Review: August SE50 - A 'Tivoli' costing only a fraction?

August International sent me a sample of their new tabletop radio SE50 for a review.
As I have heard lots of different radios, I thought I might give the SE50 a try, as it is a very inexpensive unit that even includes bluetooth streaming for under 40$. At the same time it is quite classy looking due to a faux-wooden design. In Germany you'll have to pay a little bit more, as you can find it on Amazon.de for around 45�.
A comparable Tivoli One radio with bluetooth will cost you more than 200$ and you'll only get mono sound. Is the high price for the Tivoli really justified? Let's find out.

The SE50 came in a stylish but very simple box. There was only the radio, the power-adaptor and a manual inside, but August even included a 3.5mm Aux-wire, which is impressive for that price, as even Bose doesn't add any wires with their products that cost 5 times as much.

The radio looks modern but classy at the same time. The main body is some kind of plastic with a wooden texture printed on (or maybe laminated). The front speaker cover (not removeable) is of a black cloth material. The display and the control panel at the top are glossy black. At the back there is also the auxilary-input, as well as the power switch and a bassreflex port.
The display either shows "SE50" or the frequency of the radio station, if set to radio mode. It doesn't have any clock or alarm, which is a pity, but understandable because of the low price, but at least a simple clock would lift the SE50 to an even higher level.

No idea why August decided to mount the power switch at the back, as usually it would be quite hard to reach, if you placed the radio inside a shelf or higher on a cabinet. But you can also just leave the radio switched on, and set to aux mode, in order to bring it into a kind of "fake-standby".
All other operation is done from the top control panel. 2 buttons are bigger namely the source-button where you can switch between radio, auxiliary input or bluetooth. The other one is the bluetooth button, which forces the radio to jump into pairing mode. When you turn on the radio for the first time, it automatically starts in bluetooth mode. The SE50 also keeps the bluetooth connection if you switch over to radio or aux-input. You have to press the bluetooth button in order to force new pairing or just disable bluetooth on your phone, in order to cancel the connection.

All other buttons are in orderly rows which makes them quite hard to operate blindly. The volume buttons are exactly the same size as all the rest and in addition they have the preset button inbetween. The preset button also acts as play/pause button during bluetooth mode btw. But there are no buttons for skipping tracks. You can just pause or resume music directly from the radio.

I really would have preferred at least a large rotatable knob at the front, which you could use for adjusting volume and powering on/off when pressed. A pity this was not considered for the final design, as it could make the speaker look even more interesting.
As it is now the speaker rather needs to be placed at lower positions, so that you really see what you press, I would have at least elevated or marked the volume buttons somehow in order to find them because those will probably be the most used. I will show you later why this is a bit of a dilemma, because in reality the SE50 is indeed better suited for elevated places.

The first thing I did was of course pairing my iPhone with the radio in order to check its sound with some known tunes and compare it to the Tivoli One. Pairing was fast and without problems and the sound was surprisingly warm with a nice amount of bass, but at the same time lacking a bit of treble-definition. My first impression was that it sounded really veiled, until I found that it improved a lot, if you put the radio at ear-height.
The sound seems to be rather directional. As the treble is not very dominant anyway, it becomes even worse if you listen to the radio from above or angled from the sides. This is a pity, as there is no EQ or additional sound control, so that you just have to live with it how it sounds. You can of course add a bit of treble boost, if you use some EQ-app on your phone when connected through bluetooth or aux, but radio sound will always remain a bit dull. Compared to my Tivoli One which is known for not being very bass-shy the SE50 has comparable bass output, but the Tivoli sounds considerably clearer in treble and mids. At the same time the sound isn't that directional and doesn't change that much when listened from the sides. The same goes for the Tivoli PAL which doesn't have the bass-punch of the SE50, but has finer treble and is not that picky where to be placed. Although the SE50 has 2 speakers for stereosound, the separation is not that huge, so you hardly gain any advantage over a mono radio like the Tivoli One, especially when placed farther away.
The SE50 can be turned pretty loud. The sound even improves when turned up louder, as it becomes more punchy and powerful. Even at highest levels there was hardly any distortion, only with very bassheavy tracks, but it was still bearable. The Tivoli One can play a notch louder but distorts quite strong at  highest levels. I liked the sound of the SE50 more at high levels than on low. Really not bad considering the low price and beating all available small bluetooth boxes costing the same or even twice as much.

