 Real wireless speakers are very limited in quality since they need to be battery powered. Better ones, like the DIN Audio Focus X on review here, do need a mains cable. But since most homes have mains outlets all around the place, that's no problem. All audio connections can be done wirelessly. The DIN Audio Focus line was introduced at the high end Munich show May 2022. It became available only recently in Europe and the Middle East and will become available elsewhere later this year. There are three models, the Focus X, a two-way stand mount loudspeaker, the Focus 30, a two-and-a-half way floor stander and the Focus 50, a three-way floor stander. All three models are available in four finishes, black high glass, white high glass, walnut wood and blonde wood. The direct reason for wanting to do review a pair of Focus loudspeakers was the almost universal streaming solution it offers. Because of physical limitations of my workspace I settled for the Focus X, the smallest of the three. And it surprised me. All functionality as mentioned in this review is also available in the other Focus models. The difference lies in the number of drivers, the amps, crossover and cabinet size and thus in the acoustic output of the speakers. Normally I can make a relatively simple diagram on how to connect audio gear on review. In this case there are so many user cases I can dream up that I show them at random in separate diagrams. A pair of Focus loudspeakers has one primary speaker and one client speaker. All audio connections, wired and wireless, are made to the primary speaker. That connects automatically to the client speaker over WiFi as soon as they are connected to the mains power and switched on. What you then need is a connection between the primary speaker and your home network. That can be over a network cable or over WiFi. Then you need a smartphone with the Dynaudio setup and control app. Both Android and iOS apps are available for free. After following the setup instructions in the app, you are ready to play music from for instance Spotify or Tidal, or select an internet radio station in the app. You control the volume in the app or with the supplied remote control. If you want, you can add a subwoofer to the primary loudspeaker. Then anything above 80Hz is reproduced by the Focus speakers while everything below 80Hz is sent to the subwoofer. Pair settings and room corrections can be made using the direct software, or which later on more. If you want, you can send music to the speakers using Chromecast, Airplay or Bluetooth, each with its quality limitations of course. Please note that apart from the loudspeakers there need not be any audio device in the room. For the second user case, I have connected an Intel NUC computer running Roon ROCK to the router. It can have music on a second internal drive or on an external drive and can be placed wherever you have a network connection. For instance the study. The only thing you need next is a smartphone or tablet to select music and set the volume. The tablet being the most comfortable of course. You can also use the supplied remote to set the volume. The connection between the primary speaker and the network can be over a cable or Wi-Fi and the subwoofer is optional in all setups I present in this video. Again, no audio gear in the living, apart from the speakers. DNLA and UP&P AV are interchangeable protocols to see music over your home network. This protocol is also supported by the Focus speakers. You need a piece of software on your computer that can work as a DNLA server and a piece of software on a smartphone, tablet or the same or another computer that functions as a remote control. As such it is not that different from Roon, just another simpler protocol offering less metadata. Today, a number of bit perfect music players like Orivana, Amara, J River Media Center and others can send music to DNLA compatible streamers and thus to the Focus speakers. The setup with the laptop is ideal for those that like to take their music around or don't want a desktop computer in the living room. It can make contact with the speakers over Wi-Fi, so still no wires apart from power leads. By the way, some of the bit perfect music player software brands now also offer smartphone and tablet apps to control the program on the computer. That way the computer can be in the study while it is controlled using a smartphone or tablet. Again, there is no audio gear in the living apart from the speakers. But you can use existing audio gear with Focus loudspeakers. The primary loudspeaker has SPDIF and Toslink digital inputs and a stereo analog input on two RCA's. So your CD player can be connected using the white and red analog RCA's from the analog outputs and in most cases the SPDIF and Toslink output of your CD player might give a higher sound quality. To play from the physical inputs you can select the input from the remote console or in the app. If you can place your loudspeakers so that the TV is in between them. Connect either the Toslink output or the analog outputs of your TV to the input of the primary speaker. Or connect the TV wisely over Bluetooth or better, VISA if your TV supports that standard. It is only available on newer TVs and it will improve the sound quality greatly. Time to take a look at the speakers. The Focus 10 measures 180 by 261 by 350 mm and weighs 7.5 kg. The baffle contains a 28 mm soft-dough tweeter and a 14 cm woofer. The tweeter is powered by a 110 watts amplifier and is crossed at 2.2 kHz. The woofer is driven by a 280 watts amplifier. As said there are two wood finishes, a black and a white glossy finish. On the rear we see the large differences between the primary speaker on the left and the client speaker on the right. Each have their own amplifiers and digital crossover but the primary speaker contains all inputs both wireless and wired. So let's look at that one first. Let's start with the pairing buttons. The first is to pair with the client speaker. When new they are already paired so it is only for installing a new set of speakers. Then the Bluetooth pairing button to pair the speakers to your phone, computer, TV or other Bluetooth source. The third button is to pair with your hi-fi access point. To the right the speed of input with next to it the speed of output. The USB socket is for service purposes only and is not to be used by the user. Below it a trigger output for the subwoofer