Primare Allt-i-Ett one box system
Allt-i-Ett. No, not a secret keyboard shortcut to hack Elon Musk’s PIN number but, if you speak Swedish or Norwegian, simply ‘all-in-one’. After a 41 year run building some of the world’s sleekest Scandi-fi separates for both music and home cinema lovers, Allt-i-Ett is Primare’s long-awaited lifestyle concept album, the Swedish brand’s spotless, single-box take on an idea that dates back half a century to the genesis of the music centre but designed for today’s converged, space-saving digital sensibilities.
A radical departure, maybe, but Primare through and through, not least in an aesthetic informed by the company’s oft cited touchstone lagom ‘just the right amount’. Well, on the outside, anyway. Powered down, the Allt-i-Ett, if stood on its end, looks like a dark metal monolith, adornment a word banished from the design language that created it. Horizontal and switched on, it isn’t exactly Times Square, save perhaps for the motorised display panel that, when activated, glides up from the flat plane of the top panel. Flashy eye candy? No. Neat with the bells left off.
I’ll get to how hugely specified and versatile the Allt-i-Ett is in a moment. Confounding expectations of what can be shoehorned into such a compact unit, it truly is Primare’s magnum opus of integrated audio tech, despatched with typical squeaky-clean precision and cutting-edge efficiency. Yet, perhaps as never before, the elephant in the room lumbers forwards. This is not hi-fi as we know it. Curating a decent stereo system from separate components tends to have minimal redundancy. A lane to sonic satisfaction is chosen, using up most or all an amplifier’s analogue inputs if a streamer, CD player, turntable et al are plumbed in. All right, a few boxes, not to mention two speakers, but the upshot is essentially a lean system tailored for purpose and individual tastes.
Contrast this with the Primare’s vast catch-all connectivity, probably the most comprehensive for an all-in-one to date. From a personal perspective you might elect to use it all but probably won’t. From Primare’s perspective, the net is spread as wide as possible to cater to as many customers and their needs as it can, not least those who just want something that can do everything even if they don’t need it to. Sound business you might say. But these customers will be paying for features they’re never going to use, not to mention state-of-the-art DSP attempting to replicate a two-speaker stereo soundstage from a single box and, however good, never quite nailing it.
But all this naysaying is straight out of the purist audiophile playbook. Those less resistant to being swept along by the expanding, tech-led convenience/convergence zeitgeist might well imagine they’re riding the perfect wave to the future where pure sonic excellence matches and – whisper it – even eclipses the appeal of the classic, lovingly curated passive separates system, with all its audiophile affirming cables and clutter.
Moveable feast
The Allt-i-Ett is perhaps the most enthusiastic cheerleader yet for a very different kind of promised land, a veritable moveable feast of friendly, flexible functionality delivering ‘high-fidelity’ sound but without the audiophile attitude and attendant baggage. Primare’s publicity explains the mission, casting the Allt-i-Ett as ‘an all-in-one designed for everyone in the household to explore, discover and share the satisfying experience of high-fidelity music and movies anywhere in the home.’ Yes, the Allt-i-Ett can serve equally well as a superior kind of soundbar, no sonic stone left unturned in the thrust of its design brief.
The reveal continues in a strong lifestyle-led vein, extolling the virtues of ‘a complete high-performance sound system for those may not have the space, budget, or even desire for separate components, as well as for those who already enjoy a full-scale audio system but want uncompromised sound in other rooms of the home’.
Nothing new or unique there but, being late to the game, Primare seems to have thrown everything at the Allt-i-Ett in its belief of out-performing the competition, both in sound quality and user flexibility – even those with the core all-in-one chops built into a pair of active speakers (KEF LS50 Wireless II, Technics SC-CX700), never mind one-box rivals such as Naim’s 2nd gen Mu-So, Sonus Faber’s super stylish Omnia and JBL’s monster L75ms.
