Sound quality: Harman Kardon's Aura had very good overall sound quality. Bass has good impact and goes deep but lacks some definition. Midrange is somewhat even but is slightly muffled, and gritty. Treble is extended but upper treble is somewhat rolled off. The speaker does a good job of recovering room ambience--a sense of the acoustic space in which the recording was made--but it lacks treble air, and midrange is slightly congested and lacks some treble detail. We found no significant difference in sound quality whether we used a WiFi, Bluetooth, optical, or wired connection. This model can provide a decent volume level in a small to medium-sized room.
Ease of use: We found the system's ease of use to be good overall. Bluetooth pairing was generally easy but the Bluetooth pairing control was a multifunction button that was not clearly marked. WiFi Direct pairing was an unnecessarily tedious process, but setting up the initial WiFi connection for AirPlay was easy to do it when using an iOS device. WiFi setup for DLNA was poor, not because it was difficult, but because no instructions were provided with the unit. The speaker had easy-to-use touch controls for volume and source selection, but it lacks a mute control. The speaker doesn't come with a remote control, but the free Harman Kardon AirPlay app for Apple iOS devices functions as a fairly full-featured remote control that's a bit hard to navigate until you get used to it.
