Naim touches multi-room WiFi streaming with a sleek box

Sonos may dominate the world of multi-room audio, but it’s not the only player, and when it comes to high-end audio, BlueSound is about to have some competition, as Naim joins in with its WiFi box.

Named after the people that will likely get into the style of gadget that it is, the Mu-so is a box made for people who like music, offering a six-speaker system inside of a long rectangular box with replaceable grilles and wireless connectivity.

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The whole system relies on 450 watts of amplification, with music being delivered to the system by way of several wireless methods, including AirPlay, WiFi, and Bluetooth with support for aptX.

An app is available for both Apple’s iOS and Google Android to control the system, with internet radio and Spotify connect both there from the get go, and we suspect music from your device and network, though we can only imagine that Naim is looking into other services given that this is skewed towards people into high resolution audio.

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The Mu-so also has another thing going for it, bringing with it a Red Dot Award, a sign that tells the world yes, this is a well designed machine.

“The Red Dot Award is welcome recognition of the countless late nights spent by the team at Naim in making the Mu-so music system a gateway to a deeper, more intense experience of music for a wide audience,” said Simon Matthews, Director of Design at Naim.

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We checked in with Naim to find out how this one worked, and found out that it’s not quite like other multi-room streamers, and while it can function by itself sending music throughout your home, if you want to have two Mu-so boxes streaming synchronised music, you’ll likely need one of Naim’s streaming preamplifiers, until a firmware update is delivered allowing more than one Mu-so to talk to each other without the extra box.

That said, delivering this much power in such an aesthetically pleasing box is likely to garner some attention, not just from us — we’re audiophiles, so we’re already keen — and so curious parties will be able to find the Naim Mu-so in specialist stores shortly from $1699, with replacement grilles coming in at $170.

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