Thanks to its built in bar-antenna I found the radio reception to be quite good and comparable to the Tivoli One which has the antenna completely integrated, though also has jack for an external antenna. Searching for radio stations is other done manually by pressing the FM +/- buttons until the desired frequency is reached, or the radio searches automatically for the next station, if one of the buttons is kept pressed for a second. Although we only live some kilometers from Vienna, the radio reception is pretty bad in our area. Nevertheless I was able to save some radio stations as presets. By adjusting the antenna a little bit, respection could be improved even further.

In summary I have not much to complain about August's SE50 radio. It is really inexpensive, but has a nice warm sound, although a bit treble-shy. But the sound doesn't cause any fatigue even after hours of listening and it can be turned up pretty loud without the sound becoming worse.
The radio receiver is able to pick up even weaker stations, but most important of all: There is bluetooth on board, which makes it easy to wirelessly connect any smartphone or whatever to listen to your own music or even internetradio. I haven't noticed any hiss or problems with bluetooth and the reach was quite impressive as I still had connection from another room.
I would only have welcomed a more conventional user interface, with at least one dominant volume-button. The SE50 is hard to operate if you don't see the buttons.
The cherry on top would be of course a simple clock or even an alarm.

+ clean modern design
+ warm sound with nice amount of bass
+ can play loud without distortion
+ digital FM-tuner with 10 station presets
+ good radio reception
+ bluetooth connectivity
+ aux-wire included

- sound quite directional thus a bit veiled and treble-shy
- user interface is not friendly to be operated blindly
- power switch at the back
- no clock despite big display

Minirig and the new Minirig Subwoofer

I must confess that I have not heard the Pasce Minirig yet, although I have only read positive reviews about it so far.

The Minirig is a compact but powerful mono speaker with very loud and clear sound, according to most who own it. The speaker has a built in rechargeable battery but no wireless mode, it only works wired. But you can also daisychain several speakers to push output even further.

Now Pasce finally lounched the new Minirig Subwoofer which should push the whole system a step further. The Sub is claimed to provide bass down to 48Hz (+/-3dB) which is quite impressive regarding the size.

Soon Pasce will provide a whole 2.1 system consisting of 2 Minirigs and 1 Subwoofer together with all needed splitter-wires, so that you get real stereo-sound.

The whole set reminds me a lot of my mighty and meanwhile sold Thinkoutside Boomtube (formerly Virgin Boomtube Ex) which was quite an impressive 40 Watt speaker system when launched (the volume dial went to 11!), but due to all the wires it was hardly portable anymore once set up. If you wanted to reposition it, you had to disassamble everything again or you needed at least 3 hands.

The fine thing with the Boomtube was that for transport you could screw the satellites on the sub for transport. A pity this is not possible with the Minirigs. At least Pasce could have built in some magnets that held the satellites in place. Though they will probably come up with some special carrying bag with place for everything.

The Minirig 2.1 could become a serious contender in the crowded boombox market, but it comes at a price, as the whole system will cost you about 350�. You can get a Klipsch KMC-3 for 299�, which I am sure will blow the Minirig out of the water regarding bass response and loudness although nerd factor seems to be higher with the Minirig set of course!

Here you can see the whole Minirig system in action thanks to Digital DJ Tips:

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Audiorecording through microphone - Olympus LS5 vs. Yamaha PR7 vs. Zoom H1

My initial idea of recording different speakers under the same conditions had the goal to give objective results and maybe help others in their decision which speaker sounds better etc.
But it turned out not to be that easy.

The biggest challenge would be to create a controlled enviroment, so that recording of different speakers over time with directly comparable results was possible. But this would imply an own recording room, maybe even acoustically optimized and a controlled recording procedure with fixed positions for speakers, microphone etc, similar to that Dpreview is doing with their test-scene to allow the comparison of different cameras.
I am not sure anything like that has ever been done with speakers. There are lots of speaker-measurements in various Audio and Hifi-magazines, but I have never seen audio recordings of them.

