Philips Spotify Connect SW750M review

Most multiroom speaker manufacturers try to support as many streaming services as possible, even releasing updates to add new services as they appear. However, even as the streaming music landscape becomes more competitive, one service still stands well ahead of all others – Spotify.

Spotify is proving so popular that Philips has partnered with the company for its first multiroom speaker system, eschewing all other services for an exclusive deal. That means that unless you have a Spotify Premium subscription, which provides access to Spotify Connect for streaming to wireless speakers, the SW750M will be nothing more than a large paperweight.

As Spotify Connect is a multiroom platform, you can add as many SW750M units to your home network as you can afford, and place them anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection. The Philips SpeakerSet Multiroom Manager app, available for iOS and Android, is the easiest way to connect extra speakers to your network, as an alternative browser-based setup will force you to connect to each speaker directly via Wi-Fi Direct in order to input your home network’s details. The process is at least straightforward, with a setup wizard taking you through the process with simple instructions.

Beyond setting up the speakers, the smartphone app is also used for grouping the speakers together and assigning different names, to help you easily identify which speaker to use. That’s about as useful as the app gets, however. Music playback is controlled entirely through the Spotify app using the Spotify Connect interface for selecting speakers. Once more than one set of speakers is grouped, they will essentially function as one speaker appearing as a group in the Spotify app. This is a bit frustrating if you later decide you only want to use the one speaker – you’ll need to then jump back into the Philips app to ungroup them before jumping back into Spotify. It would have been good if speakers could be grouped but still function independently as well.

It’s a shame the SW750M isn’t much to look at, either. It has a plain design, with a large black front face covered by a black speaker grille. Viewed from the top down it has an elliptical shape with silver accents, and the speaker angles backwards to help diffuse sound around the room. It doesn’t have anywhere near the same wow factor as other multiroom speakers from the likes of Sonos or Samsung.

Basic controls on the top include volume, track skipping and a play/pause button. One particularly useful feature is the SW750M’s ‘one-press’ functionality that resumes the last song you’ve played on Spotify just by hitting play. This is independent of what device you last used Spotify on, so you could be listening on a smartphone, laptop or tablet and pressing the play button will resume where you left off. If you listen to Spotify on your commute home, you could instantly switch to the speakers once you get in. It’s a small touch but we found it incredibly convenient.

This also means you don’t need to have a device within arm’s reach if you want to just put some music on. There isn’t a display of any kind, however, so you’ll need to have queued up a playlist beforehand. It also means there’s no way to change albums or playlists from the speaker itself.

The SW750M uses four speaker drivers, which output a combined 20W. There are two 3in woofers with rear bass reflex ports, which are paired with two 35mm tweeters. There is a strong but not unpleasant bass presence, pushing the overall sound signature towards the warmer side. If we were being picky we would have liked more crispness and detail in the mid tones and treble, as we found our Menahan Street Band test tracks lost some of their delicateness.

There is also a distinct directionality to the sound output. You’ll want to be relatively straight on to the speakers to enjoy the best sound quality. Moving to the sides and the sound definitely became thinner. At least there wasn’t a strong drop-off in quality along with it.

The speakers are able to reach a maximum volume more than loud enough to fill a medium to large-sized room, however it becomes muddy at the maximum level. Volume controls in Spotify weren’t particularly linear, either. The speakers suddenly gain a lot of volume rapidly from around 95% upwards. Overall, sound quality is more than respectable for a speaker of its price, though nothing groundbreaking.

If you are a Spotify subscriber and it’s your main music service, the SW750M makes a lot of sense. Each speaker can rival the sound quality of mid-range models from other manufacturers, but at an entry-level price.

They have a nice level of simplicity, especially with the one-press functionality for quickly playing music. However, there’s no 3.5mm auxiliary connection or Bluetooth, both of which would have made these a far more versatile set of speakers and the omission is a real shame. If you are in need of greater versatility, consider the Samsung SHAPE M3, which has more streaming service compatibility and better connectivity.