power switching. The audio connection to the sub is to be connected here. Then there is a stereo analog input on two RCA connectors. Since the speakers switch to standby automatically there is no need to use the power switch. Only for long vacations it might be handy. Below it the IEC mains inlet. Leases two more connections, network and Toslink Digital Audio. Let's see what the client speaker offers on its rear. Here only a pairing button for connecting to the primary loudspeaker. Then a speed of input and the USB socket for service purposes. And of course the mains switch and IEC inlet. The setup is clearly different from the cheap active speakers where the amplifiers are in the primary speaker and a loudspeaker cable needs to be connected between the two. Many other active speakers need an analog or digital connection between the two or both need a connection to the source. Here each speaker has its own amps and crossover and needs its own power cord connected to the wall socket. The setup is done using the free app on either smartphone or tablet. It is simply a matter of following instructions. When that is done and the app is started up again you see this screen where you can select the speaker set you want to use. If music is playing you get the playing screen right away. Oh, if you haven't heard Pink Floyd's Animal 2018 remix, it's brilliant. If you don't have music playing, you see this screen where the streaming services can be chosen. If you select Spotify or as I do now Tidal, the Spotify or Tidal app is started up and you need to select the focus tensor as output. Let me show you the settings menu. Here you can set whether the primary speaker is placed left or right. Then there is a setting for frequency balance. Switch on Dirac Live and select one of the six Dirac curves you can store. Here only four curves are stored. Startup lets you set the slowest startup that consumes 5 watts per hour less. The speaker finish is handy if you use more sets of focus 10 in different finishes. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are self-explanatory. Wi-Sau is a relatively new standard for interconnecting audio of audio and video equipment. It also is the standard used between the primary and the client speaker. The standard sampling frequency is 48 kHz. For higher quality, 96 kHz can be set here. As said before, you can also use Apple Airplay, Google Chromecast Audio, Bluetooth, Roon or DLA to play music in which case the DIN Audio app is not needed. Also incorporated in these compact speakers is the Dirac LiveRoom correction. I have reviewed it already in several other products so I am not going in-depth this time. But in short you do a series of measurements as told you by the software. Then decide on the frequency curve you want and the software calculates correction curves in frequency and time to compensate for acoustics and even equipment faults. Result is normally very good. It opens up the lows, improves the stereo image and so on. Here is a resulting curve. By tweaking the yellow target curve a bit, I managed to extend the lows even more. Where 45 Hz was about the minus 3 dB point, now that point was below 30 Hz. The skewed frequency curve, higher at the lows, somewhat lower at the highs, is intentional for it sounds more natural. As said, you can make up six different curves and select them in the app. Although I tested about every way the Focus 10 can function, I judged its sound quality primarily using RoonRock on an Intel 10i7 with a 10 TB USB drive to hold the music. The Focus 10s were connected to the network over a normal patch cable to the Opton Audio Ether Region with Opton Audio UltraCaps 1.2 power supply. The speakers were set to 96 kHz sampling. Roon was controlled using an iPad Pro that also can control the playback volume, but I found it easier to set the volume using the supplied infrared remote. Then the surprise, for while the versatility of the system triggered my interest, it is the sound quality that really surprised me. After measuring and setting direct life for the studio on the third floor, the first thing that surprised me was the absence of DSP distortion. Most active speakers in this price category offer from some time smearing, influencing micro-dynamics and transients, especially in the lower mids. The Focus 10s sound remarkably open, which is partly the result of DRAC and powerful. The lows were impressive but not in a DSP boosted way as often is the case. The stereo image was better than can be expected in this price category, as is the focusing. These are very fine sounding loudspeakers that sound larger than they are. I would rate them in between my setup 2A and 1B, and about the 96 kHz sampling limits. Who cares if it sounds like this? The potential problems DRAC solves are far more important than the possible gain in quality a higher sampling rate might offer. The set price is €4,998, which seems a lot of money for two small monitor loudspeakers. Don't think again. A set of passive denodio evoke 20 loudspeakers costs €2,050. The mini DSP SHD power amplifier that does DRAC costs €1,800. Together with cables you already hit the €4,000, but you only have a 120 watt per channel amp while the passive crossover in the loudspeakers will cause losses. In the Focus X you have a total of 390 watts after the crossover. You don't need that to play very loud but you do need that to output low frequencies pulled up by DRAC. That is why the lows are so powerful and yet open with the Focus X. Apart from that you only have Volumio as a streamer in a mini DSP amp, as where you have all the options I mentioned before in the Focus X. You could go for the NED M10 V2 at €2,499. You then have Blue Sound, Roon Endpoint and DRAC Live, but you come very close to the price of the Focus X when you take the cabling into account. I'm not saying one of the other is better. My argument is that the Focus Xs are not expensive. If you are into a minimalist but excellent sounding setup, they are a very good choice that might even please the aesthetics committee. And with that thought I'll leave you. I'll be back next Friday at 5pm central European time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to my channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or link to this video in the social media, it is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans van Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.