In the past few months, a number of popular audio companies have thrown their hat into the smart speaker arena supporting either Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or both. Now Phorus has also joined that group with the PS10. The new Phorus PS10 is the “first tabletop Hi Res stereo speaker system with Alexa Voice Services fully integrated”, it also supports DTS’ Play-Fi multi-room ecosystem, so those that actually use Play-Fi will be more than happy with this new speaker from Phorus, and it’ll cost $249, just a tad bit more than the Sonos One that launched this week.
The Phorus PS10 is not a portable speaker with Alexa, most speakers are launching as a simple speaker that needs to stay plugged in. The biggest reason for this is the fact that Alexa is always listening, and thus uses more battery life than a normal portable speaker would. But this doesn’t keep portable speakers from having Alexa – as is the case with the Ultimate Ears BLAST and MEGABLAST speakers that were just announced. But with Phorus PS10’s high-resolution audio, it would need a fairly large battery to get things done. Inside the Phorus PS10, there are two neodymium 65mm transducers, two 4-inch bass radiators, along with 30W Dual Class D digital amplifiers. The Phorus PS10 does allow for streaming over WiFi, but you can also plug in a 3.5mm cable and stream wired as well, if that is your preferred method.
With the Phorus PS10 being a third-party Alexa speaker, it won’t get all of the same music streaming services as something like the Amazon Echo or Amazon Tap which are first-party Alexa speakers. This is because Amazon reserves the majority of music services for its own hardware. But the majority of the popular music streaming services will be available for the Phorus PS10 to stream. This includes Spotify, Google Play Music, Amazon Music Unlimited and a few others. Now if you are a Play-Fi user, you’ll have a few other options as well for streaming to this speaker. The Phorus PS10 is available for purchase from Phorus’ website right now, it’ll cost you $249.
Buy the Phorus PS10