The wireless multi-room audio market is booming with LG announcing its new ‘Music Flow’ system with 24-bit audio and advanced software and hardware features to soundly take on Sonos and others.
LG is making sonic waves with its new LG Music Flow system complete with speakers, sound bar, network bridge, NFC tags and Music Flow app for iOS and Android.
Designed to create a “convenient and smart Hi-Fi audio eco-system for the home”, the smartphone app allows “users to centrally manage their entire digital music library, even if music is stored across multiple devices, and control all Music Flow units in the home.”
The app also recommends songs and playlists, provides easy access to online radio stations and functions as a smartphone music player when the user is on the go.
“LG Music Flow takes the fast-growing concept of wireless multi-room audio systems to a new level with its smart convenience and superior sound quality,” said Byung-hoon Min, senior vice president of the LG Home Entertainment Company audio-video division.
“Our advanced system can create a personal soundtrack that not only follows the listener from room to room, but also when the user enters the home. LG engineers have set a whole new standard by introducing features and functions to the wireless audio system category that have never been available before on competing units.”
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| One of the new LG Music Flow speakers |
This music following feature is called Auto Music Play, allowing users to “listen to music outdoors on a smartphone and automatically switch to Music Flow when arriving home”.
There’s also the LG HomeChat system which “brings a personal touch to human-device interaction”, letting people use the popular smartphone messaging app ‘Line’ to communicate with the LG Music Flow system in ‘natural English’. This means you can “remotely ask LG Music Flow on the way home for song and playlist recommendations suitable for dinner guests arriving later that evening.”
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| LG’s easy NFC speaker pairing in action. |
Another feature that’s “first in a wireless Hi-Fi audio system for the home” is built-in NFC tags so users “can enjoy the speed and simplicity of one-touch music enjoyment” and effortless speaker pairing.
LG’s Music Flow Player app gives users full access and complete control of their digital music collections.
When searching in the app, music lovers can easily find and play tracks stored on any internet-enabled device connected to LG Music Flow through the home Wi-Fi network.
Want to create a certain ambience? The “Mood Station” feature comes to the rescue, providing recommendations or automatically creating a playlist from your existing music collection or from a range of internet streaming and radio applications such as Spotify, Deezer, Napster and TuneIn via the Audio Streaming Service, delivering millions of songs to the listener’s fingertips.
To ensure a flawless experience, LG’s Music Flow uses “mesh network technology and dual band Wi-Fi to ensure uninterrupted, crystal-clear HD music playback”.
This contrasts with competing systems “that rely on a single access point which causes music interruptions and pauses whenever the signal level drops”.
LG says it also makes expanding your Music Flow with additional speakers “an absolute breeze”.
A Multi-Room Mode lets you “seamlessly play the same song across all connected speakers during parties or a different song in each room when family members are home”, or use the “L/R Stereo Mode” for a more immersive listening experience.
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Watching a movie? Use the “Home Cinema Mode” for an enhanced movie viewing experience.
But what about the all important sound quality factor? LG says it has “developed and implemented a proprietary Automatic Loudness Compensation Algorithm in the Music Flow” to “guarantee optimal sound performance”, ensuring “audio strength and clarity across all frequencies.”
It’s not just algorithms, though, but hardware as well, with each speaker featuring “an advanced nano-fiber pulp and foam paper diaphragm that further improves the quality of the sound”.
LG’s HS6 Sound Bar model also features “LG’s Stereo Field Extension (SFX) Algorithm [which] creates a larger sweet spot and amplifies the surround sound effect.”
With the popularity of systems from Sonos and others, there has clearly been an increase in consumer demand for superior sound in-home audio devices, especially as high-quality multimedia content becomes more and more available.
To this end, it should be no surprise to see LG preparing itself for the high-end 24 bit audio revolution, saying its system is the first “in its category to feature 24 bit/192kHz Hi-Fi playback across multiple inter-connectable devices that reproduces studio-like quality sound, far superior to a CD or digital MP3 music.”
This means its customers “can hear a level of realism that hasn’t been possible before in a wireless multi-room audio system for the home.”
Due to arrive in the UK this month and other markets in Europe following September’s IFA 2014 tech show in Berlin, and then globally soon after, highlights of LG Music Flow’s main features can be seen here in this YouTube video.
