Wireless high-end hi-fi

The quality of these streaming speakers may not come cheap, but it’s worth every penny. So which should you buy?

- Duncan Bell

Wireless speakers are now a massive part of the music world. For a long time, the most successful have been in the £50-£500 bracket, but there’s a growing range of high-end wireless, multi-room speakers appearing. They come from both established hi-fi brands and from newer manufacturers melding tech prowess with more old-fashioned audio virtues.

We’d pick UK hi-fi brand Naim as being the progenitor of this new breed. Its original Mu-so wireless speaker was the first to cost around £1,000 and be a big success. It also redefined what a wireless speaker could be in terms of quality of sound and design, and it still looks as stunning now as it did in 2014.

This issue, we’re taking a look and a listen at that speaker’s successor – called, logically enough, Naim Mu-so 2nd generation. It’s up against the new speaker from another hugely prestigious UK brand, the Series 3 from Scotland’s Linn. Also competing is the Phantom Reactor (now available in sexy black) from France’s hi-fi disruptor Devialet.

None of these speakers looks like a traditional speaker, but they are all intended to get you to splash reasonably large sums to enjoy classic hi-fi quality, via that there new-fangled streaming.

1 Linn Series 3

Linn helped to pioneer high-end digital hi-fi. The Series 3 is a serious bit of kit, but unlike the brand’s previous entries into this market, this one can at least be set up at home by you – past Linn streaming speakers have required a dealer with a laptop to come and optimise everything to suit the room you placed it in. Reviewed here as a single speaker. £2,950 (£5,450 if you want a stereo pair of them), linn.co.uk

SPECS

CONNECTIVITY Wi-Fi, ethernet, Bluetooth including aptX HD, HDMI

RESOLUTION Up to 24-bit, 192 kHz