DEFINITIVE TECHNOLOGY
What a difference an app makes! The revised DTS Play-Fi software lifts the excellent W Series hardware to the top ranks of wireless multiroom systems.
This time last year we were praising the quality of Definitive Technology’s wireless hardware, but stared rather aghast at the app that came with them — one of the emptiest least user-friendly multiroom apps on the market. It was emphatically not Def Tech’s fault — the company had adopted the DTS wireless multiroom technology Play-Fi, and were no doubt as horrified as we were at the blandness of the original app. As we said then, if we’d been Def Tech or Polk, both early adopters of Play-Fi, we’d have been screaming at DTS to lift their game.
So our final conclusion read: “If a new app is released, all our objections could melt away, leaving proper and pretty access to the excellent Definitive Technology speaker units on the end of it.” And so it has come to pass. The app today bears not the slightest resemblance to last year — it’s colourful, attractive, effective, intuitive. It entirely lifts the whole experience of using the W Series, while the hardware remains among the most musically satisfying on the market, with especial strengths being the top models — the W Studio soundbar and subwoofer solution, and the large but room-fillingly magnificent W9, the flagship wireless speaker of the range. All our hesitations last year in recommending the W Series wholeheartedly are thereby entirely overcome — not only by the app, but because DTS has come good on its hopes of bringing other significant brands to the platform. All Play-Fi products should work through the same app, so you can usefully mix and match a whole home of audio systems — and check out the current list: DefTech and Polk are joined by others including Anthem, Fusion Research, HP (there are Play-Fi-sending programs for Windows PCs), McIntosh, MartinLogan, and Paradigm. That’s a wide range of product all within the one ecosystem, so if you’re thinking that Yamaha, say, has
Setting Up The ‘W’s...
Set-up remains simple enough, instant if you give the device Ethernet, otherwise the usual connection to its own Wi-Fi hotspot to give it your network’s password. After connecting come the usual updates, and it seemed to double up on the process, updating our Adapt and then transferring us to a separate ‘Utilities’ app to upgrade it all over again (though with a much prettier ‘loading’ screen above). It took about 15 minutes to get through all that, but it worked, and soon returned us to the proper ‘Definitive’ app which runs the system.
We also downloaded the generic ‘Play-Fi’ app from DTS, which was absolutely identical other than it differed in its opinion of whether we needed a software upgrade or not. We stuck with the Definitive app’s ruling on this.
In addition to the apps for iOS (see main article) and Android, there are two programs for Windows PCs which can send system audio (all of it) out to either one device (the free software) or from a specific program (so more purely) simultaneously to up to four devices (US$14.99 for this version of the software, just a little rude when you’ve already spent good dollars on a Play-Fi product). an edge with MusicCast because the system is available in AV receivers and soundbars as well as wireless speakers, well, now so is DTS Play-Fi. You could always use the W Adapt to play into an existing audio system, but now you could buy a new high-quality Anthem AV receiver and use it in a multiroom group with your Def Tech W wireless speakers and soundbar. And while Def Tech will of course much prefer you to buy its own wireless speakers, there are a host of others that could considered while staying within the Play-Fi eco system. It’s the first of the platforms to bear fruit in this way — even Google Cast can’t yet boast hardware brands of this calibre on the market.
The app
So the app is now a pleasure to use, and offers useful ‘help’ overlays so you quickly learn how to find your way around. Using the iPad app, the Definitive app’s master screen retains the previous version’s strange choice to use only part of the screen much of the time — about half when in landscape mode, rather less when vertical. But what’s there is clear, colourful and friendly, showing app icons for your available sources, helpfully labelled ‘Select Your Music’.
The most important button is the small Definitive logo at bottom right — a ‘home’ key which returns you to this main screen or back to your previous bit of browsing.
The first three sources on offer in this row of app logos (see opposite) are ‘Music’ tracks stored on your device, ‘Media Server’ DLNA shares on your network, and Internet Radio. Immediately apparent on all these was that DTS has chosen to navigate using mainly text, with clear nesting folder navigation (which does use the full screen). Sing hallelujah for this — it’s so fast. Album listings show very small thumbnails, but there’s no waiting for artwork to load as on some rivals, while the need for constant scrolling is reduced because so many listings fit on a page, easily scrolled and with A-Z jump lists appearing on the right for long lists.
Similarly internet radio was one of the quickest to browse we’ve seen, with tabs at the bottom to switch quickly between location-based navigation or listing by genre, favourites, local stations and podcasts. There are prettier internet radio interfaces — TuneIn’s app, say, has colourful graphics for each station — but Play-Fi’s nested folders are much faster.
That boded well for networked music shares, and the ‘Media Server’ found our DLNA shares and happily streamed MP3,
“All our hesitations last year in recommending the W Series wholeheartedly are entirely overcome — not only by the app, but because DTS has come good on its hopes of bringing other significant brands to the platform..”
AAC and m4a files including purchased iTunes songs, plus WAV and FLAC up to 24-bit 192kHz — but the DTS website notes that anything above CD quality will stream at 16-bit 48kHz for streaming (rather a pity). There’s no DSD support, and stay clear of Apple Lossless files, which crashed our receiving Adapt unit twice in a row, sticking on a stutter of music like a scratched record and dropping the connection between the device and the app. (Yanking the power to the Adapt was the only way we could get it back.) Stick to the right formats, however, and all worked reliably.
The rest of the colourful icons take you to music services, not all of them available to Australia, so pleasingly (and unusually) we found a settings screen which allowed us to remove music services you don’t want from the list for each device. So farewell then KKBox, SiriusXM and Songza for those not employing a barrier-busting VPN service. We logged onto our Tidal and Pandora subscriptions, Pandora sounding enjoyable enough shuffling our many artist channels, Tidal even better. The system is a little slow switching between services, and you may return ‘Home’ to see the current track rather than all your music sources — just tap the little ‘music note’ symbol (top right) to get there. When playing you get full screen artwork; it looks great. It should have been like this from the start — we trust the previous app designers got a good slapping.
The Home screen has arrow and +/buttons to, respectively, switch between your different Play-Fi units and to link up Play-Fi units as a group. You can save groups to revisit later. It also looks clear and easy, though since the new app came out we’ve only had one W Series unit at a time, so we haven’t done our usual exhaustive testing on the linking and switching here.