Firepower
If ‘room-filling sound’ is a requirement, and it invariably is, firepower enacted by a generous driver-count is a good place to start, and the Primare isn’t found wanting, though it has a few other tricks to contribute in this area. Remove the magnetically attached full-width fabric grille and you’re only seeing part of the story. In total there are six long-throw 102mm bass units: two front-firing, two rear-firing and two down-firing. These are custom made for the Allt-i-Ett and utilise a polymer cone material, chosen for optimum lightness and stiffness.
The drivers share a single chamber for each left and right array, tuned with a measured amount of damping material to control internal cabinet resonances and promote a ‘clean, natural sound’. The pack of woofers is joined by two 102mm midrange drivers which, again, reside in their own isolated chambers with non-parallel sides to minimise internal reflections.
Sitting in shallow waveguides, the 19mm silk dome tweeters at either end of the front baffle are thus modified to align their dispersion patterns with those of the midrange drivers, the aim being to achieve a smooth, balanced sound both on-axis and off axis. The tweeters also benefit from a cardioid shaped rear chamber to control back-wave energy without introducing unwanted overdamping.
Active and passive
Amplification, unsurprisingly, is Class D with a generous claimed 300 watt peak produced by four DSP controlled amps divided two ways, one pair driving the left and right mid/tweeter sections, the other pair the left and right bass unit groups. An active digital crossover manages the bass frequencies while a passive crossover handles the mids and treble.
Naturally, DSP has a big say in proceedings, as it always does in single box arrays seeking to project an expansive stereo soundstage. Primare’s efforts potentially go a little further than most, setting out to combine a sound profile specifically tailored to your room with spatial effects that construct a convincing 3D soundstage. Pretty standard are the placement options offered: free-standing, near a wall, in a corner. The different modes adjust frequency balance and timing to compensate for reflections and boundary effects of nearby walls and surfaces.
More sophisticated is Auto Room EQ. This requires Primare’s Prisma app and a microphone (either your phone’s or the optional Zen mic) and uses pink noise sweeps to analyse room acoustics before applying corrective filtering, especially in the bass region, to flatten the frequency response and reduce room-mode peaks. There’s also an 11-band graphic equaliser if you want to finesse the outcome manually.
But perhaps the biggest enhancement comes courtesy of the built in Bacch 3D Spatial Audio tech which uses advanced crosstalk cancellation techniques to manipulate the signal delivered to each ear, fooling the brain into perceiving a wider, more three-dimensional soundstage. Spatial cues in recordings that might otherwise be masked in regular stereo playback are easier to hear and appreciate, thus not merely mimicking the inherent advantages of a two-speaker system but improving on them. That’s the theory, anyway.
Connectivity, compatibility and on-board features are, as I hinted earlier, firmly in the kitchen sink class. Digital inputs offer up one HDMI eARC/CEC to hi-fi your TV, two Toslink optical, one RCA coax digital, one USB-A. Analogue inputs pair a line-level RCA socket and a moving magnet phono stage.
As for wireless and network beats, Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet are supplemented by Bluetooth 5.0 (SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD codecs) and built-in FM and DAB+ radio tuners. The Prisma platform supports UPnP/DLNA, internet radio and provides native support for Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect and Qobuz Connect. Airplay 2? Of course.
Sound quality
First things first. Heaving the Allt-i-Ett from its carton, I can’t imagine anyone not being taken by its 16kg mass and immaculate build. It feels as valuable as its £2,700 would lead you to hope; pride of ownership tends to follow. Powering up and getting connected is so intuitive, visits to the user guide (just one in my case, to activate the motorised display via the functions menu) should be fleeting at worst. And the Prisma app is straightforward and clear.
For the purposes of the Allt-i-Ett review, I did try the pink noise room EQ function. As has been the case in my modestly sized and well damped room with other such systems, the result was of dubious value – different in a slightly contrived way rather than notably better. Messing around with the graphic equaliser didn’t hold much appeal, either. Straight out of the box sounded great, and that’s how it stayed.
To keep the new Primare all-in-one company, I wheeled in two much older stalwarts of the one-box breed, Sonus Faber’s Omnia and JBL’s L75ms, chiefly to judge how the Primare’s 300 watts of peak power and claims of soundstage immersion stack up against the JBL’s lauded firepower and the effectiveness of the Omnia’s side-firing drivers.