To really allow perfect results such a recording should be done with the best possible recording-equipment that is able to record even the finest sound-nuances. This does not only mean lots of effort and time, but also costs. I have no idea if something like a microphone with linear frequency response exists at all. Here you can see the (claimed) frequency response of the Zoom H1 microphones:

When I started doing my recordings I tried out different audio-recorders. Although the Zoom H1 is overall very popular, I assume this is probably because it is one of the cheaptest, therefore I wanted to try some other ones and added the Olympus LS5 and Yamaha Pockettrack PR7 to my test. 
In the following Video I recorded the Sonos Play:1 with all 3 recorders and also mixed in the original recording (from 2:39), so that you can compare which recorder comes closest. I am really not sure, first I thought the Zoom H1 sounded best, but compared to the original recording it also sounds most different. Of course the speaker also distorts the original signal, so the sound characteristics of the speakers adds up to the characteristics of the microphone, not to mention the acoustics of my room, which is not optimized by any means for such a recording.



Still I would like to know which recorder you think gives the best representation of the original recording.
Maybe some of you even own the Play:1 and could listen to the original track through their speaker and compare to the recording. The original track is "Get Back" from "Silent Partner" and is taken from the Youtube Audio library to avoid any copyright issues.
The final idea would be to create a kind of "database" where all speakers can be selected and compared. Unfortunately I am afraid that my know-how is not high enough, and I don't have the money for that. You would also need to have contacts to Hifi-dealers that might lend you speakers for a recording session etc....

Maybe someone else will do this once, so far you have to be satisfied with my amateur-ish approach.

News from Philips/Woox Innovations

Philips was facing quite a bit of financial and structural problems during the last years. The planned acquisition through Funai was finally cancelled and Philips seems to have decided to found a new subidiary for its multimedia products called "Woox Innovations". So far the term "wOOx" was mostly used by Philips for speakers with passive radiator design.
I wonder if new launched products will still carry the "Philips" branding, or already be marketed as "Woox", as there are some interesting products coming.

I already reported about the Philips DS9800W/10 Airplay speaker several times and did a short review and comparison with the Parrot Zikmu speakers. Overall the Philips Soundsphere are pretty fine sounding speakers, with only some software flaws, but also hardware issues. I experienced the popular blinking red LED on my own set as well, but it could be fixed for free during the warranty period. Since then the speakers have been working well, with only some rare crashes.

My biggest wish was always to get the speakers in different colors than black and finally Philips seems to bring a new revised version to the market named DS9830W, which really looks gorgeous in white:

Not sure if something changed with the hardware, I assume they still sound the same, but Philips now added Spotify-connect support, so that the speakers can directly stream songs from Spotify without the need of any further device running.
A pity they didn't add additional inputs like HDMI for example, to allow connection of TV sets etc. The DS9830W should be available soon for 799$/�.
If you can live with black and don't need Spotify, I would grab the old version, which can already be had for under 300$! Soundwise they blow any B&W Zeppelin or A5 or A7 out of the water, just pray that your set doesn't brake out of warranty.

HDMI is probably left for the more expensive and even more funky looking version Fidelio Soundsphere PS1/12:

This speaker only supports Bluetooth (though with Apt-X), but has also HDMI inputs and is claimed to produce "virtual surround" sound. The PS1/12 is more powerful with 2x100 Watts instead of 2x50, but both speakers still seem to need a speaker-wire inbetween.
The PS1/12 will be offered for about 2500 bucks, and although I would love to hear them, I definitely cannot afford them. For 2500 you already can get some high quality audio stuff, the price seems a bit utopic for me. If they come down for under 1000 (or under 300 like the DS9800) I might have another look maybe.

Review: Sonos Play:1 - smallest yet best?

I have kept an eye on Sonos for several years now. I have heard the Play:5 in a store, I had the Play:3 at home for my own testing and I was quite impressed by the Sonos system as a whole, like the ability of pairing 2 speakers into a stereosystem without any needed wires inbetween, but neither of their speakers really impressed me that much to actually feel the need of buying one of them.
The Play:3 although overall quite nice sounding became really flat and dull at lower volumes. I tried it in my bathroom, in my kitchen, but it only really worked at higher volumes in my large living room, until it started to struggle again above 70% of its volume.

