PSB iQ2 review: Premium sound meets smart-speaker convenience - Engadget

A great app experience turns this wireless stereo setup into a capable hub for your home audio. We may receive a commission on purchases made from links. For the past decade, multi-room smart speakers have been dominated by the same companies that sell us our phones, tablets and cloud services. Somewhere along the way, music became a secondary feature rather than the focus of the device playing it. Traditional hi-fi brands have struggled to compete, usually leaning on sound quality alone as their advantage with limited mainstream success. There's an emerging trend of hi-fi speakers combining the convenience of streaming and multi-room connectivity with their premium audio performance and physical connectivity. The iQ2 from PSB ($1,399) is one such product. It promises the acoustic benefits of bookshelf speakers, packs in almost every input you could need and stirs in many of the everyday conveniences listeners now expect. The emphasis is less on "smart" and more on "speaker," positioning the absence of voice assistants and daily briefings as a feature, not a compromise. At least, that's the idea. Make no mistake, the iQ2 looks like a pair of conventional shelf speakers, albeit mode