A soundbar covered in wool? Sounded interesting so we had to take a look. The Libratone Diva Soundbar is exactly that and surprisingly it looks great. It comes in their ‘Pepper Black’ colour but you have the chance to change that to a whole range of colours to match any interior design. You’re given a code on purchase for one free coloured cover as long as you’re in the EU.
The Libratone Diva Soundbar is absolutely huge compared to other soundbars on the market. It is only a bar meaning no seperate subwoofer but truthfully doesn’t need it. Treble and bass frequencies are blended together nicely without one overpowering the other or causing disturbance to the main projected sounds.
The wooly casing covers all the speakers. Present are two ribbon tweeters, two midrange drivers and a solid subwoofer in the centre. To top it off it also has a digital amplifier built in kicking out 225w of digital power. It can easilly fill a large living room with sound.
I was surprised to see it wasn’t supplied with a remote control, instead taking advantage of the home network setup it requires. Your mobile phone acts as the remote control which for some reason wasn’t keen on the idea. Once the soundbar is connected you can stream music from any wireless device present on the network. The mobile app which is available on both Android and iOS lets you customise basic sound. It only gives you EQ presets to chose from. I expected to be able to have full control over the equiliser. Getting the Libratone Diva to talk to my network was a bit challening. It took several attempts to actually set it up.
There are very few connections on the Libratone Diva Soundbar but this isn’t really a problem. There is power which is supplied via a figure of eight plug, a 3.5mm jack for auxillary products such as iPods and laptops, an optical port for televisions to amplify digital sound and a USB port. You can connect your mobile to the soundbar via Bluetooth for wireless music.
Overall I was extremely impressed with the design and sound quality of the Libratone Diva. The customisable woolly covers are a nice touch. Sound levels are near perfect with just enough bass and treble to hold your attention. The only thing I thought was strange was the lack of remote. Having to set the soundbar up to a home network to access the remote feature may put some people off, especially older generations who may not have grown up with computers and networks.
You can find more information on the Libratone website as well as the many different colours on offer.
