What kind of music do you listen to? I’ve been looking for a good bluetooth speaker for central sound/ambience in the living room.
Generally, I prefer warmer amps and tend to listen to classical, jazz, vocals, so a crystal-clear high range and multi-instrument clarity is super important. For bass, as long as it is tight (doesn’t need to be loud) I think it should be good.
(And if this is your rec, what price would you recommend to buy this at?) Thanks!
I listen to of acoustic folk such as James Taylor or Nick Drake as well as 50’s/60"s jazz such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders
And a bit of jazz pop like Rickie Lee Jones
Hallmarks of Mcintosh Amps has always been warm sound, and this speaker is quite true to that.
As to price, I get mine through a special accommodation for significantly less than current street price, so I don’t have a good sense for what it settle at once supply increases
Nice, sounds like my style of music!
So would you say the vocals are crystal clear against the backdrop of instruments (no muddyness), while retaining instrument seperation with no overpowering/fuzzy bass? All this hearable say ˜10-12 ft away, in a large living room?
Haha, sorry I’m a little picky—but you know if I’m spending over a $1000 on a speaker, I better be! 
I would ask, are you getting one or two? If a pair, the automatic recommendation at that $1000/unit price point is KEF’s LS50 Wireless II. The LS50’s punch well above their price and even perform on par with a top industry recommendation for studio speakers, the $4,428 Barefoot Sound Footprint01. You can see how well the LS50 Meta (which is identical to the Wireless II’s except for being passive without the integrated amplifier and wireless Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity) ranks here. AudioScienceReview uses one of the industry’s best measurement systems currently available for speakers. A high preference score means high concordance to target frequency and low distortion.
I was thinking/hoping one, but hey at this price point, I guess I’m in for quality (within reason ).
My living room is shaped like an L (the open quarter is a foyer), with the center spot where I want to position the speaker. There’s a very high ceiling with almost all open space to the walls and floor length windows, so I wanted a single 360 speaker if possible (tuned to low-medium volume for ambience, low echo).
Thanks! I’ll peruse Audio Science, but I’m not sure I know what I’m doing when looking at the frequency response. I’m looking for a slightly warmer sound (but I also want vocal clarity! 
).
Of the speakers I’ve tried, Klipsch seems to have the soft-clear balance I’m looking for. I found Bose, Sonos and Samsung to have too much reverb, bass mixed in which detracts from the natural acoustic sound I’m going for.
Just one. I’m using it as a semi portable speaker moving it between bedroom and home office.
I already have a Bowers and Wilkins based home theater setup in the living room
The general separation of various musical elements is the standout IMHO of this speaker. With the caveat of using it in WIFI/Airplay mode. It sounds a bit congested and compressed on Bluetooth (though still very good, comparatively speaking).
One of my “reference” albums to evaluate both headphones and speakers is Rickie Lee Jones album “Pirates” which is widely considered by audio engineers to be one of the best recorded, mixed and mastered albums out there and one that B&W chief designers uses when designing new speakers and headphones.
There is one particular song on that album “skeletons” which is a beautiful, heartbreaking song which she sings for the most part very softly, but with incredible amounts of nuance and subtle emotions as she sings the story in the song.
PS: Another really great and also exceptionally well recorded album I use is Steely Dan’s Aja (also just a personal favorite group generally) I think it even won Grammy for the quality of the production.
And one last song that is great IMHO for revealing vocal separation and quality is “The End Of The Innocence” by Don Henley.