Wi-Fi Speaker featuring AirPlay, DLNA, HTC Connect, and Wireless Direct.
$ 199.00
[wpramareviews asin=”B00903HKXI”]
Pioneer XW-SMA4-K Wi-Fi Speaker featuring AirPlay, DLNA, HTC Connect and Wireless Direct
Related Posts
Ultimate Ears BOOM Wireless Bluetooth Speaker – Blue (980-000685)
Make music social with Ultimate Ears BOOM – the 360-degree wireless speaker made to rage, […]
Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified Computer Speaker System (Black)
Looking to upgrade your PC audio? Our award-winning, THX-certified ProMedia 2.1 computer speakers are the […]
Audioengine A2 Premium Powered Desktop Speakers – Pair (Black)
Audioengine 2 (A2) Premium Powered Desktop Speakers is the new standard for multimedia sound and […]
3 thoughts on “Pioneer XW-SMA4-K Wi-Fi Speaker featuring AirPlay, DLNA, HTC Connect and Wireless Direct”
Comments are closed.
Great sounding wireless speakers with lots of features,
I wanted to check the state of some new Airplay speakers, so I decided to compare a few of them, namely the:
– Bose SoundLink Air
– Pioneer A4 XW-SMA4-K
– Pioneer A3 XW-SMA3-K
– Logitech Wireless Boombox
Right off the bat, you can notice that the Logitech unit is in a different category. It’s much less expensive (1/3 the price) and uses bluetooth rather than Wi-fi. However since it received great reviews online, I decided to compare it as well. I’m glad I did (read on!).
First of all, let’s talk about what’s common here.
When using a bluetooth speaker (the Logitech here is the only one), you get instantaneous response when you change track, change the volume, press play or stop: that’s the beauty of using bluetooth. Also, apparently bluetooth has less bandwidth than wi-fi, so it compresses the music before sending it to the speaker. However in real usage, I could never tell the difference. If you are a real music expert and have an very good musical ear, maybe you can hear it but I certainly could not. All the music I played sounded great whether I played it on the bluetooth Logitech or on the other Airplay speakers.
Using Airplay, you will encounter a delay when you try to control the music. It’s around 1 to 2 seconds before any action on your iPod/iPhone will take effect on the speaker (except for Stop and volume changes which are almost instantaneous but not quite). This delay will also occur when you skip songs (something I hate) however it does not occur if your let your playlist continue and your iPod is simply going on from one song to the next. This means if you are throwing a party and try to skip a tune, you will get silence for 2 seconds.
All three Airplay units have about the same wi-fi hotspot power level, so you can expect the same range as a typical wi-fi 2.4 Ghz router you may have in your home today. You may also encounter the same interference problems as your regular wifi.
All Pioneer and Bose speakers have remotes, which I did not use. I figure everyone will control these units via their iPod/iPhone/iPad or other devices anyway. None of the units have any mute button on the speaker themselves. Only the Bose unit has a mute button on the remove (Pioneer doesn’t have any).
Pioneer A4
Aesthetically, the unit looks nice. It’s fairly large and rather heavy: the speaker weighs 8.4 pounds (3.8 Kg). To power the unit requires the use of an external power brick. The cables are fairly long, so you won’t have a problem to reach your outlet.
Buttons are placed in the correct spot and are easy to use. The touch buttons are capacitive (no tactile feedback when you press the button) and they respond quickly when pressed.
On the back of the unit, you find on one side an ethernet port with a USB port and on the other side the power port and a AUX input. The ethernet is a nice touch if you happen to have a hard-wired network at home and don’t plan on moving the unit often: you’ll never have to worry about wi-fi signal drop-offs.
The USB port can be used for both connecting directly to the speaker with your player (iPod, iPhone, etc) and playing music through USB or can act as a charger for your device. Unfortunately it only charges your device if the speaker is turned on (what was Pioneer thinking?).