I started to get even more interested in Sonos when they announced the Playbar and the Sub, but lacking connectivity of the Playbar, as the omission of DTS decoding let me down a little bit, although I really would have loved the fact, that you could use their speakers wirelessly as rears, because I was already looking for a surround system without any wires for quite a long time.

Lately Sonos announced the Play:1, their smallest and cheapest speaker yet, and I thought I would love to try this out, as most reviews are indeed quite excited about it. I highly regard the opinion and speaker measurements of Brent Butterworth that he is doing for Soundandvision, and infact he already measured the Play:1 coming to the conclusion the Play:1 having a performance that the designer of a $3,000/pair speaker could be proud of. His frequency response graph of the Play:1 shows indeed that the speaker has a relatively flat frequency response curve in a window between 100Hz and 20kHz with a slight downwards tilt towards treble, which enhances the psycho-acoustic effect of a speaker sounding fuller if treble is subdued a little bit. Some speaker engineers don't respect this simple principle and make speakers with harsh treble but hardly any bass at all (like the JBL Flip for example) which tends to sound overall rather tinny because the high frequency output is too dominant and not in balance with the rest.

Play:1 frequency response graph (c) Brent Butterworth

I was curious how the the Play:1 really sounded and if it could output a healthy amount of bass despite its small size. In fact the Play:1 is not that small, the volume measures about 2 liter, which would make it more than 4 times bigger than the Bose Soundlink Mini and still about 40% larger than the bigger Soundlink II. I have no bias towards Bose at all, I just really like my Bose Soundlink Mini that much, that I sometimes even prefer using it at home over my main speakers. It sounds incredibly rich and full and played at lower volumes you would never have the impression of listening to a speaker not larger than a power brick of a notebook. So far the Soundlink Mini was able to cause the biggest wow-effect of any speakers I have tried yet. Although the Soundlink Mini is rather meant as a portable speaker on the go it sounds so nice that I am sure many will use it mostly at home as well.
I asked myself if the Play:1 will outperform the Mini by a large margin or if the Soundlink Mini despite all the Bose bashing could even keep up. Although both are compeltely different types of speakers, both go for around 200$ or 200� so a sound comparison could be hopefully quite interesting for others too. The Play:1 is offered together with the Bridge for 199,- until the end of 2013, so I ordered one to have a listen and prepare some audio comparisons.

I don't want to elaborate on the Sonos system as a whole, as there is enough information to be found online. I really like the system as it doesn't interfere with any existing wireless network and seems much more stable than Airplay for example. I owned or had several different Airplay-speakers for testing and nearly all showed a strange behaviour, like sometimes remaining muted during streaming, or producing dropouts, many even renamed themselves repeatedly (the Libratone Zipp did, as my Philips Soundsphere still does it). The Sonos system just works, and the apps to control the system are among the best I have tested, especially the one for the iPad which has a generous layout compared to the one for the iPhone, where you have to jump back and forth more often.
If there is one quirk then the 65000 song limit which Sonos can only index. If you have more music, many tracks will be missing and will not be listed within Sonos. This can indeed become a problem for people with lots of music. There are workarounds, but the limit still remains even with the newest Play:1. As each Sonos Player has the whole music-index saved for quick access, the limit probably comes due to limited built in memory, that never was addressed by Sonos, because of backwards-compatibilty for the older Play:5 speakers (or Zoneplayers how they were called back then). At a push you can always use any Sonos Speaker as DLNA renderer, which can be accessed by many media servers.
Another Sonos-issue often criticised is the lack of any standby-mode. Unfortuntaely Sonos didn't change anything with the Play:1 so it is still the same, the speaker is always on and needs about 4-5 Watts whole the time, even when not used. There is no power-button either, so you have to pull the plug, if you really want to save energy.

Here I rather want to concentrate on the Play:1 and its sound.
The Play:1 is available in white and black, i went for white because of our white furniture at home.
I really like the simple and clean design of the Play:1. I prefer it much more over the large and dull looking Play:5 front. The speaker has a nice heft to it and you really can feel the built quality.
On top there are only the volume buttons and a play/pause button. On the back you can find an ethernet port as well as a thread for wall-mounting. The power cord is plugged into the bottom part of the speaker. Although it is a standard plug this will only work with the supplied cord, as the special plug is designed to remain flat with the speaker's base. If you want a shorter cord or a longer one, you will be probably out of luck. It is nice though that there is no need for an external power-supply, there is just the speaker and the power cord, very clean and elegant.

