Wireless connectivity was developed over a four-year period with Stream Unlimited and is paired with a 125 W/Ch Hypex stereo amplifier. Bandwidth extends down to 30Hz with the help of a little light-touch DSP. The UPnP streaming solution is Roon-ready and accepts all of the popular services, with a data rate up to 384kHz/24bit and you also get HDMI, analogue (RCA and balanced XLR) and digital (RCA and Toslink) inputs. Wireless connectivity extends to Airplay, internet radio and podcasts.
Only one speaker is powered and both speakers employ a passive crossover – a VA speciality and key to the sense of musical coherence their designs have always enjoyed. So technically, the Mozart Infinity isn’t an active speaker at all, as the two-and-a-half way filters are conventional, subtractive designs. Of course, with only one powered cabinet, you will need to connect it to the second enclosure using a speaker cable, but before you throw up your hands in horror, that’s just substituting one (speaker) cable for another (power cable). That might seem like a practical compromise in terms of absolute flexibility, but the gains in musical performance made it a mandatory choice as far as VA was concerned, while running a single speaker wire sure beats having to chase in the cables for a new AC outlet because there doesn’t happen to be one within reach of where the second speaker needs to stand. In addition, the powered speaker can be designated for left or right channel use, further easing the issues of connecting to existing AC outlets and overall system placement.
But perhaps most important of all is the least obvious aspect/advantage of using a single powered speaker. Locating the digital electronics in a single package, rather than trying to distribute and synchronise digital signals, makes life in the digital domain significantly easier, as well as co-locating physical media sources, or hooking up the TV and X-box. And before that causes you to throw up your hands in horror (again!) let’s just remember who the target audience for this product is… Naturally, the whole system runs from an iOS/Android App although unusually, this one is simple, intuitive and actually works! Alternatively, you can access basic functions with any generic Bluetooth remote (VA don’t supply one, allowing you to choose your own).
Take a look at the Mozart Infinity’s specs and it rings a lot of my personal alarm bells. Yes, it offers analogue inputs and even a coaxial S/PDIF, but it is clearly intended primarily for use with streamed sources. It runs a digital amplifier (which is built into a speaker cabinet) and includes DSP ‘tone controls’ for bass, treble, loudness and parametric equalisation. But sit down and listen to it and all those objections simply evaporate. It also offers input sensitivity adjustments for both digital and analogue sources and a setting for maximum output level.
