It's clear from the popularity of Samsung's The Frame TVs that people really appreciate home cinema tech that doesn't take up masses of visual space in a room.
Those TVs are brilliant at looking like artwork when they're not in use, and Samsung has clearly learnt from their success, as one of its CES 2024 launches demonstrates.
Its new Music Frame speakers are effectively cribbing from the same notes, offering a compact and stealthy speaker that looks for all the world like a small piece of framed art.
That idea is heavily reminiscent of Ikea and Sonos' team-up on the Symfonisk frame speaker, although the Music Frame looks far less conspicuous and a bit classier, with an actual frame rather than a free-floating design.
As a square with each side measuring around 33cm, it's also a lot smaller than Sonos' own stealthy speaker, which is another potential point of attraction.
The speaker is essentially hidden behind an actual print; that band of black is an opening through which sound flows, and Samsung says there will be plenty of options for that print when it launches, so you can pick your style.
We're dreaming of a day when you can actually create your own designs and prints, of course, but there's no sign that's going to be there at launch (which should be sometime in 2024).
Samsung says you can use the Music Frame either as a standalone wireless speaker or pair a few of them to a 2024 Samsung TV or soundbar to create a surround system for home cinema audio.
That's a pretty compelling option given that it basically eliminates the need to have obvious speakers to the left and right of your sofa of choice, and we've no doubt this will prove popular among the aesthetically minded.
The Music Frame also apparently has built-in woofers, which should mean that it has decent bass performance despite its unconventional size and shape, although we haven't been able to test this ourselves.
As with so many CES launches, we don't have a firm idea of pricing or a release date for Music Frame, but we'd expect it to launch in the near future, and certainly in 2024 given how polished it's looking.
