Devialet’s first smart portable speaker makes its stylish debut for ‘only’ $790
You’ve probably heard of luxury French audio brandDevialetat some point, or at least seen its $2,300 Phantom series speakers somewhere on the internet. If you’re one of the few people who has seen a Phantom speaker in the flesh or bought one, you’ll be excited to know that Devialet now makes a portable speaker called the Mania. It lets you take the same audio experience and conversation-starting design places.
Devialet markets theManiaas a portable smart speaker (viaThe Verge), but make no mistake, this isn’t a rugged lover-of-the-outdoors noisemaker. Instead, it is a spherical smart speaker you can take anywhere in your castle of glass while you listen to Linkin Park at “moderate volume” to get the 10 hours of advertised battery life.
This new audio-producing orb tightly integrates four full-range aluminum drivers and two woofers for lower frequencies in the 30-20,000Hz range it covers. Each speaker is driven by a 25W class-D amplifier, while each woofer gets its own 38W class-D amplifier.
The Mania speaker is powered by a 3,200mAh battery which recharges via USB-C in approximately 3 hours. There’s a quad-core processor with ARM Cortex-A53 cores capped at 1.4GHz as well, unlocking capabilities like Airplay 2, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Devialet also says the speaker uses Active Stereo Calibration, so it sounds the same, no matter where you are relative to its position. you could also link this speaker to another Devialet speaker for stereo sound.
Premium materials have been used in abundance, like the woven fabric concealing the speaker drivers. Devialet offers the standard Mania finished in white or black (with chrome accents)for $790, while an Opéra de Paris edition replaces the chrome bits on the white Mania with polished golden accents for $990. Customers buying this even pricier model also get a Mania Station wireless charging dock for free.
There’s no denying a market for the $790 Devialet Mania and its $170 3-year warranty extension exists, but if that’s not you, check out our selection ofthe best portable Bluetooth speakers, all of which are decidedly cheaper.
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