A good start: Samsung’s multi-room M7 speaker reviewed

Credit to Samsung where it’s due, and even though the idea of multi-room sound is new to the company, it’s clear that some of Samsung’s top work on previous speakers and sound bars has been put to use here.

Tested with some of the tracks in our headphone test, we were quite ecstatic to hear clear and balanced music across most of the selections.

We started with rock, and in Muse’s “Uprising” and “Supremacy” tracks, the mids and highs from the vocals and instruments sang out over the oomph of the bass drum and accompanied bass guitar, each giving the room a good pounding as the music pushed hard.

More modern rock from Australia’s Closure in Moscow with “A Night In The Spleen” showed solid guitars and vocal lines, with obvious percussion behind the track, while classic rock edged towards the highs and mids, too, showing a bright response in “Gimme Shelter” from The Rolling Stones.

Over to some electronica, the Pretty Lights remix of “Solar Sailer” from “Tron: Legacy” (a new addition to our playlist) showed the bass was just as solid in synthetic music as that created with real instruments, with the volume pretty loud for our liking at under half the volume, which was also good to see.

Our staple electronic track — Mooro’s “M66R6” — was strong in treble, with the highs and mids given a good work out throughout this track.

 

Samsung's Multi-room app

Pop has a similar response, noticed in Laura Mvula’s mostly high-driven “Green Garden” and the smooth mids of Pharrell’s “Happy” from the “Despicable Me 2” soundtrack, while light rock leading into jazz (we’ll get to the full length of jazz next) from Dave Matthews Band with “Crush” supports similar balance. We do need to note that the bass was still noticeable, but wasn’t as pronounced in these tracks, where the emphasis was less pushed out than the artificially induced pieces of music.

Jazz was a little less balanced, mostly due to the differences in subtle versus strong bass, but there was always strong detail and recreation, and bright sound, with a lot of volume providing a stage that gives off the impression that you’re listening to a bigger speaker than what is sitting on your desk or shelf, and that’s a good thing.

Dave Brubeck’s “Maria” showed the M7’s strength in the highs of the piano, while the bass of the drums and double bass was still noticeable, though not quite as obvious as the highs creeping out on top. Balance was much the same in John Coltrane’s “Blue Train” where the tonality of instruments is very different, with the mids and highs of the brass and woodwinds coming out over the top of the bass, which is more subtle in jazz than it is in rock, pop, and electronic musics.

Likewise, classical was delicate and entrancing for us, as a take of Chopin’s “Fantasie Impromptu” from Freddy Kempf allowed us to hear not just the quick key strokes from the pianist in this speedy piece, but also the movement from the wood below, with reasonable balance from this mostly bright piece of music. Nigel Kennedy’s take on Satie’s “Gymnopedie” emphasised the highs too, likely because of the lead violin.

Good to know was that the sound quality wasn’t dramatically different when the speaker was stood upright or lying down, and that’s a good thing, too, as you have the option of making the M7 stand up or sit down.

Samsung’s app, though, is nowhere near as good as the sound coming out of the speaker, and it’s here that you can’t help but feel the company needs to put more effort in for development.

The layout is clunky and comes off feeling weak in the design department, with four tabs for music coming from your phone, TuneIn radio, other services, or other devices around you.

While we understand the layout, it doesn’t feel anywhere near as clean or large as what Sonos provides for its comparative app, which this competes directly against.

Samsung's Multi-room app

Likewise, some music playback options are also missing in action, with Google Play Music one of these omissions. That’s surprising, especially since so many Android phones rely on Google’s own music service to play back their music.

Unfortunately, if you use Google Play Music, the only way you’ll be running music through this speaker is through Bluetooth, and that’s pretty much the same problem Apple’s iTunes Radio has, which is missing in action on this app, as well.

While the nearest competitor offers access through the app to listen to Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, Deezer, 8tracks, JB HiFi Now Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, Concert Vault, Songl, Shuffler.FM, Rara, Songza, and plenty of others, the Samsung app offers far less and closer to barely a quarter of these — Pandora, Spotify, Deezer, 8tracks, TuneIn and Rdio — even omitting Samsung’s own Music Hub service from the list, which is still being used in Australia, and a strange one to leave out since it is Samsung’s music streaming service.

Samsung's app versus the Sonos app. Same basic function, with Pandora playback, and yet a world of difference in design.

Conclusion

With the level of sound technology inside the M7, it feels like Samsung is going for the jugular of the Sonos Play:5, a speaker that has some serious audio cred and is made by one of the better multi-room audio brands out there, and one that helped to pioneer an area that Samsung is trying to get in on.

Price wise, Samsung is competing with about a hundred dollar difference, and your wallet will likely prefer the outlook with Samsung’s less expensive speaker, but as for quality, well, that remains to be seen.

Both offer solid sound, but Sonos appears to have the better app at this point, with much easier setup across the board, and some serious differences in design, usability, and service selection.

In fact, it is quite alarming how different the two apps are, with lots of options available for playback and control on the Sonos front, while Samsung has something that feels like it left development far too early.

That will likely change as time goes on, and when it does, Samsung’s M7 — and the rest of its multi-room audio — could become a force to be reckoned with.

Right now, though, it’s the weakest part of the Samsung Multi-room formula, and unless you own some of Samsung’s other multi-room friendly speakers, we’d advise you to audition both the Sonos and Samsung multi-room products for your own ears before settling in with that wallet, because they both offer excellent sound, but only you will be able to work out if the product line-up matches your home.

 

Overall
Features
Value for money
Performance
Ease of Use
Design
Reader Rating0 Votes
Excellent sound; Works as a Bluetooth speaker and a multi-room speaker; Supports NFC; Stands up and lies down; You don’t need the Samsung Multiroom Hub if you only use one speaker;
The app seriously needs work; Setup can be very fiddly and tricky; Build is a little plasticky;
3.6