SYSTEMS &
SOLUTIONSloss of depth, indeed the opening kick drums were now
better shaped, so that you could hear the slack in the skin
as well as the thump. There was still a massive rolling bass
available to pump the room with energy on Beyonce’s
Daddy Lessons, yea, even unto the bottom F.
Additional settings offer adjustments for positioning
near walls or in a corner, but were not required for our
listening position in a medium-to-large room where we
had it mounted dead centre below our television, because
we also wished to try it as a soundbar, playing via ARC
into its HDMI input. This didn’t play ball with our TV,
so we played from TV via the optical input, and this aside,
it was a great success. Accurate musical sound translates
perfectly well to delivering movies and TV (where often
the reverse is not true: soundbars built for movies can be
dreadful at music), and the Naim delivers brilliant speech,
full-bodied and natural; we missed not a nuance of the
talk-fest beginning GoT S08E05, yet when the dragons fly
and the city falls, the action was supported by high-quality
effects and of course surging music, the Naim’s forte. This
is delivered in simple stereo — no pseudo-surround, no
Atmos, but we’d far sooner have high quality stereo than
pseudo-surround. It passes the soundbar test with flying
colours, a big-hearted performance.
Then back to music for the rest of our time with the
Mu-so Gen 2. With the choice of app for browsing and a
small physical remote for traditional volume control, we
barely touched the magnificent top knob, except a couple
of times to select input and to adjust volume in passing.
And so many ways to play. From Mac, and from
Roon, via AirPlay 2, casting from apps and from Chrome
browser windows to its Chromecast. Direct from Spotify,
which the Naim made sound impressively hi-fi, but better
still from a Tidal HIFI subscription. Streaming from a
NAS drive via DLNA, where the Mu-so can play files up
to 24-bit/384kHz and DSD to DSD128 (for which an
Ethernet connection would be recommended).
With so many options we clean forgot to try
Bluetooth, for which Apple devices owners are better
served than Android (there’s AAC available but no
aptX), but we did use the Google Home app to bring its
Chromecast under voice control. We renamed it ‘Muso’,
and this turned out to be an easy word for Google to
recognise even without making it the default speaker
for playback — ‘Hey Google, shuffle Philip Glass on
the Mu-so’, and out it would come. The Chromecast
functionality will support either Spotify or Google play
streaming in this way. The Philip Glass selection presaged
what proved to be exceptionally enjoyable delivery of
classical music from what is, after all, a single-point
wireless speaker. Its delivery of stereo width is limited to
fairly close quarters; across a room the
soundstage is inevitably reduced, as for
any single-box speaker, yet it is neverthe-
less a spacious sound, and a further merit
with classical music is its ability to sound
good at both low volumes and high, with
proper differentiation between the two;
this is not a speaker which plays well only
at higher levels. While this trait assists all
manner of material, and makes quieter
listening a pleasure, it’s a gift to the
dynamics of classical music, where a piece
like Brahms’ Hungarian Dance no 5
(Wiener Phil, DG, 1982) is given full
head to deliver its bursts of energy.
And finally you have three different
ways to use it in a multiroom context —
AirPlay 2, Chromecast, or Naim’s own
app with other networked Naim gear.CONCLUSION
One other thing that’s changed is the price —
the original Mu-so arrived in 2015 at $1500,
it is currently $1899; the new one is $2499, a
big jump. But then it does provide a complete
and versatile listening system, being perhaps the
world’s best and most desirable wireless speaker.24
Naim Audio Mu-so Gen. 2
wireless speaker- Brilliant performance from a single box
- Wildly versatile for streaming options
- Great looks
- Priced accordingly
- Large footprint
Price: $2499Drivers: 2 x 20mm tweeters, 2 x 50mm
midrange 2 x 14x7cm woofers
Quoted power: 6 x 75W (no parameters)
Inputs: HDMI+ARC, minijack analogue, USB,
optical digital, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Chromecast,
Bluetooth (SBC, AAC), AirPlay 2, Spotify
Connect, Tidal, internet radio, Roon ready
Dimensions (whd): 628 x 122 x 264mm
Weight: 11.2kgContact: BusiSoft AV
Telephone: 03 9810 2900
Web: http://www.busisoft.com.auOlive, Peacock, Terracotta – the Mu-so 2nd Generation offers three optional grille colour
options in addition to standard black. The Naim app even offers matching colour schemes.