A new British company, Musaic, will unveil its forthcoming wireless whole-house hi-fi system at the huge CES 2014 trade event next week.

Headed by former Audio Partnership Technical Director Matthew Bramble, who was responsible for many recent Cambridge Audio and Mordaunt-Short products, the company will seek funding via Kickstarter from February 2014, and aims to have a complete suite of products on sale midway through the year.

The Musaic system will encompass wireless Music Players in a range of sizes: the MP5 is  the smallest model, designed for kitchens and bedrooms; the MP10 is for larger spaces and has a built-in subwoofer; and the range-topping MP20 uses five digital amplifiers and is said to have ‘acoustics to match traditional hi-fi systems’.

Providing the music will be the company’s HS20 Home Server, designed to store and back up music collections, while the Musaic system will play music from Apple and Android devices, Mac and Windows computers and UPnP/DLNA servers.

Internet radio will be built-in, giving access to tens of thousands of radio stations worldwide, and the system will also work with streaming services including Napster, Rhapsody and SomaFM.

The players will offer the ability to play different content in each room, or bring all theplayers in a home together in ‘party mode’, will feature touch-controls, simplicity of operation being a major part of the design, and are designed to integrate with existing home automation systems.

As well as the on-unit touch-controls, individual Musaic devices – or a complete system – will be controllable using a clear, simple but flexible app for tablets and smartphones.

The company, which is headquartered in London’s Shoreditch, says that ‘Musaic is simply a great sounding music system because first and foremost we wanted to make great sounding products.

‘That's our background, and mission – to make products that make our music, and your music, sound great. On top of that, we wanted convenience and simplicity, we wanted it to be wireless, and we wanted it to be intuitive to use.’

Written by Andrew Everard