We’ve written about Libratone‘s high-end and high-style Airplay speaker systems before, but this week at CES was the first time we got to take a hands-on look (and listen) and we bet if you could hear and see them, you’d be impressed too. The Danish company offers two different models that are both designed to provide high-quality full-room sound and be featured as a stylish design element as well. Both the Lounge and the Live feature clean Scandinavian-influenced design and are artfully wrapped in fine Italian cashmere in a handful of modern colors.
The Lounge is designed to create full 360-degree sound for a home environment like a living room or below a TV set. The Live is smaller and offers in-home portability thanks to its lighter weight and functional carry handle. Both models use Apple’s Airplay technology and the company now offers a Libratone app that makes set up and customization a breeze. We got a demo of both systems as well as the handy app that makes it all just a little bit easier.
The Libratone Live is the perfect size for display on and end table or countertop, but packs a surprising punch of sound thanks to 150W of total power and one 5″ bass, two 3″ midrange and two 1″ ribbon based tweeters. Based on its size, we were pleasantly surprised that the unit offered such powerful full-room sound.
The Libratone Lounge is a much larger unit, designed for placement under a beautiful wall-mounted TV or in another spacious area. Not surprisingly, with 150W total power, one 8″ inverted woofer, two 4″ ceramic midrange and two 1″ ribbon based tweeters, this unit delivers on the surround-sound promise in one sleek package.
We also got a quick demo of exactly how the Airplay system works and what users will encounter when using the Libratone app. The new app offers a simplified process for connecting your unit, and you can even customize the sound by giving the app information like where you have the unit placed and how far it is from a wall, offering enhanced sound based on positioning. It was easy for us to get the Lounge to play audio from an iPad and there were no issues and no delay. Did we mention how great they sound?
