Pantheone I Speaker Evaluate: Sonos Smarts with Fashion

Pantheone I

MSRP $2,190.00

“Magnificence in your eyes in addition to your ears, the Pantheone I is an distinctive speaker.”

Professionals

• Excellent audio high quality
• Linked: Bluetooth, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm, and AirPlay
• Distinctive design
• Helps high-resolution audio
• Simple to make use of and arrange

Cons

• Costly
• Imperfect app expertise

Once I interviewed the founding father of Pantheone about his upcoming related residence speaker system, I noticed a ardour in him for creating one thing many have tried and few have achieved: A house audio system designed to look nearly as good because it sounded. I’ve to facet with him — most speaker programs are inherently ugly as a result of they’re not designed to be something apart from utilitarian. More often than not, we simply need to cover them (which is a significant factor we think about when reviewing soundbars, for instance).

The Pantheone I just isn’t a speaker anybody will attempt to cover. However does it sound like $2,200, and does it have the brains we anticipate in 2020? Let’s undergo it.

Unboxing the behemoth

I really feel unhealthy for the supply driver that hoisted the 60-pound Pantheone field up a flight of stairs to my entrance door.

It was simply as hulking as I anticipated. The speaker itself was safely cradled in foam inside a field, inside one other field, wrapped in plastic and held along with transport straps and thick cardboard bumpers. I used to be form of appalled at how a lot packaging was strewn throughout my front room. It’s loads. Pantheone isn’t going to attain any factors right here almost about sustainability, however I’ll say the product made all of it the best way to me with no blemish.

You’ll be able to see the size of the packaging carnage spreading from my eating room properly into my front room. Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

The very first thing you see while you open the inside field is a small zip-top bag that comprises two white gloves for what I assume is “white glove service.” I discovered the inclusion of these gloves cute and on-brand, but in addition somewhat foolish and hilarious as I’ve by no means skilled white glove service that I truly needed to partake in myself. Foolish as they’re, I appreciated them, because the Pantheone unit can appeal to fingerprints and the included gloves had been undoubtedly useful in mitigating that whereas I moved it to its closing location.

Apart from being ensconced in foam, the Pantheone ships in a silk-like bag that, whereas it appears good, feels a bit gratuitous. It’s not like I’m planning to bag this speaker up and take it with me wherever.

The Pantheone is powered by a normal energy cable, nevertheless it’s oddly quick for a house speaker. Except you’ve gotten shops in your ground, 4 ft of twine won’t be sufficient for most individuals to get the unit right into a, central location in the lounge. Us plebeians with only some wall shops per room are most certainly going to want an extension twine. My black speaker additionally shipped with a white twine, which stands out a heck of much more than black would on my wood flooring. I want Pantheone included each colours within the field to provide me extra flexibility.

On the underside of the unit, you’ll find the facility port in addition to the bodily on/off change. Since there’s a touch-sensitive energy button on the highest of the unit as properly, I’m not fully certain why it wants that bodily change in any respect. It may need one thing to do with the facility converter I’m certain is packed in right here (because the cable doesn’t have a transformer), however that’s simply me guessing.

Bodily controls

The Pantheone I is a brilliant speaker like a Sonos or Amazon Echo, and thus wants you to take a couple of minutes of setup with a purpose to begin utilizing it. Additionally like Sonos, this course of is gratefully quick and painless. While you flip the Pantheone on, it informs you in a nice voice that it’s awaiting pairing process and to obtain the app to get that going. After downloading, the Pantheone app instantly begins trying to find the speaker and guides you thru a easy course of to get it related to your private home’s Wi-Fi. Not more than 30 seconds later, it’s all arrange and able to use.

Setup is gratefully quick and painless.

You get fundamental music controls on the highest like quantity, play/pause, and skip, however since there is no such thing as a display screen, you should depend on a second system to ship the speaker content material (the identical manner Sonos operates). I discover myself hardly ever utilizing these top-mounted controls since you are able to do every part they will and extra out of your telephone or laptop.

Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

For the reason that buttons don’t bodily click on, they play a chime each time you press one to acknowledge your command. This could get annoying for adjusting the quantity because it interrupts the sound of your music. Nitpicky, I do know.

