John
After Focus XD and Xeo, Denmark’s Dynaudio have announced a logical extension to their digitally active loudspeaker development with the Google-defying Music: a range of standalone multi-room-capable loudspeakers for the credenza, the night stand or the bookshelf.
With functional and visual echoes of Denon’s HEOS hardware, Dynaudio invite us to choose from the Music 1 (€499), Music 3 (€649), Music 5 (€799) and Music 7 (€999), each available in four different colours: dark grey, light grey, blue and red (that’s a little pinkish).
All models are mains powered and offer 3.5mm analogue and iOS-friendly USB inputs. Elsewhere the feature set varies: Musics 5 and 7 and have a TOSLINK input for TV or games console hook-up; Music 7 gives users an HDMI input for our 4th Gen Apple TV or Blu-Ray player; for those wanting to take a Music onto the terrace or into the bathroom, Musics 1 and 3 offer up to eight hours of battery power.
So far, so standard.
Where the Music range steps out of the box marked ‘ordinary’ is on functionality. Each Music model has been coded with a powerful DSP heart to extract optimal performance from each driver as well as tailor their combined output to best fit the speaker’s environment.
Each Music speaker uses 1) RoomAdapt to auto-sense its location (including proximate boundaries) and 2) NoiseAdapt to auto-sense external noise. On the fly, the speaker then auto-adjusts its frequency response.
As well as localised push buttons and IR wand (on all but the Music 1), remote control comes from an in-house developed Android/iOS app to integrate internet radio and some of the world’s most popular music streaming services: Spotify Connect* (see footnote), Deezer, Tidal and Soundcloud. The inclusion of Apple Airplay, aptX Bluetooth and allows end users to stream content from other services. DLNA support is included for streaming from local servers and NAS devices.
The Music software platform’s most mass market-friendly feature is a playlist curation system that chooses music according to questions asked during smartphone app setup and ongoing monitoring of what is played and when. This makes the Music ideal for those who love music but claim they “never know what to listen to”. In other words, music discovery.
The audiophile-related twist is that those most likely to care about each Music speaker’s driver configuration, amplifier Class/wpc, enclosure type, its THD and frequency response are also the most likely to dismiss Dynaudio’s Music range as “lifestyle” whilst simultaneously, and with a heavy dose of irony, lamenting the mass market’s lack of interest in better sound quality. (Specifications are tabulated below).
The audiophile world needs more of this kind of product, not less of it. The Musics are an ideal fit for my imaginary Future-Fi Now event that seeks to bridge the audiophile ghetto with the mainstream.
Dynaudio’s Music range will go on sale in Europe and Asia in November with other territories to follow suit in January 2018.
Further information: Dynaudio
UPDATE July 2018: The Music series is now shipping but without Spotify Connect. Users are advised to use Apple AirPlay or Bluetooth instead.
