Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

Samsung’s new Dolby Atmos wireless speaker doubles as a picture frame

Simon Cohen
By
Samsung Music Frame speaker.
It’s a picture frame. It’s a speaker. It’s the Samsung Music Frame. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends
CES 2024
Read and watch our complete CES coverage here

Along with its new TVs, ultra short throw laser projectors, and soundbars — most of which were totally predictable enhancements of existing products — Samsung brought something truly different to CES 2024: the Samsung Music Frame, a Dolby Atmos-capable wireless speaker that doubles as an old-fashioned printed photo frame.

The Music Frame (or HW-LS60D if you want to use its official model designation) clearly owes a lot to Samsung’s popular The Frame TV, which can display any digital art of your choice when you’re not using it as an actual TV. But unlike the TV, the Music Frame doesn’t make you choose between listening to music and gazing fondly at your favorite family portrait — you can do both, and the picture doesn’t disappear when you turn off the tunes.

Samsung TVs at CES 2024 | MicroLED TV, Anti-glare QD-OLED, and more

Hiding behind the picture are two woofers, two tweeters, and two midrange drivers, which automatically tune themselves to your room’s acoustics using Samsung’s SpaceFit calibration tech. It kind of reminds us of a slightly lower-tech version of LG’s wild DukeBox concept. The Music Frame joins a very small club of standalone speakers that are Dolby Atmos compatible, like the Sonos Era 300, Apple HomePod, and Amazon Echo Studio.

The Music Frame is equipped with both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so you can do ad-hoc streaming from any smartphone, tablet, or computer, as well as add it to a new or existing multiroom wireless audio setup. If you own a Samsung TV and/or soundbar, you can pair the Music Frame and use it as a TV speaker, a rear speaker, or a subwoofer. If you buy a second Music Frame, they can be stereo-paired or used as left/right wireless surrounds. Or you can connect up to five of them for synchronous play.

Recommended Videos

If all that weren’t enough, the Frame also contains an IoT hub, giving your smart home devices yet another way to stay connected and accessible.

Related

Samsung says you can display any photograph or printed image using the Music Frame, but it also includes a digital-print compatible Diasec matte acrylic plate Art Panel, for an even more professional and durable way to display your favorite image.

Sonos launched a similar product in collaboration with Ikea, called the Symfonisk Picture Frame Speaker, but that product only works with swappable Ikea art panels, or art created by third parties.

In typical fashion for a CES announcement, we don’t have a full set of specs for the Music Frame so we can’t give you dimensions, or details like whether it works with Apple AirPlay. But we did get an early look at the speaker — it’s undeniably cool.  Samsung also hasn’t given us pricing or a release date for the Music Frame, so stay tuned — we’ll update this post as soon as we hear more.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
Apple’s Dolby Atmos Music bounty could be a disaster for the format
dolby atmos music streaming debut on amazon hd launch

Apple is offering to pay artists more money if they provide Apple Music with versions of their songs recorded in the immersive Dolby Atmos Music format, according to a report from Bloomberg. On the surface, that makes a lot of sense, especially as Apple lays the groundwork for its soon-to-launch Apple Vision Pro headset, a device that will benefit greatly from immersive audio. But the move also could create exactly the wrong set of incentives at a time when the jury is still split over whether spatial audio for music actually is a good thing.

Apple has spent the past several years ramping up its support for spatial audio in general and Dolby Atmos specifically, through its AirPods family of wireless headphones, its Apple TV 4K streaming device, and virtually all of its computing products, too. Apple Music has a growing catalog of tracks in Dolby Atmos Music, and the Apple TV+ video streaming service offers Dolby Atmos soundtracks on nearly all of its movies and shows.

Read more
Samsung, Google are attacking Dolby Atmos’ monopoly on 3D sound, and it’s going to get ugly
Dolby Atmos Under attack.

When you think of immersive, 3D sound for movies and music, one name usually comes to mind: Dolby Atmos. Despite the existence of competing surround sound formats and technologies,like DTS:X, MPEG-H, Sony 360 Reality Audio, and Auro3D, they barely register when compared to the juggernaut that is Dolby Atmos. With strong (and growing) support from movie studios, music labels, streaming services, game consoles, smartphones, and audio equipment makers, there’s little doubt that Dolby Atmos and Dolby Atmos Music have become the de facto 3D sound standards.

And yet, if Google and Samsung get their way, Dolby Atmos’ reign as the king of immersive audio might be about to meet its biggest challenge to date. Together, the two tech giants have been quietly working on an open-source and royalty-free 3D sound format known by the awkward name Immersive Audio Model and Formats. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that format wars are rarely fought for the benefit of the public. And even a free version of Atmos that’s every bit as good as the original could face harrowing barriers to adoption.
Why do we need another Dolby Atmos?

Read more
New Klipsch tabletop wireless speakers are a more affordable, capable take on mid-century modern
Klipsch The Three Plus tabletop wireless speaker.

Klipsch's The Three Plus Klipsch

Klipsch's Heritage series of speakers have traditionally evoked a mid-century modern style, with wood veneers and fabric grilles that look as if they were pulled straight from the sets of Mad Men. The company's latest additions to the Heritage lineup -- The One Plus ($249) and The Three Plus ($399) tabletop Bluetooth speakers -- keep that same mid-century modern vibe, but reinterpret it with rounder edges, a simplified set of controls, better compatibility with digital audio sources, and lower prices. Both speakers are available in black or walnut finishes starting September 25 at

Read more