Sunday, June 30, 2013

Wren's V5AP rocks the house in latest MashButtons review

Next up we have the Mac Daddy of wireless speakers from Wren, the V5 is built for room(s) filling music and to support multiple platforms so everyone has the chance to experience. The Wren V5 comes in two models, AirPlay for the apple users and Play Fi for the androids and both models support USB and AUX playback. This speaker is built to be the life of the party and look elegant while doing so with natural bamboo or rosewood finishes and curvy lines. This home entertainment audio player also comes with a remote should you be streaming from computer and can also be controlled by phone during Airplay playback.
Being an apple household, I opted for the Airplay version and after all plugged in and connected, I immediately tried to abuse the V5, from listening to movies or streaming from my tablet or iPhone, the speaker never disappointed. While it only packs a pair of 3 inch drivers and a pair of 19mm tweeters, it is powered with 25 watts per channel, so this requires a power cord. Although this isn’t built to get dirty, it can fill the entire yard and the neighbor’s when listening from the pool. The sound is clear and there is a surprising amount of bass from the little drivers but most of all, Wren did a great job with packing as much as possible into the shelf top wireless speaker. While I thought the wireless remote was unnecessary, it did suffer most the abuse once linked to my phone or MacBook Pro.
The first downside out of the box was syncing with the wireless network to support airplay was a pain and actually required reading of the instruction manual to set up. Once the initial setup is completed, use was easy although there were periodic connection issues with usage between the V5 and my phone. At times it would not connect or play and I would usually have to try and select the Wren option or turn off and on to start playback. Lastly, it would have been nice if Bluetooth playback was available as I could only play music from iTunes and not movies or Spotify from the desktop. There is a Bluetooth versions coming soon, but at this time the V5 is only available in AirPlay and Play Fi.
The Wren V5AP is an impeccable speaker, as it is significantly larger than most of the portable wireless speakers, so you get big huge sound and sacrifice portability for a power supply. You do have to plug in so taking on the go is harder, but rather than having to put a speaker near you, I got loud clear music that reached anywhere in the yard without having to take the speaker with me. It would be so much easier to sync and use with more devices should it have Bluetooth capabilities, but like I said, that is not yet available and I know first hand that waiting sucks, especially when you have a wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, you are in the market for a new audio device, and have a four hundred dollar budget.