Libratone Contest & Q&A: Discuss Wireless Speaker Tech and Win a Libratone Live!  

For me, one of the first things I noticed was the design/colors - it seems like you're going for a retro look with your line. I can see that working for some rooms really well, but others not as much. Just wondering what the inspiration was. Personally, I really dig the look.

I've thought for a long time that wireless is the wave of the future and always wondered about interference issues. What about interference issues and how far can you "RELIABLY" transmit a signal and not have it broken up; both inside or outside the home at the hot tub?

I get tired of manufactures saying a wireless product has a three hundred foot range and as a consumer, find you're lucky if you can get to the front door, let alone the back door.

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Edited by BeeMan458 - 7/25/12 at 12:32pm

I'd use it both in the kitchen and the bedroom. It'd be great to not need to string wires around the house.

Love the green!

I would use it probably in the living room of the new apartment. It would be a nice way listen to my favorite podcasts... without making the room look more like a recording studio than it already does... The color and texture give it a warmth that a lot of tech devices just do not have...
Edited by haenck - 7/25/12 at 12:50pm

My speaker wires don't just tether my mp3 player to the wall, they tether me! I live with four 24-year-olds in a big old house in the middle of Seattle. We are a hub of energy and community around these parts so it seems like every night is either a movie night, potluck, or a dance party.

2 of us used to be radio hosts and one of us still is, so we're always playing eachother brand new music, streaming from youtube or from our phones. Right now we use a 6 foot audio chord to connect our phones to our jerry-rigged speaker set. The chord gets tangled around legs, tripping people (specifically me) and spilling precious wine. It's inconvenient and is always threatening to pull our ipods, phones, our laptops crashing down onto the floor below. In general it's inconvenient, but this isn't the most frustrating thing to me. If my phone has to be 6 feet from the speakers, than if i want to be near my phone (which as a party host i often do) than I have to be 6 feet from the speakers. I can't even enjoy my own parties to the fullest because i'm tied to the couch!

So many times I've put on a playlist that seems right and watched the party enjoy the first song only to walk to another part of the party and come back to to find everyone awkwardly lingering while some Mongolian throat singing or acoustic love song blares through the speakers. If you put the music at my fingertips and in my pocket, i will make sure the right song is always bumping!

I would use a libratone to blast the best beats while staying connected with my friends at the same time. I'll no longer have to choose either good music, or a good time because i'll be free to enjoy music, videos, and content from anywhere in my house. This is the future and i want to get there as soon as possible.

The inspiration for the design is very simple – for all our products, form follows function – of course the surfaces and materials are not part of that but for both the Live and the Lounge the surfaces needs to be covered with open and acoustic transparent material where the sound comes out. The form is given by the way the product works, transmitting sound in the needed directions to obtain the FullRoom experience and create the sound field that will give you the freedom to move around the room without loosing the large and open sound image we create – the key word is freedom!

When we have sound the audio quality can be trusted as it is encoded into packages which actually can arrive in random order which happens during retransmissions where packages are lost – this is standard over WiFi. The packages are buffered and put together in the right order and because of the buffering time of 2 sec. (which is the delay when you start playing) we have a reliable stream.

The product is tested to full functionality in silent surroundings to a 100 feet with obstacles so there is no line of sight, but in an apartment or home you never know how far the signal travels. If you have 20ft from the router to the speaker the distance might be 60ft! If the direct signal path is cancelled by one or more reflections the direct signal might be extremely weak so the signal which is picked up can come from a path through a 5th order reflection where the signal travels 60 meters through the different rays. So it is a good idea to move the speaker a little around observing the quality level on our Libratone App. And I am talking inches, not feet to see what happens. Of course, having a reliable network(WiFi) set up always helps ;-)

The green is one of my personal favorites :-)...

With Apple Airplay technology & our wonderful speakers, this all becomes a reality!

In truth, not meaning to be harsh, your above is a dance. As a consumer, and the point of my post was, I want to know, base on manufactures specifications, can place the equipment within the stated range and not have to niggle the gear a few inches to the left or the right.

If I have to niggle a product, I can't recommend the product as I expect equipment to function "exactly" as stated in factory provided documentation and nothing less. If it's not functioning as stated then the advertisement qualifies as intentionally deceptive. Consumers don't like that.

What's your range and what can I realistically expect?

