Samsung Music Frame Review: Tried and Tested
Samsung’s new unique gadget doubles as a piece of art, but doesn’t compromise on excellent audio quality.
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We all know that music is art, but this new speaker from Samsung makes that a literal thing.
The Samsung Music Frame is a speaker that is hidden in the frame of a piece of art. You can mount it on the wall or pop it on the stand and rest it on a table or bench, but it doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t look like a speaker.
With an intuitive design that makes it incredibly easy to change the artwork and impressive audio quality, the Samsung Music Frame will tightly integrate in with Samsung’s other AV equipment too to give you a more immersive sound experience.
1-MINUTE REVIEW: SAMSUNG MUSIC FRAME SPEAKERS
Samsung Music Frame Speakers, $499 (down from $699) or from $41.58 per month at Samsung
If you own a Samsung TV, it can be paired with it to deliver a more immersive audio experience through Samsung’s Q Symphony standard. You can also add a dedicated dongle to turn it into a SmartThings hub to control your home.
The most notable element of this speaker, tho
PROS:
• Customisable artworks
• Easy to set up
• Both wall and stand-mounting in the box
• Impressively full sound stage
• Room-filling audio
• Airplay, Chromecast, Bluetooth audio playback
CONS:
• Some additional functions require Samsung hardware
• SmartThings is not the best software for audio control
• Tap to Play doesn’t work
• Adaptive Sound feature doesn’t do much
• Can’t be combined as a stereo pair
SPECS
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi, Optical in, AirPlay, Chromecast Spotify Connect | Dimensions: 353.0mm × 364.8mm × 143.4mm | Weight: 4.6kg
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
At its core, the Samsung Music Frame is a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi speaker with some additional connectivity options. It works best when connected into an ecosystem of Samsung products, as it uses the SmartThings app for control.
If you own a Samsung TV, it can be paired with it to deliver a more immersive audio experience through Samsung’s Q Symphony standard. You can also add a dedicated dongle to turn it into a SmartThings hub to control your home.
The most notable element of this speaker, though, is the interchangeable art panels. You can add your art into the Frame, or order a custom art panel that fills the entire front of the speaker.
What comes in the box: Samsung Music Frame speaker, power cable, speaker stand, wall mount bracket (holder anchor, screw included)
HOW WE TESTED THE SAMSUNG MUSIC FRAME SPEAKERS
I’ve been listening to a wide variety of music through the Samsung Music Frame speakers for the past few weeks. I initially had them set up in different rooms of my home to test out grouping options, but then grouped them in a single room to deliver a more immersive experience.
Some of the Frame’s functions, like Q-Symphony support with Samsung TVs or using a SmartThings Dongle, weren’t tested, as I didn’t have the necessary equipment.
FULL REVIEW OF THE SAMSUNG MUSIC FRAME SPEAKERS
It feels like there is a huge market opportunity for connected speakers that don’t look like speakers. Sonos first tapped into this through its partnership with Ikea, creating the Symfonisk lamp and picture frame speakers.
While the Symfonisk Picture frame sounds great, it has limited options for personalised art.
Samsung has solved this issue with the Music Frame, making it easy to add your images. It also has a partnership with MARPPLE to create custom acrylic art panels of your design that fill the front of the speaker.
But it takes more than just customisable art to make a great speaker, including great sound quality. Here’s how the Music Frame stacks up.
DESIGN
The Samsung Music Frame is designed to look like a piece of art you would hang on your wall, so it’s straightforward to describe.
Not quite a perfect square, the speaker measures 353 × 365 × 143mm, with a black external frame. The speaker comes with an off-white picture insert which can accommodate an 8 x 10-inch photo, though it only shows the central square part of that.
The front panel of the speaker pops out of the four corners of the speaker, and has a rear cover that lets you easily replace the image with any 8×10inch photo or artwork. In itself, that gives the Frame reason for consideration, as it can be an attractive art piece for your home.
