Countless stereo programs may get a supercharge from a Russound MBX-PRE wi-fi streaming media participant. Boasting fantastic sound, main content material companions, and all method of connectivity, this little black field will carry your treasured classic stereo gear into the online-everything age. Multiples of them can convey music into each room in your house. Just convey your individual amp and audio system.
In that regard, the MBX-PRE is lots just like the Sonos Connect (since changed by the Sonos Port, which I reviewed in June). But Russound is not any copycat; in actual fact, the corporate is among the pioneers of whole-home audio, having obtained its begin 45 years in the past when each speaker pair in each room needed to be hardwired to an in-wall quantity management harnessed in flip to a matrix switcher or a multi-zone amplifier. Russound nonetheless recommends hiring knowledgeable installer to arrange its programs, however the firm doesn’t freeze DIYers out (I’ll get deeper into that later). You will, nonetheless, have to buy its gear from a certified vendor (and Amazon just isn’t in that membership).
Unlike Sonos’ providing, the MBX-PRE is a Hi-Res Audio certified participant that helps audio information encoded with as much as 24-bit decision and at sampling charges as excessive as 192kHz. The participant doesn’t assist MQA information, however it may well deal with AAC and AAC+ (as much as 24-bit/192kHz), FLAC (8- and 16-bit), WAV (8- and 16-bit), OGG Vorbis, and MP3 (CBR and VBR) information. Russound recommends connecting its {hardware} to a UPnP server operating on a NAS field (such because the QNAP TS-253D TechHive recently reviewed), however I had nice experiences streaming 16-bit/44kHz FLAC information from Tidal and Deezer. They in contrast very favorably to the CD variations I spun on an Oppo BDP-103 disc participant.
Measuring 1.75 x 8.25 x 7 inches (HxWxD), the Russound MBX-PRE is way bigger than the newer Sonos Port, however Russound supplies user-friendly controls on its enclosure.
Russound despatched over two of its $400 MBX-PRE items for this analysis. With one put in per stereo system and ground, I obtained the home rocking in stellar synchronized rhythm, blasting content material from subscription streaming providers together with Spotify Connect, Tidal, Deezer, Napster, and SiriusXM (SiriusXM Business for industrial purposes can also be supported). This streamer additionally helps a threesome of web radio aggregators—TuneIn, VTuner, and Airable—to ship the best-sounding and most fascinating stations from each style and international locale, all without spending a dime. (Don’t miss our two-part guide to internet radio.)
You may stream music from Android and iOS gadgets through Bluetooth, Apple AirPlay (AirPlay 2 assist remains to be within the works), and Chromecast. And you may management the system with voice instructions spoken to a Google Assistant-compatible sensible speaker (I examined it with a first-gen Google Home, a Nest Home Mini, and the recently reviewed JBL Link Music). Training the system to reply to Amazon Alexa instructions can also be potential, however that software program isn’t as baked in.
Russound additionally gives a model of this streamer with an built-in amplifier (the MBX-AMP), however as this unit’s title implies, the MBX-PRE is a pre-amplifier element. As such, it incorporates a full complement of inputs and outputs, together with 3.5mm analog and Toslink optical digital audio inputs; and RCA analog and Toslink digital audio outputs. The absence of coaxial digital audio ports is a bit of stunning, given Russound’s deal with the custom-installer market, however Sonos doesn’t put any digital audio enter on its Port. You’ll discover a 12-volt set off output on each gadgets for signaling a appropriate outboard amp or receiver.
Russound’s MBX-PRE (prime) and MBX-AMP have all of the inputs and outputs you can need (save maybe coaxial digital).
Shoot-out on the streamer corral
MBX-PRE versus Sonos Port comparisons—performed with Tidal and Deezer-sourced FLAC content material performed by my Yamaha Adventage receiver and Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus audio system—have been additionally telling. Carefully matching the variable-level analog output indicators of each items, I virtually invariably most well-liked the digital-to-analog processing happening contained in the Russound.
The variations have been delicate however discernable, with the MBX-PRE serving clearer, brighter tambourine rattles, sweeter-toned electrical bass notes, extra reverberant (and personable) piano and hollow-body guitar voicings on materials I do know nicely, together with the hits assortment Showbiz Kids: The Steely Dan Story (1972-1980), and a newly issued set of Grateful Dead rehearsal takes, Workingman’s Dead: The Angel’s Share, that opens up particular person participant’s components for vivid inspection.
I additionally obsessed over A/B comparisons with Father John Misty’s newest charity EP venture, Anthem + 3, particularly his breathtaking, small-band cowl of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem,” which lends this brief set its title. Luckily, “Play Misty for me” bears repeating.
Some would possibly argue that FLAC Tidal sounds a tad higher than FLAC Deezer (which has been proven to roll off sooner above 18,000Hz.) So, I attempted alternating rigorously synched and volume-matched content material from every service by the Russound and Sonos gamers. Still, the one occasions I ever thought the Port may need the benefit have been on a handful of Steely Dan tracks the place one content material supplier had oddly reversed the left/proper channels relative to the opposite presentation, and the vocals popped in another way.