I have no direct comparison to the Play:3, but from memory think to remember how it sounds because the Play:1 sounds remarkably similar. It has that typical Sonos sound signature, but it also has a big advantage over its bigger brother, because it manages to sound better at lower volumes than the Play:3. Not sure if this is due to a better tuned DSP processing, or if the passive radiator of the Play:3 was to blame, but the Play:1 has a fuller sound even at lower volumes. But it is still far from perfect, as the sound loses at the very first volume steps. I was surprised how good the Play:1 sounded when turned up a little bit, but I am not sure what surprised me more, the sound of the Play:1 or how good the small Soundlink Mini managed to keep up as at lowest levels it even sounded more powerful and more concincing than the Play:1, without any kitchen-radio effect which is quite respectable regarding its small size.
You might ask why I always dwell on low volume quality. But I regard this as quite important for speakers to sound convincing even at low levels. Imagine you listen to a song that you like much and you turn it up in order to get this particular drive and feel from where the song starts to sound enjoying, but then your wife comes and tells you it is too loud and asks you to turn it down. Of course you obey, but then the song loses all its power and starts sounding dull and boring. Not so with the Soundlink Mini. You can have it at its lowest level and still hear the power of the lowest frequencies. I guess Bose dynamically adjusts the sound according to the Fletcher-Munson loudness contours thus pushing low frequencies at low volumes more in order to make them better audible, because they would otherwise get lost due to the human hearing physiology. With the Soundlink Mini Bose also seems to adjust high frequencies a little bit, something they didn't do with the bigger Soundlink, which started to sound very boomy at lowest levels.
Sonos also has a "loudness" setting for all of their speakers, available from the app. But to me it rather sounds like a global bass-boost. It doesn't really seem to affect the sound dynamically, that's why the Play:1 doesn't sound that convincing for low background listening, although more than the Play:3, which really sounded flat and tinny until you cranked it above 30%.

At low levels The Play:1 could be brought to a similar powerful sound like the Soundlink Mini by adjusting the bass-slider some notches up within the app's EQ. This way the Play:1 had an overall cleaner but also deeper bass, while sounding a bit more dull than the Soundlink Mini, the Soundlink Mini having a hump in the upper mids, which makes it sound clearer despite having less treble definition in reality. The Play:1 has a more refined sound, especially upper treble sounds clearer and smoother without any harshness. It starts to really shine at higher levels and leaves the Soundlink Mini behind but not by that far, except when the Mini really reaches its limits above 70-80% by starting to compress dynamics and dialing back the bass in order not to distort. Up from then the Play:1 really sounds big and heavy rather comparable to the bigger Bose Sounddock than to a similar sized Radio like the Tivoli PAL.

If you think that the Tivoli costs about the same, but sounds like a,... well, small radio, it is quite impressive what Sonos managed to achieve, something that the so called "audio-legend" Henry Kloss didn't.
Designwise the Play:1 reminds me a bit of the former Nokia Play360, but the Nokia doesn't even come close soundwise. Even the similar but newer JBL/Nokia Playup which was redesigned and acoustically improved by JBL sounds rather toyish.

In the following video I tried to compare the Sonos Play:1 with the Soundlink Mini. The Play:1 was at about 50% of its volume, where it already sounds perfect, the Soundlink Mini played at about 60%, where bassheavy songs can sometimes already cause a bit of distortion. You can even notice some hints of distortion with this example. Although the Play:1 sounds overall cleaner and more refinded, the Soundlink Mini manages to keep up. If you consider that this is a palm-sized speaker that you can carry around with you everywhere it is even more impressive.



Sonos is said to employ some former Velodyne and Boston Acoustics guys, which probably is the reason why their speakers are built with some real acoustic background, in contrast to many companies like Jawbone or Libratone which don't have any particular history in speaker design. 
The Play:1 outperforms many bigger and more expensive speakers like the BIG Jambox for example, which sounds hollow and tinny in comparison. I would even claim that the highly regarded Libratone Zipp doesn't match the Play:1. The Play:1 has a notably wide soundfield. As the measurings from Brent Butterworth already suggested, the Play:1 is not that critical in placement. Although you shouldn't face it completely backwards, you can put it anywhere in the room and walk around, while still getting a nicely balanced sound. The Soundlink Mini can't match and has a strong treble rolloff when listened off-axis.

