A previous blog introduced the Naim Muso soundbar and the changes at Naim that allowed this new product direction to happen. Now I have heard it and it's worth reporting on.
The Muso is a beautiful piece of kit. With a top plate of aluminium and an illuminated top control panel/volume knob the quality of materials screams expensive. While £ 895 might be the top end of soundbars this really looks and feels the part of an even more expensive product, even on a pre-production sample.
Connections are simple, optical for connecting your tv, usb and an analogue line-in, plus wireless music connectivity via wifi and bluetooth.
Firing up a selection of Tom Waits, John Coltrane and an assortment of female vocalists all gave good results. This might not be a hifi system but it's the best soundbar I've heard!
A soundbar never has the room-filling scale of a pair of separate loudspeakers but that's not the point.
Primarily this will make your tv sound great so that you can make out the dialogue. Secondly it's a decent extra room music system and thirdly you can make it into a networked music system with one in many other rooms even if they're not connected to a tv.
Interestingly from a business point of view who will this appeal to? Any music/hifi enthusiast/Lyric client will want one, almost a given, but will the distribution through wider channels such as John Lewis be successful? The investment in this design and tooling means that it needs to be and £ 895 is expensive in the department store environment( even though they sell £ 3-4k televisions) where soundbars are £99 of rubbish.
Time will tell, I would love this bold move to do well, it should be available and on demonstration at Lyric from early September