Simple on the eyes

A piece of a overview devoted to how a product appears is fairly unusual for us however bear in mind: This isn’t only a speaker, it’s artwork.

Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

I’ve proven the Pantheone to a variety of associates and colleagues, and I’ve gotten a reasonably polarizing set of responses to its design. Considered one of my fellow editors known as it hideous and refused to spend greater than a pair seconds it. My spouse likes it and thinks that if our home wasn’t designed in a French Nation model however as a substitute a contemporary or up to date one, it will look improbable.  Considered one of my employees writers mentioned it seemed just like the eggs from Alien. One other mentioned it seemed “majestic.”

The highest speaker array homes a tweeter and a midrange driver, whereas the underside holds a subwoofer. The identical association is repeated on the opposite facet. Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

I believe they’re all appropriate. Artwork is meant to be subjective, and what appeals to me received’t essentially attraction to you. What I believe we are able to agree on is that the Pantheone appears extremely uncommon for a speaker, and for those who just like the traces it attracts and might see it in your house, that’s all that issues.

App and integration

With Spotify labels plastered all around the Pantheone field and manuals, it’s clearly the streaming platform of alternative for this speaker. Luckily, the Spotify expertise is fabulous as properly, matching the expertise you’ll anticipate with Sonos. It doesn’t matter what platform you’ve gotten Spotify open on, you’ll be able to instantly see that music is being streamed to the Pantheone and also you get full management from the Spotify platform as properly. In consequence, the Spotify expertise is the most effective with this speaker.

Although a number of different providers are supported, their integration isn’t essentially fairly nearly as good. TuneIn, iHeartRadio, Apple Music, Tidal, and Napster are all supported straight, however I discovered that the Tidal expertise was not as streamlined. Not like with Sonos, Tidal doesn’t appear to have full integration, and whilst you can stream Grasp Tracks (which Pantheone helps) by logging into Tidal from the Pantheone app, utilizing the Tidal app in your telephone or laptop doesn’t present the Pantheone as a supported supply.

Granted, Sonos doesn’t look like as plugged into Tidal as it’s to Spotify both, a minimum of relating to the desktop app. My Sonos Transfer doesn’t present as a supply within the desktop app, nevertheless it does within the cellular app. Pantheone doesn’t present up in both.

The house display screen clearly has room to develop, with as much as 8 Pantheone models capable of join. Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

Easy accessibility to a number of music sources. Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

The turntable turns whereas enjoying music, which is cute. Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

Via the Pantheone app, you get entry to all a music streaming service’s choices, so for those who don’t thoughts utilizing Pantheone’s interface, you received’t have an issue right here. I’ve observed, nevertheless, for those who let your telephone fall asleep, the Pantheone app appears to overlook it’s related and has to spend a couple of seconds reconnecting every time. Music continues to play with out interruption, nevertheless it’s not an ideal person expertise. Moreover, you’ll be able to’t management the quantity on the Pantheone I out of your telephone except the app is open (similar to from the lock display screen, as you’ll be able to when utilizing the Spotify app).

The Pantheone I works with AirPlay, nevertheless it suffers from greater than a second of delay each time you choose a brand new track, pause a monitor, and even modify the quantity out of your telephone. This looks like one thing that may be ironed out with a firmware replace, and I hope they do it as a result of it’s annoying sufficient that I finished utilizing AirPlay with the Pantheone altogether.

Software program tends to be the tallest hurdle for corporations who even make nice {hardware} to efficiently leap, so I’ll minimize Pantheone some slack right here, particularly since that is the corporate’s first product.

Alexa integration works flawlessly. While you converse to it, the illuminated high management buttons flip a darkish blue to point your voice has been heard, and flicker when initiating on a command. It’s sufficiently seen and higher built-in than I’ve seen in most different Alexa-enabled gadgets.

There’s at present no option to modify the Pantheone’s EQ values to your private choice (apart from with Spotify on cellular when related straight through 3.5mm jack), however this performance will likely be coming to the app at a later date.

Room-filling sound

Look, if an enormous $2,200 speaker didn’t sound nice, we might have an issue. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a downside right here — the Pantheone produces distinctive sound. It’s multi-level driver structure and two-sided design leads to some really great audio projection that carries throughout and thru rooms with unimaginable constancy. Whereas different audio system I’ve examined require a couple of unit to get a powerful sense of immersive sound, the Pantheone achieves it from a single monolithic egg.

