The big black box that makes your TV sound magnificent
Decades of progress have given us elegantly slim TVs... that no one can hear. Naim’s Muso sound bar restores clarity to your living room
No one turns up the TV any more. There’s no point. Last month, 2,000 viewers complained to the BBC about Jamaica Inn’s near-inaudible mumbling. Meanwhile, reality -show singers sound like they’re buried in wet sand (sadly, they rarely are). Back in the Seventies, Top Of The Pops used to be played at the volume of an H-bomb test. But today, Simon Cowell is able to hand the top prize in The X Factor to people with voices like Zippy and Bungle from Rainbow. And that’s down to one fact: we can barely hear them.
And even the dimmest of X Factor hopefuls should be able to grasp why. To make a big sound, you need to vibrate a lot of air, and there’s not much of that in a television one centimetre thick. It’s one of the most first world of all problems – our TVs are now so slender and glamorous, they sound terrible. There is an answer though – sound systems like Naim’s Muso. There is a lot of space inside the Muso. It weighs 14kg – more than many TVs – and has six speakers inside, each with its own 75W amp.
This wood-and-metal colosssus can make TV sound like an aerial bombardment, but other companies are offering less extreme – and less costly – solutions. Sales of soundbars have risen 70 per cent year on year, and Roth’s Audio Bar3 brings a pleasing bark back to your television without breaking the bank.
TV makers, too, are stepping in: Sony’s new Ultra HD X9 sets have big, powerful speakers underneath, but they also have high price tags.
The Muso’s a seriously desirable lump. Naim is so posh it does the stereos for Bentley – the Muso is the equivalent of Naim’s Value or Basics range – and specialises in ‘serious’ hi-fi. So serious that Naim gear has to look deadly dull. Most Naims sound like heavenly choirs, but look about as interesting as photocopiers. One last selling point – it can pair up with pretty much anything via Bluetooth, so you can play music from iPads, Androids or PCs.