I also prefer the Play:1 over the Harman Kardon Onyx at up to medium levels, as the Onyx sounds quite mid-focused and harsh, while the Play:1 remains quite coherent, it is only at higher levels, where the Onyx starts having a more powerful bass, while the Play:1 dials bass back in order not to distort. I would say the Play:1 sounds best at half volume, if there is lots of bass in the music it will start to dial bass back from about 60-70%, but I didn't encounter any distortion so far. Even very bassheavy mixes didn't distort at top-volume, but you could notice how bass was minimized then, without any of the impact when listened at medium levels. Especially kick-drums suffer from loss of dynamics when listened at highest levels.

You won't even notice that you are listening to a mono source, the Soundlink Mini despite having 2 separate drivers for left/recht channel sounds equally mono, except if you press your face against it. But 2 Play:1 should really be able to output a serious stereo sound. I already tried 2 Play:3 which outperformed one single Play:3 by a large margin. I don't even think of combining 2 Play:1 together with the Sonos Sub, to really have a grown up system, but unfortunately with a grown up price too.
2 Play:1 would cost around 400$ which is more or less the price for the new Bose Soundtouch 20, but I am sure the Play:1 duo would leave the single Soundtouch 20 in the dust soundwise. Not to mention that with Bose's system you cannot even sync 2 Soundtouch speakers as a stereo system.

I think the Play:1 is the best reason to finally jump on the bandwagon and try out Sonos. It is not a portable speaker like the Bose Soundlink Mini which you can carry around in your house or even outside, but the Play:1 sounds excellent for what it is, and you can always buy a second one to complete the system for stereo listening, or a third one for the bathroom and a fourth for the kitchen...

+ affordable
+ simple compact design
+ great balanced sound at medium levels with surprisingly punchy bass
+ broad sound dispersion
+ no distortion at maxium level
+ humidity resistant


- sound a bit lifeless at lowest levels
- bass and dynamics are dialed down at levels above 70%
- not very loud overall
- no standby mode, no power button
- needs its own power cord

White TDK A33 and the new smaller TDK A26

During shopping last Saturday I discovered the white TDK A33 in a store. It looks pretty slick and elegant in white, and if I still had the need for such a speaker, I would probably choose it in white. Although I know the sound of the A33 quite well, I compared it in the store to some other speakers, like the new Harman Kardon Esquire and the cheaper A33 blew the Harman Kardon out of the water.

Haven't known this white model even existed I tried to Google it and found even another new model from TDK, namely the A26 "Trek":

It looks similar to the big version, but is pretty slim with 2.5cm and seems to rather compete with Jambox or JBL Charge costing 99$ on Amazon.com. In Germany it is quite a bit more expensive for 129� and it is not available yet.

If the A26 sounds nearly as good as the A33 it is definitely a winner and a much better choice over the JBL or Jawbone offerings.

IK Multimedia iLoud - the best portable speaker?

IK Multimedia had already announced both iLoud speakers more than half a year ago. Finally the speakers seem to have become available.
There is a big version with 40 Watts of power as well as a smaller more portable mini version.
The big one already seems to be in stock at the US amazon store, the german amazon store lists both, but only with an availabilty of 1-2 months.

IK Multimedia talks big to have produced the best sounding portable speaker so far. They claim to have bought all portable speakers available with the goal to produce one better and louder sounding. They market the speaker as music monitors for serious listening that should also please real audiophiles. There is a Mic/Guitar Input at the back, so that you can gig around on the go and use the iLoud as a monitor.

IK Multimedia also posted some interesting comparison videos on youtube, where you can see how the bigger iLoud fares against the UE Wireless Boombox, the BIG Jambox and the Bose Soundlink. I have no idea how real the videos are, but they seem rather authentic, as I recognize the sound signatures of the other speakers quite well (especially the muffled Bose Soundlink). Have a look:


There is already a review of the bigger version available on iLounge, and they liked it quite a lot.