At the press conference on August 10, Xiaomi officially launched its first high-end smart speaker-Xiaomi Sound. This speaker can also be seen from the naming that it is different from the previous Xiaoai speaker launched by Xiaomi. Xiaomi Sound has a better performance in terms of sound quality, and it is also a smart speaker launched by Xiaomi for users who pursue sound quality.
Today Tookfun got this latest speaker and made a simple out-of-the-box evaluation for everyone.
Exterior
The box is simple. The appearance of the product is printed on the black box. The focus is on the logo in the lower right corner of the front. Xiaomi Sound was tuned by Harman Audio EFX and passed the lHi-Res Audio gold standard certification.
Open the box and take out the speaker. The speakers are small and can be controlled with one hand.
You can see that Xiaomi Sound uses a full-floating touch top cover. The top is made of aluminum alloy, and it is integrated with the sound guide cone, which looks quite technological. The top cover is like a vinyl record with very delicate CD texture treatment.
There are three touch buttons: volume down, play/pause button, volume up. Since there is no independent switch microphone button, the microphone switch mode is changed to double-click the middle playback button. This design has no depressions and protrusions, and the button logo is also integrated into the whole, which is visually calm and stable. But the only disadvantage is that it is not convenient for blind operation, especially in the dark.
A circle on the side of the top cover is a ring indicator light. There are three colors of blue, pink and orange representing different states. When the voice “Xiaoai classmate” wakes up, there is a breathing light effect that changes from bright to dark.
Between the top cover and the circular acrylic is a soft mesh cloth commonly used in speakers. It has been extended from the junction of the mesh and acrylic into the bottom of the central top cover, and has a sinking design. The top cover is also designed to be tapered to achieve the visual effect of the top cover “suspending”. There is basically no gap between the mesh and the acrylic part, and they are on the same plane.
The outer side of the fuselage is wrapped in a ring of acrylic material. It looks like glass from a distance, while reducing the weight of the fuselage. It also reduces costs to a certain extent.
Except for the bottom, there are no brand logos and openings on the fuselage. The overall modern minimalist design is really great. It also doesn’t have the cheap plastic feel of most smart speakers before.
Function
Bluetooth 5.2 Standard & Bluetooth Mesh Gateway: Xiaomi Sound is the Bluetooth 5.2 standard. Bluetooth connection latency is lower. Support SBC, AAC agreement.
It supports the Bluetooth Mesh gateway function. Users can easily connect Mijia devices (mostly sensors) with Bluetooth protocol to the network for remote control without purchasing a separate Bluetooth Mesh gateway.
In terms of acoustic configuration: Xiaomi Sound is equipped with a 2.25 inch neodymium iron boron dual magnetic circuit full frequency unit with a power of 12 watts. Shocking sound pressure of up to 90dB. I checked it and it is about 20% stronger than the HomePod mini. It is currently the strongest neodymium magnet in the smart speaker of the same size, with greater low frequency and loudness.
There are also two 54 mm x 44 mm dual-suspension passive radiators (1.75 inches equivalent), which can dive up to 70Hz, which can make the low frequency fuller and extend better.
Structural design: Thanks to the design of the overhead sound cone, a 360° omni-directional sound output is realized. It avoids the influence of the plane and the angle of the speaker on the sound quality.
Xiaomi Sound uses a microphone array. Six microphones are arranged in the groove on the side near the bottom, and the accuracy of voice wake-up and command recognition is higher.
Software optimization: Xiaomi Sound’s computational audio technology will dynamically tune the playback content in real time, and analyze the frequency characteristics of songs in real time through the built-in NPU and dual-core DSP chipset, achieving dynamic calculations of 330 times per second. In addition, a multi-level volume tuning called “Nightingale Algorithm” was performed, and each volume was individually tuned. At low volume, bass and midrange performance will be better.
In addition, Xiaomi Sound supports two intelligent combinations, which can be turned into stereo speakers, and can also be combined with multiple units to play in the whole house. If you happen to have a lot of money, you can buy two and combine the two for stereo playback.
It should be because the sound effects and configuration parameters are different, it is temporarily not supported to mix different models to create a stereo combination. Because I only have one Xiaomi Sound, I cannot test it temporarily.
In terms of intelligence: Xiaomi Sound is equipped with UWB connection technology for the first time. The UWB antenna is located near the top cover directly in front of the fuselage. Use a Xiaomi mobile phone that supports UWB technology (MIX 4 is clearly required) close to the top of the speaker, and the music played by the phone can be relayed to the speaker, and it will return to the phone when it is close again.
Xiaomi Magic Broadcast can support Xiaomi devices under the same local area network to transfer the sound to the speaker via Wi-Fi, and multiple devices can be connected at the same time. The playback control is turned on through MIUI’s control center.
According to my guess, the principle is similar to Apple’s Airplay technology, and it will be upgraded to support most Xiaomi devices in the future. Therefore, at this stage, Xiaomi MIX 4 or Xiaomi Tablet 5 is also required. (I currently don’t have these 2 devices, so I haven’t experienced this feature yet)
The proximity to the connection is very strong. As long as the phone is close to Xiaomi Sound, a pop-up window will pop up to connect.
The home audio function is very interesting. Say “Home Sound” to Xiaomi Sound to turn on this feature. After Xiaoai’s voice reply, the voice recording will be turned on and he can speak directly, so that voice messages can be sent and received between devices similar to WeChat.
Interactive function upgrade. Xiaomi Sound has built-in Xiaoai classmates’ all-round assistant, mastering 1600+ life skills, supporting continuous dialogue and more concise one-sentence instructions.
After turning off the “Wake-up Response Tone” in the “Wake Up and Dialogue” in the Xiaoai Speaker app, you can cancel the “Hey” response tone of classmate Xiaoai, and you can directly speak the command. Achieve an experience similar to Siri on HomePod.
Summarize
Xiaomi Sound also has some regrets.
The first is that it does not support DLNA with better compatibility. Although it feels that the supported protocols are slightly less, compared to the HomePod mini that only supports Airplay, it is still a lot stronger. Moreover, if you use a Xiaomi phone, this can be completely replaced by the system-level “Xiaomi Miaobo” for a better experience. UWB and Xiaomi Magic Broadcast will also play an important role in audio-related protocols and standards in the future Xiaomi AIoT ecosystem.
Secondly, this is a product that balances aesthetics and practicality. The weight of design aesthetics has been upgraded again. However, touch buttons and L-shaped plugs at the bottom are both practical and aesthetic compromises. Of course, these two points have little effect on normal use.
Although Xiaomi Sound refers to high-end products, it is not against top flagship products such as Apple’s HomePod and Huawei Sound X, but against mid-range products such as Apple’s HomePod mini and Huawei Sound.
After clarifying the product positioning, let’s look at the Xiaomi Sound product itself. The price of 499 yuan is quite appropriate. Of course, high-end speakers that can replace 10,000 yuan are indeed unrealistic, but they can become a choice for users who have a certain pursuit of sound quality.
Where to buy？
Product link: Xiaomi TookFun Tech Store
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