The Yamaha Relit LSX-70: Adding ambiance to your lighting

Meet Yamaha's lighting audio system

Yamaha’s Relit LSX-70 is part of what it calls "lighting audio systems", and it represents quite an interesting proposition: a table lamp that also works as a wireless speaker, projecting audio 360-degrees across the room. The lamp itself (or rather, lighting system) is very elegantly designed, and rather than bathing part of your table with light, projects soft mood lighting that perhaps, serve as a clue as to what type of music they would play best. As the website states: "The concept of the LSX-70 is to create a pleasant and calming atmosphere wherever you happen to be."

So, it would seem a little misplaced to judge the LSX-70 as simply a portable wireless speaker (as we normally would), but rather as a lifestyle product that for now at least, is unique in its offerings. Four adjustable LED lights allow you to adjust the brightness of the lamp, while the reflector top also doubles up as a reflector for audio. Essentially, audio gets projected up towards the reflector, and then sent all around thanks to the conical design.

Built with wireless convenience in mind, the LSX-70 supports Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR (A2DP), SBC, AAC and aptX for better handling of audio streaming, which means you should be able to enjoy at least CD-quality streaming audio if your playback device supports aptX too. The LSX-70 also handily supports Apple Airplay, so you’re not limited to just the DTA controller app for control over playback.

Though it’s not specifically listed as being able to do so, the LSX-70 will support playback of High Resolution audio (HRA), as we were able to stream over files in both FLAC and ALAC formats at 192kHz sampling rates, so that should be welcome news for audiophiles.

Long and slim, the LSX-70 has only two sets of buttons down the rear, with two ports - one for the power supply, and another for a standard 3.5mm audio jack. On the left you get the power button for the speaker portion, as well as basic volume controls, while the row of buttons down the right allow you to turn the light on and off, as well as to adjust its brightness. This is all wrapped in a lush leather band across the bottom, making a nice finish that’s also extremely easy to grip.

While it may seem a little unintuitive to have an extra power button just for the speaker itself, this allows you to activate the speaker without turning on the light. Turning on either the speaker or the light activates the Bluetooth connection, which will let you control both lamp and speaker functions via Yamaha’s DTA controller app (available on the iTunes App Store and Google Play). Conversely, turning off both functions on the app gives you a notification that the speaker itself will shut off (along with the Bluetooth connection), after which you’ll have to manually switch the LSX-70 on again.

It’s quite a convenient approach to handling the operations of this lamp/speaker, as it means you won’t have to walk over in the dark to switch the lamp off. Turning it off completely also keeps the battery from draining unnecessarily through the night by staying in some form of stand-by mode, though if you want to make use of the alarm function, you’ll have to leave both the Bluetooth connection and speaker mode active as the LSX-70 will then get updates on time from your smartphone. The "alarm" in this case, is a selected track from your iPhone’s music library, and you basically set the times by which the alarm (and/or light) goes on and off respectively.

The unit itself is light enough to carry with single-handed at just 0.95kg, which should allow for more placement options, though the 8-hour battery life means you will still need to locate the lamp near a wall socket for recharging at least a few times a week assuming you use it on a daily basis. 

Performance

As we mentioned earlier, the LSX-70 is able to support playback of HRA files, so we tested it with both HRA audio and our usual staple of audio testing files, one thing was immediately obvious - when playing through an audio cable or through other apps, the speaker actually plays louder and slightly clearer. The HRA tracks we tested also had slightly more body in the mids, with greater definition overall, leaving us to wonder if the DTA controller app is artificially toning down the performance of the speaker overall.

What is obvious both ways, is that the speaker displays more of an analytical sound signature, with an emphasis on the mid-to-upper registers. There’s pretty good clarity on instruments, but the drivers seem to lack body in the lower registers. If you’re connecting to the speaker via Bluetooth, the volume is certainly a little lacking, as we found we had to keep it close to maximum volume for acceptable listening. Switch to a cable connection though, and you’ll find that the speaker is capable of going quite a bit louder - enough to fill a small room perhaps.

Not that it would fit the profile of this 'moody' light emitting speaker perhaps, acoustic tracks work best here, as do classical pieces. For example, the LSX-70 produces a most enjoyable rendition of Ed Sheeren’s Thinking Out Loud on his X album – vocals are clear, and the guitar rings out nicely, while you can easily pick out the backing vocals when they chime in too.

Switching to Keith Don’t Go by Nils Lofgren worked well too, as the focus on the guitar plays well to its strengths, while Lofgren’s raspy vocals were captured nicely. Where the LSX-70 runs into trouble is with tracks that demand a bit more oomph and body. For example, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (and certainly most Queen songs) and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters seem to fall a little flat when it comes to the lower registers, but as we’ve mentioned above, these shouldn’t be the type of tracks you have queued for this lamp/speaker combo product. Rather, the keywords to keep in mind should be "intimate" and "relaxing".

MP3 testing

Putting the speaker through our standard MP3 tests only served to confirm our above findings further.

With Adele’s Melt My Heart to Stone, the LSX-70’s performance was really all about the way it rendered Adele’s vocals – which was slightly warm and clear, with quite a bit of sibilance detected. The lower mids and bass notes from the backing instruments were for the most bit fairly withdrawn, but for this particular track it didn’t detract from the performance much.

Moving on to Elements of Life by Tiesto, and again the lack of a lower register detracts from the performance of the speaker, as this particular track seems underpowered and a little muffled. There simply isn’t enough depth to draw you in to the piece, and this is most evident at about the 0:58 mark of the track where the bass line descends down the scale. The LSX-70 does okay with the mids and later the higher notes, but this really isn’t the sort of track the speaker is meant to play.

Buckethead’s Sail On Soothsayer on the other hand, performed much better, as more of this piece lies in the upper mids to the trebles. The intro comes in nicely and the solo plays out fairly nicely for this reason. So, despite the fact that it doesn’t exactly fall into the genres of “instrumental” or “acoustic”, the piece actually plays out fairly nicely.

Hotel California proved to be the best track of the bunch, with this Eagle’s classic being heavy on guitar solos. Don Henley and Joe Walsh’s vocals were nice and clear, and there was a decent amount of separation between the vocals and the backing instruments, but we feel the LSX-70 did a pretty good job with the backing instruments, rendering the shakers, guitars and bongo drums well.

Final thoughts

As a portable Bluetooth speaker, the LSX-70 provides decent performance if you stay with tracks that focus more on the instrumental sections. Given the way the sound really does radiate evenly all around, we’d say the reflector design really works, but having to necessitate the tall slim design is probably why the audio had to be compromised a little. If you're looking for a bit more robust sound, we'd recommend taking a look at the LSX-170, which is larger and has two upward firing speakers.

We’re a little curious as to why playback of audio via Bluetooth is softer when we use the DTA controller app as opposed to streaming the files over Apple Airplay, but that’s certainly something that can easily be fixed with an app update. In terms of value, we think S$399 is about right for this lamp/speaker combo given the quality of the finish, and the dual purpose nature of this product. Overall though, the LSX-70 is simply a gorgeous looking lamp/speaker that will fit nicely into any living room.

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