McIntosh RS250 Wireless Loudspeaker System

The McIntosh RS250 is the most powerful wireless loudspeaker McIntosh builds, and it is a genuinely stand-alone system rather than a speaker that needs something else to drive it. Six hundred and fifty watts across eight drivers in one 24-inch chassis: two 20mm fluid-filled titanium dome tweeters and four 50mm inverted titanium dome midranges firing forward, with two 4 x 6-inch long-throw woofers firing downward from beneath the chassis. Four hundred watts go to the tweeters and midranges, 250 to the woofers.

What separates it from most one-box wireless speakers is the refusal to require an app of its own. Spotify Connect, TIDAL Connect, AirPlay 2, Bluetooth 5.0, Chromecast and Roon Ready are all built in, and the RS250 is controlled from whichever streaming app you already use. It is a Roon Ready certified endpoint and handles files to 24-bit/192kHz and TIDAL HiFi lossless.

The connectivity is where it stops being a lifestyle product and starts being a system. There is a moving magnet phono input, so a turntable connects directly with no separate stage. There is an HDMI ARC input for a television — audio only, and a considerably better answer than a soundbar. Optical and 3.5mm auxiliary inputs, a wired subwoofer output for a powered sub, a front-panel quarter-inch headphone jack, and Ethernet alongside the Wi-Fi. That is enough to make the RS250 the hub of a modest system rather than an accessory to one.

It also carries a pair of McIntosh's illuminated digital output meters, which use the same signal circuits as the company's analogue meters before digitising the result into gradated bars in the familiar curved shape. With the black glass front panel and illuminated logo, it reads as McIntosh across a room. The right answer for a great room, a study, a bedroom or a second home where a full separates system makes no sense but the sound still has to be right. Walk in during business hours or book ahead to hear one.