My ideas concerning the Belkin SoundForm Elite Hi-Fi Smart Speaker + Wireless Charging will also be distilled in one phrase: dull. Listening to a $300 speaker must be thrilling. Listening to this one elicited an overly other emotional reaction: indifference.
Belkin doesn’t have a observe document of establishing nice audio apparatus, however its spouse in this venture—the French audiophile corporate Devialet—maximum unquestionably does. The Devialet Phantom blew my thoughts after I reviewed it five years in the past. So, I had prime hopes after I realized Belkin had enlisted that corporate’s experience to expand one thing extra mainstream.
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Intense bass reaction used to be one of the Phantom’s highlights, using a push-push structure to reduce undesirable vibration whilst reproducing low frequencies. The SoundForm Elite takes this similar way, and it’s no slouch in that division. You received’t really feel the lows to your core, however there’s handiest such a lot that engineers can do with an enclosure that measures 6.4 x 6.4 x 6.63 inches (WxDxH).
Belkin’s pursuit of low-end efficiency turns into obtrusive while you read about the SoundForm Elite’s driving force configuration: a unmarried 35mm full-range driving force (about 1.38 inches) powered by means of a 30-watt amplifier, paired with twin 70mm woofers (about 2.75 inches) that get 60 watts every. Note that those specifications are height energy rankings, now not RMS.
That stated, the speaker will get lots loud for its measurement: Belkin claims sound power stage of 90dB, plus or minus 3dB, and the speaker had no drawback filling my 13 x 19 x 9-foot (WxDxH) house theater with sound; it’s simply that the sound used to be boring as dishwater, regardless of its claimed frequency reaction of 40Hz to 20kHz (no tolerance given).
Michael Brown / IDG
The SoundForm Elite has touch-surface controls for quantity, play/pause, Bluetooth pairing, and mic muting.
Listening exams
Listening to Steely Dan’s “Cousin Dupree,” from the band’s Two Against Nature, the speaker’s midrange used to be significantly muted. The snap of the drummer putting the snare drum, as an example, sounded as regardless that he had laid cheese material over the drumhead—the sound used to be completely muffled. Donald Fagen’s vocals have been additionally impacted; he gave the impression of he used to be making a song via a six-inch stack of dad filters.
Annie Lennox’s vocals fare slightly higher on “Precious,” from her album Diva, however the strings sounded up to now again within the combine that all of them however disappeared. One factor that did provoke me used to be the SoundForm Elite’s skill to listen to the “Hey Google” wake phrase even whilst taking part in tune at complete quantity.
Belkin doesn’t supply an app (except for Google Home), so that you’ll wish to use one thing like Plex to movement tune you personal from a house server or NAS field. I believe, then again, that Belkin expects most of the people to make use of a streaming provider like YouTube Music, Spotify, or Tidal. I used the latter to “solid” HiFi tracks to the speaker from my Pixel 2 XL, and later from an iPad mini. The speaker isn’t any slouch within the Wi-Fi division, with a dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter onboard. It additionally helps Bluetooth 5, in case you in finding it more uncomplicated to movement tune that means.
You can use the Google Home app to create speaker teams, so you’ll play the similar tune on a number of well suited audio system in your house. But in case you’re firmly ensconced in Apple’s ecosystem, you’ll be disenchanted to be informed there’s no fortify for AirPlay. Belkin’s documentation does not point out it, however you’ll additionally create a stereo pair the usage of two SoundForm Elites. There no strategy to attach a wi-fi subwoofer to this sensible speaker, then again, despite the fact that given its already bass-heavy frequency reaction, you wouldn’t need to.
Michael Brown / IDG
Belkin’s SoundForm Elite helps Google Assistant; in contrast to Sonos’s sensible speaker lineup, you don’t give you the option to make use of Amazon Alexa, as an alternative.
It’ll fee your telephone, regardless that
The SoundForm Elite does best its competition in one space: There’s a sloped cradle on best with an embedded wi-fi charger that can give as much as 10 watts of juice to Qi-compatible units. This characteristic labored nice with my spouse’s iPhone 8 Plus, despite the fact that I needed to take the telephone out of its case to ascertain touch with the charger (that’s no fault of Belkin’s, in fact). Devialet’s push-push woofer structure performs a key position right here, making sure that the speaker’s enclosure doesn’t vibrate and interrupt the touch between the again of the telephone and the speaker’s charging floor.
I will be able to title no less than two sensible audio system that ship higher acoustic performances than the Belkin SoundForm Elite: the Amazon Echo Studio, and the Sonos One (I’ve handiest reviewed the first-generation product, however Sonos assures me there must be no sonic variations). Both of the ones audio system fortify Apple AirPlay 2, you’ll hyperlink both of them to an not obligatory subwoofer, and the Sonos provides you with the selection of the usage of both Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa.
What’s extra, they each price $100 not up to what Belkin expects to fetch for this unhappy pet.