Content area
Abstract
The intent was to make the world's best iPhone/iPod music system. (Let's add this asterisk: at less than $1,000.) The obvious target is the current diva speaker dock, Bowers & Wilkins' Zeppelin Air, and its dramatic dirigible-shaped design. NAD, in fact, just dropped the Viso 1's price $100, to $600 (nadelectronics .com), matching the Zeppelin Air.
Still, the [NAD Viso] sounded so good with a basic-Bluetooth-connected iPod Touch that the greatest limitation might be Bluetooth's range: Sound sputtered almost as soon as the Touch left the room. The Viso 1 never even connected with a MacBook in another part of the house. That won't happen with AirPlay.
The Viso 1, a beauty by NAD standards, still looks like the Zeppelin's slightly pudgy little brother. So the Zeppelin Air gets the chicks, but the Viso 1 wins the science fair, hands down. What's more important in a speaker dock?
Full text
NAD Electronics' search for the perfect loudspeaker-making mate for its first iPod music system never quite made it to Match.com.
For years, NAD has lived under the same Lenbrook Group corporate roof as PSB Speakers yet never developed a single product together. Finally, they've hooked up for the NAD Viso 1 Wireless Digital Music System.
Aww, an office romance.
The intent was to make the world's best iPhone/iPod music system. (Let's add this asterisk: at less than $1,000.) The obvious target is the current diva speaker dock, Bowers & Wilkins' Zeppelin Air, and its dramatic dirigible-shaped design. NAD, in fact, just dropped the Viso 1's price $100, to $600 (nadelectronics .com), matching the Zeppelin Air.
For the technological purist, NAD's target audience, the Viso 1 has a spec sheet to die for: It's an all-digital design, even the volume control, with amplification derived from the company's $6,000 Masters Series M2 Direct Digital.
Each of the speakers, a pair of 2.75-inch full-frequency drivers with an embedded dome tweeter and a 5.75-inch low-frequency driver, has its own amplifier channel and digital crossover. The Viso 1 also circumvents a docked iPhone or iPod's digital-to-analog converter, feeding an all-digital signal to the all-digital Viso 1.
The speakers project an oversize, 180-degree soundstage though lack some depth. Vocals and acoustic instruments sound gorgeous. Like most speaker docks, the Viso 1's so-close drivers cannot give the listener a true sense of stereo imaging.
Otherwise, the Viso 1 is a sonic knockout. It plays deep enough that I used it as both an iPod speaker dock and, with its digital audio (optical) connection - which the Zeppelin Air does not have - as a soundbar for Blu-ray movies and cable programming. Is that the Zeppelin Air cowering in the corner?
The Viso 1 has a component-video connection for playing video directly from an iPhone or iPod. The USB connection, unfortunately, is for software updates only.
The Viso 1 is so technologically advanced that music libraries stocked with low-resolution iTunes Store music files might be better off with a less-expensive dock built in the NAD spirit like the $230 Fluance FiSDK500.
The Zeppelin Air has AirPlay. The Viso 1 has Bluetooth. Airplay preserves the fidelity of CD-quality music files. Bluetooth, a historically inferior short-distance wireless audio technology, has been invigorated by CSR's aptX compression that also produces CD-quality music with compatible devices.
It works with some later-model Apple computers but not yet with an iPhone, iPod or iPad. The latter get basic, sub-optimal Bluetooth - and, strangely, no pairing instructions from NAD.
Still, the Viso sounded so good with a basic-Bluetooth-connected iPod Touch that the greatest limitation might be Bluetooth's range: Sound sputtered almost as soon as the Touch left the room. The Viso 1 never even connected with a MacBook in another part of the house. That won't happen with AirPlay.
"For a multiroom system from a central computer," concedes Greg Stidsen, NAD's director of technology and product planning, "AirPlay is a better solution."
The Viso 1, a beauty by NAD standards, still looks like the Zeppelin's slightly pudgy little brother. So the Zeppelin Air gets the chicks, but the Viso 1 wins the science fair, hands down. What's more important in a speaker dock?
Photo (color); Caption: NAD Viso 1 Wireless Digital Music System
(Copyright 2012 by The Daily Press)