Reviews for Libratone Live Speaker with AirPlay Technology

This speaker produces great sound. It was easy to set up and works great across all my devices(iPhone, ipad, macbook, iMac). It also works great when friends are over and want to show you some new music they have on their phone, just select the speaker and they can play from their phone. Very clean sound, I found using the voicing optimization app actually makes a big difference depending on the speaker placement. Overall I'm very happy with this speaker, there have been about 4 times (over a year period) where I've had to reset it to make the connection work. I would give it 5 stars if this hadn't happened. To be fair though, it could have been a network problem and not the speakers fault.
Great speaker that has worked flawlessly 98.876404% of the time

When I bought a speaker late last year (wanted to test the technology before purchasing more), it had good sound quality and worked well over AirPlay except for dropping sound very occasionally. However, I have moved and bought a new wireless modem. When I tried to reconnect to AirPlay, I initially succeeded only to have the speaker go into endless search (yellowing blinking) mode after an unsuccessful attempt to download an update to the Libratone iPAD app. I have tried everything - even the factory reboot, and nothing will get the speaker working again. Not what one expects for speakers that cost this much.

Having a couple Airport Express units for connecting powered speakers I kept looking toward a neater solution in a small package and this Libratone got my attention. I absolutely dislike extra cords running between things, especially external power supplies lying about the floor. This unit has the simple power cord and nothing more. Adding to the simplicity is one multifunction logo-button on front and a recessed power switch on back.

Since I use a long password containing special characters for my Airport wireless I had to temporarily simplify it for the initial connection. One other speed bump is having to discover the MAC Address of the unit as it's not provided in labels nor in the internal setup page. That's due to my using Airport's managed access and I did not want to disable it even for a few minutes. I hope they add that to their setup.

After connecting, I immediately checked for the firmware update with the iPhone app which installed quickly and that allowed me to continue using the special characters for the wireless network. Connections from my iMac, Macbook Air, iPhones and iPads have been working fine, no disconnects.

I was surprised at the sound from this compact unit, better depth and definition than the separate power speakers I have, and stronger, healthier bass which is much less muddy. Very nice indeed.

Liking the overall esthetics (both design and technical) I intend on getting a couple more for the house, nothing else out there quite like it. Pricey - maybe, but when I forked out a small fortune for my first computer many decades ago a friend pointed out I had the best reason in the world to buy it: "It's because I wanted it." Haven't had buyers remorse then or now!

every time i move it from room to another room, unplug it re-plug it, need to setup the wifi again and again to make it play, it can't stall data of wifi ?!!!

After days of research in looking for the best airplay speaker setup for a small room, I found these units. This is the best rated speakers I could find with great sound quality and design (they look amazing). However, the support structure at Libratone is horrendous. On their website they do not provide a phone number to contact support. They also don't provide detailed specs of their products. When I received my units (I bought 5), I found the packaging and instructions easy to follow. However, once I attempted to connect to my wireless network, the speaker showed and error. I tried three times and finally gave up and emailed support. It took them a week to respond to my initial email. The verdict.....
"The use of special characters such as #, &, %, or any national characters in your SPEAKER NAME, WIRELESS NETWORK NAME or WIRELESS NETWORK PASSWORD is not supported. If you use these characters please replace them with alphanumeric characters only." Libratone Support.
As an IT professional, I can tell you, special characters in a password line is a requirement. To find a device that does not support that is unacceptable. To have to wait an entire week to hear back from the support department at a company is unacceptable. While waiting for the reply I did get a chance to setup an un-secured wireless network and test this device. I will say, these speakers sound amazing. The amount of customization to the sound with the iOS app is amazing as well. All in all, these speakers are nice, but with poor support and faulty wireless coding.

Not only great song and great design.
What makes the difference is the efficiency and the reactivity of there online support.

Purchased the Libratone in Dec 2011. Have had connectivity issues from day one with Apple's Airport Extreme 2nd and 5th Generation routers. I contacted Libratone and their Customer Service was quick to respond that there were known issues and that a firmware update was coming in Jan. It is now mid-February and there is still no update.

The workaround offered was to connect the unit with a minijack cable. I tried this today figuring that why not use it on my flatscreen TV (older Panasonic Viera Plasma). Unfortunately the Panasonic does not control the output level passing through the analog out and the Libratone has no volume controls on the unit. Net result a very loud volume output. According to the Libratone FAQ, the unit volume should be controllable from their iPhone app but that did not work from my iPhone4S. The app indicates that the speaker is not playing any sound.

I truly hope they can fix their problems but for now, it is not working as advertised. For me at least...

I would be very keen to learn what network configuration the other positive reviews had.

If by the end of the month, they have not resolved the problem, I will have to take Libratone up on their offer to refund the purchase of the product as I have now had a neat looking paper weight sitting in my dining room for almost 2 months.

Great idea but unfortunately not properly executed.

I was looking for a satellite speaker for the living room for music. I went to the Apple Store thinking I was going to shell out $1300 for the Libratone Lounge (which was not in stock) and instead found the Live. Very pleasantly surprised at only 50% of the cost! Had music playing in about a minute after plugging it in. The setup is simple. The sound is great. Much better than the low end iPod dock-type equipment that's all around. The look is unobtrusive. You need a solid WiFi signal. Only one or two dropped signals, usually when I start heavy downloading on a computer on the same network.

Overall, a great solution.

This speaker sounds as great as it looks. Plenty of sound even for outdoor use. I took this to a party last week with a Sprint Overdrive mifi device and my iPad2, that was all that was needed for music for the party and no fooling around with someone else's wifi network. One outlet was all I needed.