Phorus PS5 Speaker – Music Everywhere pt. 2..!

For my second review of products from the folks at Phorus, I’ll talk about the PS5 speaker. 
Phorus, as you may recall from my earlier blogs on the PR5 receiver and also the DTS Play-Fi technology, are the folks that came up with Play-Fi and then joined forces with audio powerhouse DTS.  The PS5 speaker leverages the Play-Fi wireless tech as a building block for whole-house or portable music. 

The speaker itself is a well-designed oblong shape with black grill material covering the front and back, a high-gloss black top surface with a grey control rib running the length of the top.  The design should be at home in pretty much any room décor.  At just over 11” long, 5” wide and under 3” tall, it certainly will be easy to place. 

The PS5 employs a dual-speaker setup along with a rear-firing port to supplement the lower frequencies.  Music processing is done by a Wolfson DAC and power provided by two class D digital amplifiers. 

OK…  enough of the geek-speak!

Well, actually a bit more…  The PS5 Play-Fi control allows you to put up to 16 devices throughout a house and each is controlled wirelessly from the Play-Fi app on your phone, tablet or PC.  You can play speakers individually, all at once or in zones with groups of speakers, all with perfectly synced sound.  You can even use two of the PS5 speakers in a single room as a stereo pair, configured by the app. 

Geez, can they be more flexible..?  Nice…

As for the sound…  Let me first clarify that this is not audiophile hardware.  What you are getting for $229.00 is surprisingly good quality sound perfect for background music, or wake-up music, or shower music, or party music, or…

I played a variety of music through the PS5 via my collection of FLAC files including jazz from Brad Mehldau’s Ode CD, some Beethoven solo piano works courtesy of Yundi on a Deutsche Grammophon recording, and even plenty of old-school rock and roll.  All were handled in a pleasing manner and filled the various rooms with sound.  The one caveat: I did encounter distortion at what I will refer to as ridiculous volume levels.  The deepest bass and highs were of course rolled-off, but as I stated earlier, this is not audiophile territory. 

My final summation here is that this is a highly configurable product with excellent ease-of-use, is well designed and certainly well priced.  If it fits a need, I would highly recommend a look and a listen…