I don’t have a NAS field with a DLNA server, however I did have success with a thumb drive of “Mountain Stage” radio exhibits, shared by present host Larry Groce. I plugged the drive into the USB port on the MBX-PRE on the second ground of my residence, which I’d linked to a traditional B&O Beocenter 9000 driving a pair of two-way bookshelf audio system from Q Acoustics. I used the MyRussound app on an iPhone and an iPad to stream this unvarnished Americana music present wirelessly to the opposite MBX-PRE on my first ground.
The MBX-PRE introduced this traditional Bang & Olufsen system into the 21st century.
The pill model of the app takes benefit of the larger display to current bigger transport-control buttons and a house-shaped “home” button that may rapidly pull you out of the weeds of a deep-dig web radio station search. On the less-finessed sensible telephone app, the extraction course of calls for as many as seven left-arrow faucets to get again to the primary menu.
But after I first put in the gadgets, I additionally discovered the MyRussound app may take so long as 30 seconds to get up and hook up with them. That lag time shortened to only a couple seconds after I dished a grievance with Russound. Maybe reviewers do have a bit of clout? But controls are nonetheless locking up on uncommon event, remedied with reboots throughout. And the workforce nonetheless hasn’t mounted one other hassle with this second-generation (available on the market for a couple of yr) streamer.
If there’s an influence or web service outage, you’ll virtually definitely have to unplug after which reconnect the packing containers to get them again on-line, after which you is perhaps requested to re-enter the credentials in your subscription providers. Don’t bury the facility wire the place you may’t attain it. It’s value noting that complaints concerning the Sonos app have been few and much between.
The controls on the pill model of the Russound app (proven right here on an iPad) are a lot simpler to make use of.
Russound and the DIYer
As I discussed earlier, Russound sells its gear solely by a vendor community. If you don’t purchase an MBX-PRE from a Russound-authorized vendor or distributor, you received’t be capable to unlock the software program wanted to function it. Nor will Russound honor the two-year components and labor guarantee on its {hardware}. That’s a technique of sustaining high quality and value management—to not point out guaranteeing sellers’ revenue margins. Then once more, there are a bunch of add-ons and equipment that may allow all kinds of subtle integrations, and most of the people in all probability would wish to rent a professional to construct out a extremely personalized audio system.
But Russound doesn’t wish to utterly alienate DIY-inclined consumers, so it lists three on-line retailers in its vendor community: Crutchfield, Best Buy, and—in Canada—Visions Electronics. Acquire an MBX-PRE from Crutchfield, for instance, and one among its set up specialists will step you thru the setup course of—by electronic mail or by telephone—and supply the sign-in title and password you’ll have to get began. “We don’t remotely take over your system, but if you email us smartphone pictures, we work from those to help set up and troubleshoot,” stated a congenial Crutchfield telephone rep named Cory.
Take care that you simply buy Russound gear from a certified vendor; you may’t set it up with out a hand from that useful resource (and your guarantee can be null and void as nicely).
Russound additionally has its personal product assist workforce and on-line movies that assist clarify operations like these: Touching the three-bar icon on the house display opens up the menu. Pressing the slide-levers icon will get you to helpful tone controls and (if pressed down for 3 seconds) to advance settings, together with cache clearing. Touch a plus signal adjoining to at least one system to then group it with one other. Tapping the star creates a recallable favourite.
The smartphone model of Russound’s app isn’t as person pleasant because the pill iteration.
Still, the MBX-PRE is straightforward sufficient for a reasonably techy individual to arrange and run—a minimum of when MBX items are simply enjoying amongst themselves and Google Cast audio system (there’s a 32-device restrict). The “recommended” setup course of for DIYers asks you to first have interaction the Google Home app on a sensible system after which energy in your new product. The app acknowledges and welcomes your MBX-PRE into the fold on the identical Wi-Fi (or ethernet-wired) residence community. It additionally directs you (kind of) to call the audio system, after which set up them by room location and in teams, so you may then simply name up one or a number of by voice command or menu faucet.
The entrance faceplate on the Russound MBX-PRE additionally has a number of bodily buttons, most self-explanatory, for quantity, pause/play, Bluetooth pairing, and to determine two content material pre-sets (a particular station, playlist, podcast, album, or tune, for instance). The solely user-friendly management you’ll encounter on the Sonos Port is the one for Bluetooth linking.
If your Wi-Fi community is congested or weak, or there are too many bodily obstacles between streamers (partitions, home equipment, and so on.), you would possibly expertise quarter-note sized music gaps when sharing a stream between two or extra MBX-PREs or MBX-AMPs, with these dropouts audible simply on the receiving unit. The repair? Establish a hardwired ethernet connection (or do as I did and use a powerline adapter) to at least one unit. That eradicated 99 % of the blips for me. I by no means heard any sputters over Wi-Fi when operating separate streams to the 2 MBX-PRE’s, nor whereas enjoying tunes on only one.
Bottom line: The MBX-PRE performs a bit of laborious to get, know, and dwell with. But aren’t such outliers those you wind up loving essentially the most?