use the likes of AirPlay or Google Cast to integrate other compatible devices into your set-up.

You can stream using Bluetooth 5.3, too, with the standard AAC and SBC codecs supported. There’s no sign of higher-quality aptX or LDAC codecs here, which might be disappointing for some. An auxiliary 3.5mm input is available around the back of the unit if you want a physical connection to your audio source.

If you’re wondering how you control your new Bose speaker, then yes, there’s an app for that. You could go all Medieval and use the on-unit controls, but if you want to really get the most out of the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker, you’ll need the official Bose app.

We might have had issues when it comes to the stereo pairing process, but the Bose app is a good one. It’s a logical, uncluttered and orderly platform that we find very easy to navigate thanks to its big, bold menus and helpful set-up guides.

Sound

We’ll get a quick caveat of our assessment of the Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speakers’ sonic capabilities out of the way by confessing that we have to do a bit of tinkering before we get it sounding how we want. The balance you pick will often depend on the characteristics of your listening space and your personal preferences, but we feel the need to increase the bass levels in the EQ settings in order to compensate for what would otherwise be a rather thin reproduction.

Bolstering the lower end does grant, to our ears, a more balanced feel to the speaker’s sound, allowing our test sample to more capably reveal its particular talents.

The Lifestyle Ultra Speaker’s reproduction is clear and composed, with a sound that rarely grates the ear. Notes are well-defined upon arrival, even if the Bose can sound like it overemphasises those all-important leading edges just a tad.

Instruments are crisp and sharp as they land, but the Ultra Speaker could conceivably add more body to that initial bite. The rival Sonos Era 300 is far better in this regard, reproducing instrumental textures – swooning strings, twinkling pianos – with a more natural weightiness that simply outshines the comparative thinness of its Bose rival.

The Lifestyle Ultra Speaker is capable of granting tracks a sense of dimensionality thanks to its upward-firing driver. The Bose speaker doesn’t officially support Dolby Atmos, with its ‘TrueSpatial’ technology taking care of spatial processing. This analyses the dimensions of the room in which the speaker is positioned and then optimises your audio to suit your listening space for a more immersive soundstage.

You can adjust the height channel in the app, and you’ll certainly notice the change as you move the in-app slider from 0-10, depending on how much height effect you want from the speaker.

When working to full effect, the resultant soundstage is admirably wide-reaching for a speaker of this size and type, but again, it’s simply outshone by the stunningly cinematic reproduction of the Dolby Atmos-powered Era 300, which renders spatial audio in a more convincing, wide-reaching and immersive manner.

The Era 300 is more convincing in other areas, too. Via Bluetooth or AirPlay, Sonos’ speaker excels across small and large scale dynamic shifts, putting the Bose rival’s somewhat flattened presentation in the shade.

Listen to the first minute of Lana Del Rey’s First Light and you’ll hear what we mean. The introduction of punchy drums and powerful brass land with more authority and power via the Era 300, contrasting starkly with the track’s quiet, enigmatic opening. The track propels itself forward with more vigour via the Sonos, with a purposeful momentum that we don’t find when switching back to the Lifestyle Ultra Speaker.

All isn’t entirely lost for Bose. The Lifestyle Ultra Speaker keeps its taut lower-end reproduction nicely in check, even if we have to boost it a bit to hear it properly, with ‘CleanBass’ tech working nicely with that rear port to deliver upon Bose’s promise of decent low-frequency control.

Bass is reasonably well-integrated with the rest of the frequencies, and rarely do we feel as though those lower registers sound disjointed or overly separated from the rest of our music.

Verdict

The Bose Lifestyle Ultra Speaker does not come cheap. Bose has positioned it as a committedly premium wireless smart speaker, and that’s put it up against some serious competition.

Sadly, Bose’s otherwise game contender doesn’t do enough to justify its considerable outlay, especially when there are more convincing alternatives available at this level. If you’re after a speaker that gives you great spatial audio, an impressive spread of features and better sound overall, we recommend that you pick the five-star Sonos Era 300 instead.

Review published: 13th July 2026

SCORES

• Sound 3
• Build 4
• Features 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Sonos Era 300

Also consider the Apple HomePod 2

Best wireless speakers: tried and tested by our expert team

Danish hi-fi firm Dynaudio is exiting the US market just a few months short of its 50th anniversary.

According to a press release, Dynaudio has chosen "to focus its future market development efforts on Europe and Asia as part of its long-term business strategy."

As a result, it will "cease operations of its commercial activities in North America and permanently shut down its U.S. subsidiary in the fall of 2026."

Dynaudio cites "ongoing economic challenges and market uncertainty" for its withdrawal, despite sales having grown in the region. US president Donald Trump recently repeated his claim that Greenland should be controlled by the US and not Denmark – it's not known if tensions between the two countries played a part in Dynaudio's decision.

Dynaudio says it is committed to ensuring a "smooth transition" for customers and business partners in the region, and will soon share a plan for continuity of product support and customer service.

We've contacted Dynaudio for more information and will update this story if we hear back.

Founded in 1977 in Skanderborg, Denmark, Dynaudio makes a range of speakers for the consumer, studio, car audio and custom install markets. In 2022 it revamped its Focus active range, and about 18 months ago announced a premium concept soundbar – the Symphony Opus One – which it demonstrated at the recent High End Vienna show. It has previously made speakers for Volvo, Volkswagen and Bugatti cars.

MORE:

The best speakers around

The best bookshelf speakers

And the best budget speakers

The size of the average UK living room is now just a third of what it was in the 1970s, according to a survey by LABC (a UK representative body for local council building inspectors). Of course, as living space constricts, so does the amount of room being allocated to hi-fi set-ups.