But the partnership with MARPPLE takes it one step further. You can easily upload any photo or artwork to the MARPPLE website, and for $46, you can order a 13 × 13 inch acrylic print panel that you can easily pop into the Frame for a more complete picture.
The box comes with both a wall mounting kit and a stand, plus instructions to set it up both ways. The power cable is about two metres long, with a power transformer connecting the thinner wire from the speaker and the thicker AC plug wire. That length makes it easy to set up the Music Frame anywhere in your home.
There are four discreet buttons on the lower right back of the speaker, which let you adjust volume, mute the microphone and change inputs without having to pull out your phone. It’s a nice touch, though you will probably end up touching the wrong buttons blindly first before finding the one you actually want.
Setting up the Music Frame is relatively simple, though much easier if you use a Samsung device. When trying to connect it to my home in the iOS SmartThings app, it demanded I scan a QR code, then told me the QR code wasn’t valid. When setting up through the Galaxy Fold6, the speaker connected automatically.
FEATURES
The Frame features six integrated speakers, playing through two channels, which gives it plenty of power.
Technically, the Music Frame also supports Dolby Atmos, though you will be hard-pressed to hear the surround sound feature unless you combine the Music Frame with additional speakers like a soundbar.
The Music Frame supports a range of streaming options, like Bluetooth audio, AirPlay, and Chromecast. But it also offers an optical line in for those who prefer their music wired in.
There is also an in-built preference for Samsung devices. Features like Q-Symphony support and Tap-to-Play are only available if you use a compatible Samsung TV or smartphone, respectively.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get Tap to Play to work at all, though. Despite tapping the Galaxy Z Fold6 all over the Frame’s body, it never worked for me.
Samsung has also included its AI-powered Adaptive Sound technology, which is designed to adjust the sound, volume, and clarity of what’s playing in real time to overcome changes in ambient noise levels.
I tried to test this by playing white noise through a nearby speaker, and couldn’t notice any difference in the playback quality.
SOUND QUALITY
The most important aspect of any speaker is its audio quality, and the Samsung Music Frame sounds fantastic.
Tested in different rooms around my home, the Frame sounds full and immersive in all of them, filling each room with crystal clear sound. It’s maybe a bit light on the bass front, making it better suited to music than movies or TV.
You can crank it to maximum volume without sacrificing audio quality. There’s no distortion or muddiness in the output at high volumes, though the volume scaling isn’t even — the difference between volume 10 and volume 50 is much more significant than the difference between volume 50 and volume 90.
If you do happen to have a pair of Music Frame speakers, you can’t set them up as a stereo pair. It’s easy to group them together in SmartThings, but both speakers will play a stereo soundtrack, rather than one channel per speaker.
For a premium audio product, I find this a surprising oversight, though it doesn’t reduce the quality of the audio playback.
Price: How much does the Samsung Music Frame cost?
The Samsung Music Frame comes in Black for RRP$699. You can buy it from The Good Guys, Bing Lee, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and Samsung directly.
VERDICT: SHOULD YOU BUY THE SAMSUNG MUSIC FRAME?
Samsung has designed the Music Frame for people already in the Samsung ecosystem. But that shouldn’t dissuade you if you don’t own any other Samsung devices.
These speakers are impressive enough on the sound quality front, and versatile enough thanks to Bluetooth, AirPlay and Chromecast support, that they will fit any home. The use of SmartThings as the control app isn’t ideal, but you can easily play back music without using SmartThings at all.
The speaker makes art customisation easy and affordable, and when combined with the excellent audio quality, is a perfect reason to buy the Music Frame.
Nick Broughall
Nick has been reviewing the latest technology and gadgets for over two decades. He’s edited leading Australian technology publications like Gizmodo, TechRadar and Finder; was a co-founder of gadget site EFTM and currently runs BTTR.reviews. He is a regular finalist in the Australian IT Journalism awards, and won the Best Reviewer award in 2016. These days, he tries to balance his gadget addictions with board games and bushwalking.
*Product has been provided by Samsung for a 100 per cent independent, honest review.
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