Review: Samsung R5 Multiroom 360 Sound speaker (WAM5500)

Once the connection is good and the speaker is talking to your network, it’s time to have some words with the speaker, sending music for it to sing, and you can do this in a variety of ways.

If you’re into music services, you’ll find a few at your disposal in the Samsung app, though it’s not nearly enough for us to be happy. You’ll see Spotify, Samsung Milk, Deezer, TuneIn radio, and Pandora, but the other popular options of Apple Music and Google Play Music are both missing in action. Shame that.

Even if those services aren’t really what you’re looking for, you can send your own music the way pf the speaker, whether it’s on a network drive or the device you’re already using, and this will likely be one of the big ways the R speakers are used.

Interestingly, the Samsung R5 is compatible with lossless audio, and a fairly high-resolution grade of lossless audio at that, with support for FLAC files as high as 192kHz operating at 24-bit. This means if you’re already buying 24-bit music at the best quality you can find, Samsung’s R5 is compatible, believe it or not.

And that’s how we ended up testing the R5, using the GadgetGuy 2016 Sound Test in full FLAC, which is what we do when high-res is supported by a device.

In action, we found the audio out of the R5 to be fairly improved even from the decent quality Samsung provided in the past.

That’s the thing about Samsung audio: it hasn’t really ever been bad, but the attention to balance is more distinctly noticeable on the R5, with the general feeling that everything has more rounded out edges, at least for the most part.

The bass was always quite prominent, something we could feel in Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, with little lost to the strength of the highs. Instruments were detailed, and sound went everywhere, making it one of those speakers you could position on a table and be quite happy with, or even a kitchen counter, giving sound to the room and the chef working on dinner.

Tracks that are well engineered are really loved by this speaker, with Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” proving itself as a solid example where all the right notes are hit, from the massive punch of the drums to the thick drop of bass, to the vocal highs of the singer and his band.

The amount of volume is also fairly impressive, with 50 points of sound, and only around 15 to 20 needed to be loud enough in the testing space of GadgetGuy. That says a lot about how much sound you’ll be able to send out in a large room, which should be good news for those of you with converted warehouse rooms.

Jazz and classical also demonstrated a slightly more delicate side of the Samsung R5, telling us that the speaker was made for music that wasn’t necessarily gimmicky, just made to sound good. In Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” from the “Time Out” recording, each instrument was as clear and discernible as the other, and there was no fuzz or distortion in the package.

It was the song you wanted to hear with no nasty additives or problems throughout, and that was generally the same provided we played audio without too much stereo separation.

When we did, however — when we encountered audio files that relied on that directional stereo design — the Samsung R5 began to lose it in some sections, with the stereo sounding a little distant and hollow.

That wasn’t very often, mind you, and neither was a WiFi transmission problem which decided to cut out the audio altogether and send it in dribs and drabs. That’s just something you might want to be careful of, though from the way the app was struggling, it appears it might have been more an app issue than a WiFi one.

Still, it’s good to remember that you don’t just have WiFi to send your music to the R5, but Bluetooth, too. Handy.

Conclusion

It’s hard not to be impressed by the level of improvement Samsung has made across the board in the R5, with better design, lots of volume, and a relatively punchy sound with its own personality.

We’d be remiss in our job if we didn’t point out that Samsung’s biggest competitor in this space is Sonos, a company which literally dominates the multiroom space, which should be no surprise since Sonos practically invented the area.

That being said, Samsung’s R5 makes a solid attempt to thwart the Sonos brand, and even tries to win some points back off Sonos by undercutting its competition by a good $100, with the Samsung coming in at $649 against the Sonos Play:5 at $749.

Is the price difference worth it?

Honestly, we think it’s not bad, though Samsung could probably drop a good $50 more, seeing as there is no wired audio port, meaning you can’t send a line-in audio source to the Samsung, and you don’t have nearly as many sources, including the limited streaming services in the app.

Those two differences kind of make up for that loss of $100, though it does offer FLAC support in 24-bit, which again is something missing from Sonos, at least for the moment.

Overall, Samsung’s R5 does a commendable job in the sound department, and given that it supports multiroom, it would be a great option for people not sold on the Sonos way of doing things or who already own a compatible Samsung product or soundbar, because the R5 will work with new Samsung soundbars.