That’s where speakers like the Dali Sonik 5 come into play. With a compact design and a price of £899 / $1800 / AUS$1749 – just shy of the current Award-winning Fyne Audio F501E at £999 / $1299 / AU$1999 – these Dali floorstanders strike a pleasing balance between convenience, cost and quality.

The new series of Sonik speakers replace the discontinued and much-loved Oberon range, making the Sonik 5 the successor to the five-star Oberon 5. A tough act to follow, given the multiple What Hi-Fi? Awards under its predecessor’s belt.

On inspection, the apple doesn’t seem to have fallen far from the tree between these models, with similar dimensions and driver configuration. But the question is, will these new floorstanders throw down the gauntlet or leave us reminiscing about the good ol’ days?

Build

The Dali Sonik 5 are compact two-way towers, with fairly diminutive dimensions of 82.6 × 16.2 × 27cm (hwd). Their petite size means these speakers never dominate visually and will fit seamlessly into most spaces.

The internally braced MDF cabinets are clad in high-grade laminate and come in four finishes: natural oak, white, walnut and black ash. On our test pair, the walnut finish looks convincingly wood-like and complements the clean front panel cosmetics well, making it look notably more modern than the Oberon 5.

In terms of drive units, there are two 13cm mid/bass drivers loaded with a rear port, and a 29mm soft dome tweeter. The mid/bass diaphragms use Dali’s trademark mix of fine-grain paper pulp reinforced with wood fibres, which the company claims provides rigidity, good damping and light weight.

The drive units employ Dali’s patented SMC (Soft Magnetic Composite) technology in the motor system to reduce distortion, which should help with optimising detail, transparency and dynamics.

All three drivers are linked through a single-wired two-way crossover, resulting in a sensitivity of 88dB/w/m and nominal impedance of 6 ohms – identical to the Oberon 5. These are typical figures, and shouldn’t cause any problems when paired with decent, price-compatible amplifiers. That said, Dali recommends pairing it with an amplifier with a power rating of 30-150 watts.

Compatibility

In terms of positioning, we find the Sonik 5 sound best facing straight ahead, with a gap of at least 0.8m from our testing room’s rear wall. When angled in, the sound is a little narrower and brighter than we would like. Positioned too close to the wall, the bass starts to dominate.

If you are listening at close range – say, closer than two metres – then it’s likely that the tweeter will be well below your ear height. In which case, we recommend tilting the speakers slightly upwards, so that the tweeter axis lines up with your ears. If your listening position is further away from the speakers, this becomes less of an issue.

In terms of partnering electronics, we found the Dali speakers coped well with similarly priced separates. We got good results from both five-star Arcam A15+ and Naim Nait XS 3 stereo amplifiers.

For the bulk of this test, we were streaming hi-res tracks using the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition music streamer, or playing compact discs from the Cyrus CDi CD player.

Sound

After giving the Sonik 5 a few days to settle in, we find ourselves thoroughly impressed by their performance. With an intricate and highly musical sound, these speakers are versatile, proving themselves a serious contender across genres.

Listening to Nude by Radiohead, we enjoy powerful but pleasingly tight bass for the speakers’ small size, vivid textural details across the frequency range, and a musical presentation that conveys each of the instruments with good separation, allowing their individual tonal qualities to shine through. At a similar price, the larger Fyne F501E produce deeper bass, but sacrifice a degree of precision in the process.

While listening to Johnny Cash’s I Won’t Back Down, backing harmonies have a pleasant, airy quality, while Cash’s voice holds its own in its chesty, elderly bass. Most impressively, his vocal remains crystalline, occupying centre stage with an eerily lifelike presence.

Dynamically, the Sonik 5 are responsive. We find that the decay of certain notes, dynamic swells and subtle ebbs in volume are all conveyed with a faithfulness that outperforms both the Oberon 5 and the Fyne F501E. No mean feat.

Dali’s speakers are not traditionally shy when it comes to treble, but with such refined textures and an ability to sparkle without veering into shrill territory, the manufacturer’s boldness has, once again, earned our respect.

Their midrange is another highlight, evoking palpable humanity and emotion from voices as varied as Tom Jones and Martha Wainwright. We enjoy the texture and natural warmth that the Sonik 5 reveal in vocal performances across our music collection.

Rhythmically, these speakers are highly adaptive, with the capacity to maintain a musical sense of momentum, even when faced with the raucous rhythms of Elvis Costello’s 20% Amnesia. But they cope just as well with the subtle undercurrents of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Pt. III – Pursuance.

These Dalis work well with classical recordings, too. Listening to Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3, the cello’s delicate texture is preserved even when it plays incredibly quietly, as it does for extended periods in the piece. When the symphony swells to its dramatic climax, the scale and depth of field conveyed by the Sonik 5 leave us feeling the music to our very core.

The Sonik 5 maintain a stable stereo image, which by price standards is precise and well focused. Symphony No. 3 allows the speakers’ stereo image to shine, highlighting their layered soundstage, which retains focus and precision, even in dense arrangements.

Verdict

With a pleasingly compact size and excellent sound, we think the Dali Sonik 5 will make a superb addition to any home set-up, especially if you’re working with small spaces.

Provided you are willing to take some time to set them up carefully, these floorstanding speakers have plenty to offer, with a sound that transcends their dimensions.

Review published: 8th July 2026

SCORES

• Sound 5
• Build 5
• Compatibility 5

MORE:

Read our review of the Fyne Audio F501E

Also consider the Dali Oberon 5