design and connection
Retro appearance and avant-garde function
The Ruark Audio R2 MK4 is an all-in-one playback system. Slightly larger than a normal shoe box, the lower half of the front has a wood-grained organ louver for decoration of the sounding area, and the left side of the upper half is a simple color LCD screen. The center of the top is a circular operation with buttons to select the source , also has a knob to control the volume. The back of the machine is simpler, with power plug, Line-in, headphone output and USB-C. The simplification of the hardware design means that more functions are concentrated on the software and wireless connection. In addition to Line-in and USB-C, Ruark Audio R2 MK4 provides Bluetooth and Wi-Fi two wireless connection methods. It also provides support for Spotify, Amazon Music, Deezer, Podcast, and Internet Radio. The functions are very complete. I have to mention that it supports FM radio, and there is a “really retro” metal telescopic antenna on the back. It is rare to buy similar designs.
As for the speaker architecture, Ruark Audio R2 MK4 uses two 75mm Ruark NS+ full-range units to provide a frequency response range from 55Hz to 20kHz. The amplified output is 18W, the figure seems not big, but the volume of the R2 MK4 is sufficient, and it is worth noting that the R2 MK4 does not add an independent woofer, but uses the design of the resonance box itself to reflect the low frequency to enhance The sense of low-frequency volume is quite good, and the low-frequency is round and full.