You are not being harsh, and it's not a dance....We welcome all comments. In truth, no manufacture can give you an exact range of an Airplay product or a WiFi product. It really all depends on your WiFi set up & the environment were you are going to put the speakers. It's like trying to determine the range on other WiFi components on a WiFi network. As I wrote earlier, the product is tested to full functionality in silent surroundings to a 100 feet with obstacles so there is no line of sight, but in an apartment or home you never know how far the signal travels.

I have always dreamed of a real and true wireless speaker system that you could truly move or take anywhere.I use my ipod touch alot for music...in the kitchen when I cook...when I read ect.A system like this would be great...and the uses are vast...;)I for one would get alot of use out of a speaker system like this.

I'm quite difficult when it comes down to speakers. Having a good set up often requires a lot of wires etcetera. To add to that, I like to mix things up quite often. wire speakercable through the wall is not an option, and the Ms. sure does not like a bunch of cables hanging about. An Airplay system would be perfect. The only one I can afford at the moment would be an el cheapo from an inferior company, which for me is not an option. If I was to win this Libratone Live, I'd hook it up in the living room to benefit our newly upgraded Mountain Lion Macbooks.

Either of libratone's speakers alone is best than my 6 speakers audio system :-\

Libratone: you should talk with your partners to make some kind of bundles, i.e. 1 lounge and two live speakers for $X...
of course making it cheaper than the sum of them.

Everything is going wireless and what better way to get into it than with a Libratone Live?! I love the flexibility that wireless speakers have to be used throughout the house!

I second that motion!

If I had some wireless speakers or a system I'd use em on the back porch and/or the bathroom. I normally listen to music while showering, but my speakers are in my bedroom so I have to turn em up fairly loud D:

I've never actually heard of Libratone before now, so thanks for the chance to win and check out the product

Somethin' smells fishey!!! Popcorns a poppin...

Couple of Qs:

1. Do the speaker need to plugged into an outlet or they can run off batteries?

2. Seems these run off the standard wifi network. what is the sensitivity of the receiver?

3. Any option for connecting external antennas?

I think this would be a good pair to our diminutive HD radio; it would give us a compact and powerful stereo system that does everything I want it to! I could listen to high quality digital radio through the XDR-HD1 and then access music and podcasts from our many i-devices. So my question is; how easy is it to switch between the wired input and the airplay input, since I would be interested in using both.

Great questions!

1. The speakers need to be plugged into an outlet. What we refer to "wireless" is the ability to stream your music via Airplay wireless technology.
2. Yes, it runs on your internal WiFi network with Airplay.
3. No, there is no option for external antennas. Usually you can add wireless access points on your existing router if you feel there is going to be a weak signal wherever you are going to add the speaker.

The speakers are equipped with an mini AUX input on the back of the speakers. It's that simple! Once you unplug it, it defaults to the Wifi/Airplay network.

LOL!

Wireless seems like a grand idea, but I have had so many problems with wireless computers and routers that I am dubious about incorporating a lot of wireless in my house. It would be nice to experiment with something like this however. And they look beautiful!

I would love to have outdoor wireless speakers seems like the best Idea to me I would love nothing more then stream some audio outside while bbqing and having a beer.

Couple questions is there any interference issues? I once owned a sonos system and an x10 home security cameras and every time the rf system would switch camera's my sonos would drop off the network. How long is the power cord?

Would love to have a wireless setup in my house. Just so much easier than all the dang wires.

I would use it as a full home audio system for my Apple devices. The fact of not having to wire my house for each speaker location is priceless. The ability to move the speaker at will is the icing on the cake.

Looks really cool. I've got airplay almost everywhere and it would be great to get it on the porch.

While I like with the concept of iPod Airplay for the house and using wireless speakers is a great idea, what I'm really looking for is a wireless speaker solution for rear speakers in a 5.1 (or rear and side in a 7.1) configuration in my family room. I'll looking to hang these on a wall and avoid wiring (except for power) and hoping your Live Standard (in white) would work. That's a very big benefit of wireless speakers IMHO. I tried this years ago using some Sony wireless IR speaker product, but found that the time it took to wake up and play whatever surround sound that was sent to it was too much. Surround doesn't usually get a continuous workout, so nearly "instant on" is required.

Is this a solution that your speakers are looking to provide? I'm also interested in what the equivalent power rating would be for the Live Standard speakers and driver configuration.

Let me know (PM works great too) and thanks for the chance to win a pair of Standard speakers to try it out Live!