Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 MP3 Player

£399.00 Bowers & Wilkins MM-1 £399.00

£399.00 from John Lewis

John Lewis ref:231072508

MM-1s aren’t like other computer speakers. They’re true hi-fi speakers, shrunk to fit on your desktop. So they don’t just look great – they sound amazing, transforming your computer into a superb hi-fi stereo sound system. But then you’d expect nothing less from Bowers and Wilkins, the makers of the award-winning Zeppelin iPod speaker, not to mention some of the most advanced studio speakers in the world. Once they were for filling out spreadsheets and typing letters. Now computers are used for almost everything: socializing, playing games, listening to music, watching videos. So it seems a shame that deskbound entertainment fans have always had to make do with sub-standard audio, either from a computer's built-in speakers or poor quality monitors. No longer. MM-1 brings true hi-fi quality sound to your desktop for the first time, giving your computer the audio it deserves. Most computer speakers have to make do with just one drive unit to handle the full spectrum of frequencies. Not so with the MM-1. Just like a full-size speaker, it has two drivers, one dedicated to bass and midrange frequencies and another for the treble. So there’s a reason why MM-1 reproduces sound with the accuracy of a true hi-fi speaker: that's exactly what it is. All hi-fi set ups have a sweet spot - the area in the listening space where music sounds at its best. With full size hi-fi , that area is usually some distance away from the speakers. So we've made some electronic adjustments to the MM-1 to make sure the sweet spot is where you are: a few feet from the computer screen. You'll always be right in the middle of the action. Some of B&W’s most pioneering technology has found its way into the MM-1. The tweeters, for example, incorporate the tube-loaded design the company first developed for their famous Nautilus speakers, which dampens resonance and produces purer high frequency sounds. You’ll find the same technology in their studio-standard speakers, used by the likes of Abbey Road Studios. There’s an art to producing a big sound from small speakers and it’s thanks to a clever piece of electronic fine-tuning called Digital Signal Processing. By adjusting the sound balance depending on the signal, DSP keeps bass effects powerful and music sounding rich and detailed, no matter how loud you play it. MM-1 makes private listening a pleasure, thanks to its high-quality headphone output. When you plug your headphones directly into the speakers, the audio from your computer is enhanced by high quality DACs used in the MM-1, producing a sound that’s a noticeable improvement over the standard PC or Mac headphone output. Computer speakers normally have to rely on the wildly varying quality of the computer's analogue output signal. MM-1 is different. It streams audio directly from your computer via USB and converts the signal from digital to analogue internally. So you'll always get the best possible audio quality, independent of the computer output. Please note: Even though the MM-1 is designed for computers, an aux line-in socket means you can hook up your speakers with almost anything, including your iPod or CD and DVD players (cable not included)