For an organization’s first product, the Pantheone is shockingly, outrageously good.

I personally love the sound high quality {of professional} studio screens versus the processed sound that you may get out of extra consumer-focused headphones. It tends to be extra impartial in high quality and clear, with even emphasis throughout all your entire frequency spectrum. In that very same sense, the Pantheone is sort of a pair of fabulous over-ear studio screens in your total room. Each element of each notice is clearly, superbly rendered, and despatched dancing throughout your residing house.

Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

The highs are splendidly balanced with the mids, and the bass is powerful however not overwhelming. Excessive-resolution audio streams from Tidal spotlight the impact. For instance, in some songs the place the bass is clearly extra necessary, you’ll hear it get a lift. In others, if it should fall again in order to not overwhelm the opposite channels. Should you ever puzzled how a musician needed their music to be heard and also you belief Tidal is getting all that data in its Grasp tracks, then know the Pantheone is being true to that sound.

Look, if an enormous $2,200 speaker didn’t sound nice, we might have an issue. Fortunately, there is no such thing as a downside right here.

Most impressively, the Pantheone manages balanced EQ no matter its quantity stage. From quiet background music to window-shaking most energy, I by no means felt like what I used to be listening to was not precisely excellent to how the music was alleged to sound. This stage of management is uncommon and distinctive.

Jaron Schneider / Digital Tendencies

There are principally no different audio system just like the Pantheone I, but when we needed to examine we might instantly take a look at Sonos, Bose, Amazon, and Bluesound since they’re the one different main manufacturers producing related residence music options. You may additionally need to think about Phantom, although I personally haven’t had expertise with its product.

I took a Sonos Transfer and put it subsequent to the Pantheone simply to listen to the distinction in sound high quality. I did the identical with a Bluesound soundbar that I praised for its musical chops. Completely unfair, I do know, however I used to be curious because the Transfer is seen as a terrific speaker and I preferred the Bluesound bar.

Facet by facet, the Pantheone blows each out of the water — because it ought to. The place there’s a murkier, cloudier mix the place the treble, midrange, and bass intersect on the Sonos, every was rendered distinctly and superbly on the Pantheone. The Bluesound soundbar additionally failed to achieve the identical stage of glowing element and stability and was a lot weaker within the lows. It completely was not a good combat, however know that for those who select to drop critical coin on the Pantheone, the worth of the system isn’t only for the appears and the connectivity: This factor can actually sing.

Our take

The Pantheone is wildly costly, and that’s its best flaw. It pains me that the overwhelming majority of those that learn this overview won’t ever personally expertise the audio high quality from this speaker as a result of they’ll by no means see or hear one in particular person. It’s not solely a superbly designed speaker aesthetically, but in addition from each an built-in and auditory perspective. For an organization’s first product, the Pantheone is shockingly, outrageously good. Right here’s to hoping the corporate could make further merchandise which might be extra approachable to the common particular person as a result of it clearly has the chops to compete with the goliath that’s Sonos.

Is there a greater various?

As I discussed, there actually isn’t another product fairly just like the Pantheone I. You will discover costly, high-fidelity related audio system just like the Devialet Phantom that we’ve checked out up to now, which could be the closest factor to a direct competitor (although I’ve not personally examined one). Or you may get a Sonos 5 or the Bose Residence Speaker 500, that are far more inexpensive than both the Phantom or the Pantheone however pale compared relating to audio high quality. However Pantheone markets its speaker as an artwork piece along with a house speaker answer, and in that realm, it stands alone.

How lengthy will it final?

The Pantheone I is constructed extremely properly, and never out of conventional plastic, however resin. Bolstered by common firmware updates and a terrific 2-year guarantee, I anticipate the Pantheone I to work splendidly for years to return.

Must you purchase it?

Should you can afford to drop $2,200 on a house speaker answer and your décor matches with the Pantheone’s distinctive styling, then I’d strongly say sure. The Pantheone I is extraordinarily costly, however I’m assured you’ll be capable of take pleasure in it each when it’s enjoying music and when it isn’t.

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