Stereo systems belong to the 1980s. Who still carries CDs or vinyl records around the area and is listening to a pair of hi-fi speakers? The desire program has long been digitized, stored on the PC and always by mobile phone or tablet. There are streaming solutions like Fidelio Wireless HiFi just right.
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The Philips system is certainly a stereo system for the generation of smartphones: instead of many individual components and boxes, which have to be connected by cable, there are radio speakers. They are connected to the local router via WLAN and receive their music program from there. Three models can be chosen depending on the room size and sound requirements: from the small table loudspeaker A3 for 250 euros over the A5 (price: 350 euros) up to the stereo A9 (550 euros)
Where does the program come from?
CONNECTED HOME has tried all three. The result is that the music plays almost as fast and simply with a stereo system. However, Philips still strikes two bridges in the past: The HiFi-Link A1 (for 150 Euros) as a network player brings the music to existing stereo amplifiers and AV systems. The wireless HiFi-Receiver A2 (Price: 300 Euro) turns ordinary stereo boxes into a full-radiated complete system with 2 x 50 Watt amplifier power.
Unpack, Play, Play
All five building blocks can be combined as desired in the home network. Only the transmission capacity of the WLAN limits the number of possible playback devices. In case of need, the Fidelio devices still have Ethernet sockets. They can also receive music via network cable or Powerline - if the wireless network weakens in the apartment.
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There is not a lot of controls on the softly rounded cases: one rocker for volume control, five station buttons for web radio transmitters and the possibility to connect external sources like MP3 players - that's it. More is also not necessary because the Fidelio series reacts to commands from the smartphone or tablet: The free Philips App AirStudio turns Android and iOS devices into a remote control.
Unlike the name suggests, this is not a program for Apple's AirPlay technology. IPhone, iPad and iPod touch are not compatible with your home - you need AirStudio to send music to your radio speakers. This is because of the streaming standard: Philips uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP): a system that Apple does not support. The AirStudio app brings UPnP almost as a piggyback on the device. You can then play songs that are stored on the tablet or smartphone.
And not only: thanks to UPnP, all the music sources in the app, which support the standard at home, such as PCs with Windows Media Player or network hard disks, appear. The Philips players play almost all audio formats (AAC, MP3, WAV, WMA and FLAC), but no high resolution files with 24 bit and 88.2 kHz resolution or more.
But even those who do not have a single song as a file can listen to Fidelio's wish program: the system taps the web radio service TuneIn over the Internet. According to Philips, more than 30,000 broadcasters are available for retrieval. Five of them can be set individually on station buttons on the device and are thus always ready to listen, even without a smartphone. Added to this are the music services Deezer, Napster and Spotify. Their subscribers are allowed to log into the app directly with their access data and then have access to millions of titles. The subscription is priced at just under 10 euros per month for all three.
If you can use a smartphone, Fidelio Wireless HiFi also makes it clear right away. He only needs to install the AirStudio app on his mobile device and follow the instructions on the screen. After a few minutes a white LED on the device signals: The WLAN connection is. In the app, all Fidelio devices connected to the network are now located at the top of the screen. Below are the music sources, so UPnP servers but also your own smartphone or tablet.
For playback, a dash of the desired source is enough to the loudspeaker to play the program. A selection menu will immediately appear with the tracks and albums of the respective music store - select an entry, tap and go. This game can be repeated on the screen with all the sources and players - until each Fidelio plays its own music program.
Purely theoretically, the playback of a song also works on several speakers at the same time. The app automatically prompts you to play the same source on both players. In the test, however, the music was not synchronized but delayed by several seconds - this canon is rather unsuitable for a party sounding.
The software also provides room for improvement. So the app often needs a few seconds after playing breaks to get back to the loudspeakers. During playback, it occasionally takes short breaks.
And there is no central key to mute the system: although all UPnP connections can be separated with a cross-bar over the screen. Music from the Internet, such as from Napster or Webradio, but then continues. Such sources are sorted in the Services menu and must be individually switched on and off for each loudspeaker. This is somewhat time-consuming when suddenly the phone rings.
Also interesting is
Such weaknesses should be easy to remove by software update. More importantly, the technical basis is right, and here Fidelio Wireless HiFi shows what it can. The loudspeakers are designed to be power-saving: their standby consumption between 3.4 watts (A3) and 4.5 watts (A5, A9) is only about half as high as the competitor Sonos. That makes the year 10 euro quickly on the electricity account - per radio box in the apartment.
Philips also has to make a sound in front of the streaming pioneer: In the listening test with the comparable Sonos Play: 5 (around 400 euros), the A5 played even more bassier and managed higher volumes, without distorting or the ground in strong vibration Respectively. For the play: 5 the representation of voices was more plastic and more natural.
Good sound from all channels
And Philips still has the boxing duo A9 in the program: this sounds as wide as long-term HiFi fans are accustomed to - from their stereo system from the 1980s.
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