I’ve been a big fan of Samsung The Frame. I feel like I’ve gone on record to anyone that will listen that it is one of my favourite (if not the favourite) TV innovations in the last 5-10 years. I’ve got one in my bedroom, and everybody that sees it is absolutely amazed that it’s a TV. If It weren’t for so desperately wanting OLED for gaming purposes, I’d absolutely have one in the living room as well.
I was super excited when Samsung announced that it’d be bringing out the Music Frame. Whilst there’s no digital display on offer here, it carries on the name by the fact that it’s designed to blend into your furniture with a frame, and this time, it’s all about audio rather than visual.
Speaking of the design, it comes with an insert that can be replaced with an 8×10 photo that is surrounded by a white border, or you can also order your own inserts that go in over the top of it. These easily snap out and snap back in using a four prong attachment system and it does require a bit of force to get them in and out, but I never felt at risk of damaging the speaker.
Now, I absolutely love the design at play, especially how you can add your own art in, but because the Frame technology has come so far in the TV space with its matte display, I was really hoping that it’d be a virtual matte display when it was first announced, because it’d be so amazing to display what art is playing. I understand that’d drive the price up and can only hope we see this come in a later version as I think people would snap it up.
Really the only other thing that’s worth speaking about from a design component are the controls that are cleverly on the back side. These allow you to control volume, turn the microphone on or off and switch between the various modes. I like how discreet it is, although it is a little bit hard to know whether you’re pushing the buttons or not. As far as inputs go, you’ve got power, an Optical port in and a USB port that’s for a Samsung Smart Hub accessory.
In the box, you get a stand to place the Music Frame on a side table, and you also get the necessary pieces to attach these to the wall as well, which is where I’d imagine most people wanting to place them. Just like any Samsung TV that has a One Connect box, you get a really thin light grey cord that should be well disguised against any cord, and it’s super long too, which will allow for flexibility.
There’s a huge amount of connectivity options, with Bluetooth connectivity being able to be used with any Bluetooth device, tap to play with any compatible Android advice, AirPlay 2 works from your iPhone and you can also connect Google Home/Alexa as well.
THE CHEAPEST PRICE: $699 FROM SAMSUNG STORE
To get the most out of your Music Frames, you’ll want to connect it to the Smart Things app, and you’ll need to do this to pair two of them together. It’s fairly simple to do this, and you can then take advantage of grouping them together (you can pair 6 of them). Whilst you can group them, I don’t think you can use two of them for stereo music which is fine as I doubt most people will want to do this anyways, but I’d definitely like the option.
The sound that comes out of one of these is super loud with loads of bass and clarity, but put two of them together and wow, the sound that comes out will absolutely wake the neighbours up. I’m somebody that loves blasting music, but I couldn’t go above 20-30 with how loud these got, and still with loads of clarity too.
Samsung’s SpaceFit Sound Pro technology also can recognise the environment for the room and adjust accordingly. It’s always really hard to tell whether this works well or not, but I definitely noticed subtle changes, so just play with it to your taste.
Probably the coolest feature is the ability to sync these with 2024 Samsung soundbars through Q-Symphony. Whilst I wasn’t able to do this in my home (I’ve got a 2023 soundbar), I did get to take advantage in a recent session when I reviewed the S95D. My partner hates what our rear speakers look like, so the ability to put two of these on a wall behind you, is a much, much better looking solution than two regular speakers, and I absolutely can see this being a good use case for a lot of people that want better sound without more bulky speakers around the room. You can also use them to enhance bass from the TV as well.
All-in-all, if you’re looking for an extremely stylish way to add speakers around your house or even just bulk up your TV speaker listening experience, there’s not too many ways that are better than the Music Frame if design is important to you. They don’t come cheap at over $700 but it’s a small price to place for how nice they look.
