Wireless

Bluetooth. Wi-Fi. AirPlay. The world has gone wireless, and we audiophiles are understandably curious—and skeptical.

Most wireless speakers we've all encountered—portable Bluetooth boxes, smart home devices, Sonos—sound nothing like high-fidelity audio.

I mean, nothing.

But the technology itself isn't the problem. The implementation is.

Consider that any time you stream music it has gone wireless, optical, copper—all of it—along its journey.

And all wireless is not the same.

Bluetooth in its basic form compresses the audio signal significantly. Even the better Bluetooth codecs sacrifice resolution for convenience. For casual listening that's fine, but it's not what we're after in a serious system.

Wi-Fi-based streaming, on the other hand, can deliver full-resolution audio—even high-resolution files—without compression. When our AirLens sends data to a DAC over a network connection, those bits arrive intact. The music loses nothing in transit.

The real question isn't whether wireless can sound good. It's whether the entire signal chain—from source to amplification to driver—is designed with the same care we'd bring to any serious audio component.

An active wireless speaker that uses Wi-Fi streaming, quality DAC circuitry, well-designed amplification, and properly engineered drivers? There's no physical law preventing it from sounding outstanding.

My advice? Don't dismiss wireless on principle. But don't accept it on convenience alone, either.

Listen critically, and let your ears decide whether the tradeoffs serve the music and you.