Playing a Qobuz stream of Diana Krall’s ever affecting Desperado from the album Wallflower on the Allt-i-Ett what’s immediately apparent is the beguiling sophistication, silkiness and transparency of the Primare’s output at low to medium volumes. Capable of standing comparison with the performance of any comparably priced separates system in my experience is the warmth, smoothness and natural tonality of the massed string backdrop, the well weighted and extended bass and the almost uncannily solid imaging of Krall’s smoky vocal and piano in a soundstage with plenty of breadth and, yes, depth.
Indulging the Allt-i-Ett’s potential side hustle as a soundbar, these assets play equally well with film on a suitably large TV. Kingsman The Golden Circle, while ludicrous, has a brass-rich score delivered with considerable gusto yet, just as skillfully, crisply defined timbral contrasts and the chunky Primare handles it all with commendable precision and clarity.
Vinyl’s next up on the Allt-i-Ett with my Rega Planar 6/Nd7 playing Diane Schuur singing Take Me To The River from the album Schuur Thing. Given Primare’s experience with analogue sources, it’s no real surprise that the Allt-i-Ett’s MM phono stage isn’t found wanting. Granted, it isn’t the most dynamic I’ve ever heard but it is rhythmically sure and there’s enough fine detail, warmth and texture to make the addition of an external phono stage, taking up the line-level input, much less of a necessity.
Does the Allt-i-Ett have the all-out, room-filling muscle of the JBL? Not quite, but it does get surprisingly close before throwing in the towel and does so with a clarity and deftness of touch as clean and well-crafted as its appearance. The pretty Sonus Faber Omnia isn’t really in the same race here, sounding comparatively lean and lithe rather than a conspicuously heavy hitter, though its downward firing subwoofer does deliver comparably well-extended bass. What it does have, however, is a more conventionally ‘stereo’ soundstage that exceeds the width of the Primare’s, thanks no doubt to the small drivers firing outwards from its wings. That said, its imaging isn’t quite as solid and specific as the Primare’s. And neither does as well as two speakers thoughtfully positioned and well driven.
Verdict
A classy performer without question. Arguably more ‘all-in-one’ than any single box package that’s come before, the Allt-i-Ett dispenses its duties with consummate skill and elegance. Maybe it can’t out-disco JBL’s much more affordable L75ms or imitate two-speaker stereo quite as well as the Sonus Faber Omnia. But, everything considered, it is perhaps the ultimate solution for those seeking a slick combination of features, function, refinement and resolve in a compact, chic, unitary form. I doubt many will be immune to its myriad charms.
Pros
Exceptionally solid, premium build quality with striking minimalist Scandinavian design
Huge feature set for a single-box system – arguably the most comprehensive in its class
Powerful output (300W peak) with impressive bass weight and room-filling capability
Smooth, refined and natural sound quality with strong imaging and depth
Performs well at low and medium volumes with warmth and transparency
Effective as both a music system and TV soundbar via HDMI eARC
Extensive connectivity: HDMI, optical, coax, USB, analogue line-in and MM phono stage
Excellent streaming support: Airplay 2, Spotify Connect, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect, UPnP/DLNA
Built-in FM and DAB+ tuners
Auto Room EQ and DSP options allow tailoring to room placement
Easy setup and intuitive Prisma control app
Built-in phono stage is musically satisfying and removes need for an external preamp
Cons
Expensive at £2,700 for a one-box system
Many users will pay for features and connectivity they may never use
DSP-based stereo widening cannot fully replicate a true two-speaker setup
Auto Room EQ offers limited benefit in some rooms and can sound artificial
Does not quite match the sheer loudness and physical impact of JBL L75ms
Soundstage width is narrower than designs with side-firing drivers
Phono stage, while good, is not class-leading in dynamics
Purist audiophiles may dislike reliance on DSP and single-box philosophy
Graphic EQ and tuning options may feel unnecessary for users who prefer plug-and-play