Ruark Audio MR1 Active Bluetooth Speakers Soft White

Beautiful to look at, small but perfectly formed. Sitting neatly on my fireplace the sound is sumptuous and articulate. They are a cut above the rest when it comes to active speakers at their price point. Believe me I've been searching for speakers for a while now. The sound is effortless. Currently listening to Kate Bush and she's never sounded so wonderful. Thoroughly recommend these little beauties.

These are a nice pair of speakers - lovely to look at, simple to use and there's no need to faff around with extra wires or plugs. The little remote control is also the perfect size for what it does, its petite-ness compliments the compact speakers beautifully.I've knocked a star off because the first set I ordered were unbalanced and had to be returned. I spent hours and hours researching other speakers - which were all comparatively large - before purchasing another Ruark set exactly the same, this time with no problems. As there's no Balance knob on the speakers that could cause problems later on, or for people with unbalanced hearing. There are no Treble or Bass knobs either and while that's fine for the most part (after all they were made by accoustic experts) if you intend to use them with older equipment there may potentially be problems. They give perfect stereo sound to my new pocket DAB radio, but only mono sound with my older Solar DAB. The sound from a cd walkman also sounds appallingly muffled with singing/voice playing through these, even though the same Walkman sounds great through a Marshall stereo speaker.Paired with an old computer though these bookshelf speakers are fine playing all genres of music and certainly pack a punch volume-wise in a small to medium-sized room. I'm happy with my purchase over all, but advise other potential customers that they may end up having to upgrade their old kit to use these to their full advantage.

Bluetooth didn't work, product returned

They had connection problems from day one. I constantly have to reset them and continue to give me headaches. Sound is clear, when you get it, but not that impressive. These are expensive speakers, very expensive. Given their price they should work like a charm. The only reason they get two stars is because their customer support responds promptly.

Had to return my first pair as faulty due to the remote stopping working after a day. Second pair though I can't fault them. Have I heard better? Yes, but not at this price or in such a compact unit. I always take professional reviews with a pinch of salt but I think these speakers live up to their reputation. They more than hold their own as my main stereo for music and films and easily fill a good sized room with sound. Worth positioning near a wall for extra bass as they recommend in the manual.

Just fantastic

Totally overrated. I have a pair of harmon kardon sound sticks for my office Mac and I had a pair of aego 2.1 for my gaming PC so I know good pc audio, the aego's are in my opinion the best I've ever heard. I replaced my Aego's with the ruarks as one of the speakers wasn't working properly.I read loads of reviews including what hifi that praise them. I'm clearly in the minority but from the moment I first turned them on I was disappointed. They are really poor IMO. Very poor, my sound sticks sound better. They are just really tinny sounding at both low and high volume. For the price I'm gutted. Wish I'd returned. Honestly even at £70 I wouldn't be that happy with these. If you want a really good set of speakers I'd go with the aego's.

Oodles of power, easy to install and use, great for streaming Spotify/UPnP audio from a tablet or phone - and still small enough to sit on top of the kitchen wall cupboards. You can get cheaper speakers, but they're bigger, they lack features, they're not remote control, or some combination of all of those.