When you charge a device you can still play music wirelessly to the speaker (good thinking here Pioneer). When playing music through the USB (as a dock) you cannot control the volume with your ipod: you must to use the volume buttons on the A4.
There also another button on the back labeled ‘network setup’. This button can be used to setup your network but can also be used to set the speaker to be a wi-fi hotspot (more on this later).
When you power on the speaker, it takes a long time to be ready (34 seconds). However if you check the manual there’s a ‘quick-start’ mode that you can set and once done it starts within less than a second. When in standby, the unit only uses 0.5 watt of power but if you set it to quick-start mode, it uses 3.5 watts in standby.
Once set to ‘quick start’ mode, the unit can also be awaken by your iPod, so you don’t need to press any buttons on the unit to send music to it (I like that). This is particularly useful because the unit will power-off itself after a while if it doesn’t receive any music. Once it’s powered off, if it’s not in quick start mode then you’ll have to press the power-on button to see it on Airplay. If the unit is in ‘quick start’ mode then it’s always visible on Airplay and as soon as you send music to it the A4 will wake-up and play your music (it takes 2-3 seconds to wake up).
Configuring the unit to work with your existing wireless network can be done in so many different ways, it can be confusing. By far the easiest way is to simply plug your iPod/iPhone, wait for the ‘On’ light to stop…
Read more
Was this review helpful to you?
|Good with caveats,
I’m listening to music playing on this speaker right now, and it sounds great. The setup was nowhere near as simple or seamless as I would have liked, however.
The first gotcha – this AirPlay speaker doesn’t support 802.11n wireless networks. I had an 802.11n only network and spent about 45 minutes trying to get this thing set up on my WiFi with no luck. After pulling my hair out for a while, I switched my network from N only mode to B/G/N mixed network and was finally able to get it connected. That’s too bad, my entire wireless network had to be slowed down to support this device. I’ve been having a fair amount of stuttering and playback problems, even with the speaker and source computer both within 10 feet of my WiFi router. There’s a 1-2 second delay in the sound between the computer and the speaker when using AirPlay, so it’s tough to sync the audio and video when watching a movie.
My other problem with this speaker is the sound. Out of the box, it’s exceptionally “boomy” with very little mid-range. It’s terrible for movies and TV, with emphasis on the bass-heavy soundtrack and special effects and mumbled, barely audible dialog.
My solution was to use an EQ application on the source computer use the aux input on the speaker rather than AirPlay. That eliminates the delay and allows me to specify different EQ settings for different types of input. With a bit of EQ fine-tuning, the speaker sounds fantastic and can easily fill a room. We watched a movie last night and everyone was impressed by the volume and clarity of the sound.
I wish this speaker supported wireless N and had an adjustable EQ! But the audio quality, once fine-tuned a little bit, is very good.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Excellent wireless connection options and great sound,
I really like this speaker. I searched high and low for months for a an affordable, high quality wireless speaker and I’m very pleased with the Pioneer XW-SMA1. I have friends that use the Sonos, Soundfreak and Bose systems and in my opinion Pioneer’s line beats them all. Unlike Sonos, the SMA speakers don’t require a proprietary software program to play music, nor do they need accessories to connect to a wireless router. And the wifi connection is much more responsive and stable than Bluetooth. I’ve heard good things about the Audyssey audio dock but I didn’t want to be stuck with an Airplay only wireless speaker. I’ve used the wifi, airplay and wireless direct with the SMA-1 and it works great.
I originally purchased the SMA-4 but I found the 4″ woofer a bit too powerful and “bassy” so I returned it and got the SMA-1, which is just right for my living room.
I have 3 minor gripes:
1.) The unit powers off automatically after about 5-10min of non-use. I’d prefer if it stayed on either indefinitely until powered off or after a longer waiting period.
2.) The remote’s workable distance from the speaker is about 20 feet max. It’s a no frills remote and the iOS app isn’t much better.
3.) An equalizer would be nice.
Otherwise it’s a great wireless speaker that’s compatible with all types of devices.
Was this review helpful to you?
|