Review: Wren V5PF Play-Fi Speaker

Mike Giffin, the silver-tongued CEO of Wren Sound Systems, is an audio journeyman. For about 35 years, he has worked in the high-end audio segment, partly as a division president at Harman International. He speaks with a radio-friendly cadence and a rich tonal quality, almost like the products he creates. After more than three decades making speakers and home audio components, he has hit a home run.

The Wren V5PF ($400) is the Android-enabled version of Wren's V5AP speaker designed for iOS devices. Unlike that model, which relies on the sometimes sketchy AirPlay wireless streaming technology, the new Wren uses DTS Play-Fi. This is the same technology inside the Phorus Play-Fi wireless speaker system speaker I reviewed recently.

There's one major difference between AirPlay and Play-Fi, outside of the iOS versus Android debate. AirPlay works most of the time, but in my tests, it can flake out when someone else in your home is downloading a new game demo on an Xbox 360, streaming a movie to a laptop, and generally consuming a chunk of your wireless bandwidth. Play-Fi, on the other hand, worked amazingly well when I first encountered it in the Phorus speakers, even though I wasn't a big fan of the speaker quality itself.

The Wren V5PF is the best of both worlds. The speaker, available in bamboo or rosewood, has the chops to produce a rich (but not overwhelming) bass, warm midtones, and pristine highs. And Play-Fi maintains a clean, consistent signal even when there's congestion on the network. In some ways, it's like having a quality-of-service (QoS) engine inside your music collection, apart from whatever QoS you run on your router.

The slim speaker, which weighs just 6.6 pounds, has an understated design that looks like another piece of furniture inside your home. There's no handle to carry it around; it's meant to stay put in your living room or by the bed. It is also not battery powered, you plug it in. The speaker enclosure measures about 16-inch across, 4 inches deep, and 6 inches tall. It's curved – Wren uses a medium-density fiberboard that's not only pliable, but tends to vibrate less than the injected-molded plastic used on other speakers. This improves the overall sound and adds a depth to the low end. The bass hits a low point of 60Hz (lower is better) instead of the 80Hz typical of these mid-sized speakers.

Now, you can easily get a "big sound" with a big cabinet, or you can use powerful drivers inside a smaller speaker box to accomplish a similar goal, which is the path Wren takes. Inside the speaker are four drivers – a pair of three-inch, long-throw speakers with four-layer voice coils that push most of the sound out, and two 19-mm tweeters spaced as far apart as possible. The arrangement provides just enough power and richness to fill a room, but not overwhelm it.

Unlike so many wireless speakers on the market, the Wren V5PF does not support Bluetooth – only Wi-Fi streaming. Wren will be adding a Bluetooth speaker to its lineup soon.

So, about that DTS Play-Fi. I tested the Wren V5PF with about six different Android gadgets. On a Motorola RAZR HD, I installed the Wren app and was playing my locally stored music in just a few seconds. The speaker showed up on my Wi-Fi network almost immediately. (You can also play music using a 3.5mm aux input, but there is no way to play music over USB.)

The app can stream from a network storage drive, and I had no problems selecting and using a Seagate BlackArmor drive on my wireless LAN. I streamed an entire album by the quirky techno band Baths without any glitches. Next, I streamed a Dustin Kensrue radio station for about two hours using the Pandora service built into the Wren app. You can also play Internet radio stations from within the app.

OK, so full confession here: When I tested my brand new Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone with the speaker, the Wren app suffered an epic fail – crashes, glitches, and so on. Wren worked out the bugs and released a new app, and after updating, I had no problems. The version of the Wren app I tested (version 1.0.1.061) also has a feature to "force takeover" the speaker. That means, whoever tries to connect to the speaker with their Android device will be able to. This is not something you can configure (or block), but that could show up in a later version.

I also tried a Kindle Fire HD, a Samsung Galaxy S3, and an HTC One smartphone and had no problems. My Play-Fi stream stayed pure. The sound quality never dipped into that distortion-laden Bluetooth category where it's so annoying you'd rather just play music on a home stereo. (The AptX audio codec for newer Bluetooth devices is already making progress toward changing that impression, though.)

Apparently, the sound designers listened to a ton of Jimmy Eat World when creating the Wren speaker, and that's a good thing. Mainstream artists with plenty of bass and drums, but without too much subtle orchestration, sounded better on the Wren than the $250 Sony BTX500 speaker I reviewed recently, and a hair better than the Logitech's $250 UE Boombox. Other speakers at the same price as the Wren, like the $400 Klipsch KMC 3, have more bass, but the Wren sounded warmer for mainstream music, with a pleasing soundstage.

Things get more interesting when listening to more refined music. On something a little loud and chaotic, like the song "Exit Wound" by the band Mixhell, the Wren made an intro siren sound realistic, as opposed to the whiz toy you'll hear on lesser speakers. You might even look out the window trying to spot the accident. On the song "Chase Lights" by All Tiny Creatures (a band famous for working with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver), the bells in the intro have a resonance that makes them seem like they're sitting right next to you.

One slight ding: the Wren didn't exactly pass my Iceage test. This punk band from Denmark probably never imagined they'd end up being my measuring rod for wireless speakers. But on their song "Ecstasy," there's a slight cymbal tapping in the intro that you can hear a little more clearly (more realistically) on other wireless speakers. To really appreciate Iceage's dynamics, you need a really great system with a pair of floor-standing speakers.

In the end, in test after test, I ended up liking the Wren's audio reproduction the best compared to other wireless speakers in the $400 price range. Play-Fi streamed accurately with no problems, and the app just worked. Maybe your ears will hear something different (and let me know in comments), but for the music I tested, the Wren is my top pick overall for wireless speakers that use Wi-Fi. That is, for now.

WIRED Amazing sound quality. Good bass reproduction. Stable streaming that's easy to set up. Handsome! Top-performing app for any Android smartphone running version 2.2 of the OS or later.

TIRED No other wireless options. No support for iOS devices, unless you connect your iPhone using the 3.5mm mini plug.