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SoundTouch WiFi: music at home faster, easier
Bose SoundTouch WiFi music system
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Bose SoundTouch WiFi music system. Courtesy of Bose Indonesia
Audio equipment producer Bose Corp. recently introduced wireless home audio systems designed to stream or play audio content through multiple gadgets across the home.
Starting in April, the company began selling its SoundTouch systems, which feature wireless speakers that sync wirelessly with a user's digital music library, Internet audio streaming services or thousands of web radio stations.
Jordan Hartana, a product trainer from Bose Indonesia, said that the system was an entirely new way to listen to music at home.
'Like Bluetooth changed our way of listening music while we are on the go, SoundTouch is a new way of enjoying music in our homes,' Jordan said.
The series is made up of three systems: the SoundTouch 30, which is the largest of the bunch; the smaller SoundTouch 20; and the handy SoundTouch Portable.
They are all controlled by a SoundTouch app, which can access a digital music library on a user's computer, allowing a person to play their entire music collection as long as the laptop or PC is on. The audio formats supported comprise MP3, WMA, AAC and Apple Lossless.
The app can also connect the speakers with web radio broadcast and Internet streaming services such as Pandor and Deezer.
The SoundTouch app can be downloaded and installed on multiple gadgets using the Android, iOS, Mac and Windows operating systems, allowing users to control speakers from their smartphones.
The systems can be put in different rooms in a house and can be linked and controlled ' individually or as a group ' with the intuitive app.
SoundTouch 30, which measures 25.4 centimeters x 43.2 cm x 17.8 cm, is the largest and most powerful system of the three.
The 30 utilizes a high-power woofer to reproduce bass notes with depth and clarity and two drivers to tackle the mid-high range notes with crisp and vibrant definition.
With its stout performance, the 30 is better suited to bring music to larger rooms in the house.
The 30's smaller brother is the 20, a more compact version appropriate for bedrooms, the kitchen or other medium-size rooms.
Jordan said that while the 20 was tiny, it delivered sound beyond its size. The 20 uses custom-designed transducers to produce clean mid and high frequencies, allowing for lifelike vocals and instruments sounds.
The 20 also has a ported enclosure to deliver sound with sufficient punch to easily fill a room.
A proprietary digital signal processing keeps the performance evenly balanced, either with cranked up volume or at lower late-night setting.
The SoundTouch Portable is no larger than a book and small enough to bring anywhere around the house. It is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that can last up to six hours.
Both the 30 and 20 have a small hub of ports including USB and mini-USB inputs, an Ethernet port, an AUX input, and a power port. Each of the speaker systems also systems feature OLED display, six presets that can easily be set (and changed) directly on it and an infrared remote control for choosing presets and play-pause-skip functions and adjusting volume.
SoundTouch is heavily reliant on Internet connectivity. Jordan said that each device needs around a 1.5-mbps Internet connection to smoothly deliver contents. All of the speakers have built-in WiFi compatible with 802.11 b/g wireless network standards.
The SoundTouch 30 is sold for Rp 9.9 million (US$866) and the 20 and the Portable for Rp 6.6 million.
'Bose is planning to make all new additions that will be SoundTouch compatible,' Jordan said.
The company is planning to complement new systems with a Stereo Jewel Cube (a pair of small outdoor speakers), Acousticmass (a module to enhance bass and vocal sound) and weatherproof speakers.
