Loudspeakers

People in the home cinema industry – manufacturers, PRs and the like – know me for being keen on mad, huge potent audio. Giant 18in subwoofers and speakers the size of Stonehenge. I think they sometimes forget that I am also impressed by the delicate and the clever. So much so, that with this set of skinny tower-style speakers, all housed in an aluminium toothpaste-tube squeezed-out extrusion, I could feel palpable fear from the PR chap as he kept on politely enquiring how I was ‘getting on’ with the Revel Concerta speaker system.

The WAM750, or M7 to give it its stage name, is one of Samsung’s Shape range, powered by Qualcomm’s AllPlay Wi-Fi platform. It can also receive tunes over Bluetooth and has an NFC button which allows your mates to instantly subject you to their favourite tunes stored on their NFC- equipped smartphones. But Bluetooth can’t be used to send audio to other M7s (or the smaller M3 and M5 speakers for that matter) located around the house; only Wi-Fi can.

Sonos has been one of the top dogs in wireless audio for some time, where its stylish Play:3 and Play:5 speakers lend themselves perfectly to multiroom use. The beauty of Sonos’s proprietary system is that you can have as many speakers as you like running simultaneously and are restricted only by the range and bandwidth of your network. Being able to pick and choose at random where you want to listen to music stored on a computer, smartphone or tablet is liberating.

Let us for a minute consider the thorny issue of ‘style’ – the indefinable quality of a product beyond the more understandable virtues of performance, build and features. In the UK, much AV gear tends toward form following function, and while this can result in stylish things, it's often a by-product rather than the intention.

SpeakerCraft is not the first brand that comes to mind when short-listing designer hi-fi. The company, best known as a purveyor of in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, has an image that’s more plasterboard than posh. But that’s about to change with Its new RooTs loudspeakers that strive to impress. The piano gloss cabinets (in black or white) have a quality finish that would be a crime to hide away. The sub is especially handsome.

There are plenty of ‘almost’ invisible systems about, but Stealth Acoustics has produced a range of flat panel speakers which cover all ranges and can all be flush-fitted into a wall.

Regular readers may recall HCC previously getting an SVS subwoofer to play with. Dubbed the PC13-Ultra, it was a large upright tube and, frankly, so ugly it was best hidden away – although, with its 13.5in Peerless driver and a 1,000W amplifier, it could break windows and shake the foundations. Now, SVS has come back to Blightly some years later with a whole new range that still feels a bit American in flavour and concept. Aimed squarely at the seriously high-end market, yet cheekily less money than some, the SVS Ultra series employs a very sophisticated set of drivers and a real no-compromise approach to being loud as well as clear.