Samsung also does wireless speakers quite well!
Samsung is a company known for innovation. It’s so ingrained in their corporate DNA, they try to insert a new feature into almost everything they make. It’s no surprise that they’ve managed to do the same thing to wireless, portable speakers. Leading the pack is the DA-F61, which is hands down one of the best portable speakers you could get today.
Simple design that hides plenty of features
The overall design of the Samsung DA-F61 is actually pretty simple and amazingly elegant. At 225mm wide and 46.5mm deep, it’s a little big for a portable speaker, but it’s compact enough that it’ll sit on a kitchen countertop or a shelf without taking up too much space. The edges of the speaker are curved, and along with the speaker grille, has a nice metallic finish. On right edge of the speaker sites the volume knob (which can depress to reduce the bulk), along with the power, mute, function and bass buttons. There’s a few LED indicators in the front of the device, including Bluetooth status and the different function modes.
On the back lies the flip out stand, as well as the 3.5mm minijack input, a USB port and the power socket.
Speaking of Bluetooth, the DA-F61 uses Bluetooth 3.0 with apt-X CSR and has support for Near Field Communication (NFC). The latter makes pairing your NFC equipped device quick and painless – just tap the thing on the NFC logo on the left side of the DA-F61, and it’s good to go. Samsung also included SoundShare support, which allows the DA-F61 to connect to a similarly equipped Samsung TV.
Sound quality that almost makes you forget it’s a portable speaker
Portable speakers usually sacrifice some form of sound quality to allow them to be, well, portable. That isn’t the case with the DA-F61. After pairing it with our Samsung Galaxy S4, we were blown away by the fullness and richness of the sound emanating from the relatively small speakers. The DA-F61 utilizes a Neodymium driver and a passive bass radiator, and has 10W of amplification.
It’s also capable of going loud, though sound quality tends to suffer near the top of the volume curve, subtly reminding you that it’s still a portable speaker, after all. There’s a nice balance bass, mids and treble all round, which makes listening to the DA-F61 a real treat.
The DA-F61 is also surprisingly capable of pumping out bass, so much so that the vibrations from the music displaced a few ornaments we had lying around in the counter we placed it on. More importantly, the bass produced by the DA-F61 didn’t sound muddy or bloated.
Portable, but just barely
If we did have to ding the DA-F61, it would be in it’s overall weight. At a little over a kilo, it’s pretty heavy, and it’s overall bulk doesn’t really lend itself to being put in your everyday bag. The good news here is that that weight and bulk hides a built-in Lithium battery that lasts a good long while. Samsung rates the DA-F61’s battery life at around 12 hours, in reality it felt longer than that while we were using it.
High price tag is worth it
Now comes the bad news: the DA-F61 retails for around Php 9990, which is a hard pill to swallow for some. However, we feel that it’s worth it – the amount of features, innovation and amazing sound quality of the DA-F61 makes the relatively high price tag worth it.