Samsung’s Music Frame makes audio look as good as it sounds

The front panel of the Samsung Music Frame snaps off so you can swap it out with other artwork. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends
When you first cast a glimpse at the Music Frame, you think, “Huh. That looks pretty cool.” And it does, because it’s a pretty modern-looking picture frame. And because Samsung is showing it off at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, it has some pretty snazzy art tucked inside. Turn on some sounds — be it music, or traditional audio from a TV show or movie — and you think, “Huh. That picture frame sounds pretty cool, too.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the Music Frame. It’s a quintessential Samsung product, and very much the sort of thing that makes CES such a fun (if not always practical) place to launch new products. To be clear, the Music Frame does exactly what it purports to do — live alongside The Frame television, which is meant to make a traditional TV more of a piece of art. The Music Frame extends that ethos to wireless speakers, whether you have them paired to a TV as front or surround speakers, or if you’re just using it standalone as a Bluetooth- or Wi-Fi-enabled speaker.

The Samsung Music Frame isn’t exactly thin, and isn’t exactly wireless. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends
Well, they’re wireless insofar as they don’t require any speaker wire, as you’d expect in 2024. But these are still powered speakers, and that means they’ll require a power cable. And a power source with which to power them. And that means that unless you’re doing some serious renovations or working with new construction, you might not get quite the same sort of sleek installation as what Samsung had on hand here in Las Vegas.

But it’s worth trying, because the Music Frame speakers are pretty innovative in their own right. They look really cool. They sound pretty good. (How well they stand up to more traditional home theater speakers will require better testing than what we can do in noisy press conference environments.)

Full-bleed artwork looks fantastic on the Samsung Music Frame speaker. Phil Nickinson / Digital Trends
As a picture frame, they’re still pretty thick — about a couple inches. But that didn’t turn them into eyesores, whether they were mounted on a wall, with the power cable cleverly hidden away, or perched atop a pedestal or end table, with the cords tucked away through more traditional cable management.

And it’s worth noting that these are not digital picture frames. While that’d be cool, it’d also add a pretty major layer of complexity for the end user, to say nothing of adding even more tech into the square package. So you’re going to want to take care to have something that looks good, and not just a washed-out Instagram-style post. And to that end, Samsung also displayed some full-bleed images that really looked cool, alongside smaller pictures with matte borders.

What we don’t have yet is any sort of idea of what it was cost. But you have to imagine that if you’re the sort that’s going to rig up a fleet of Music Frames in your nicely designed home (probably paired with The Frame, to match), you’re not going to quibble too much over the cost. But if you want a single Music Frame (or even a couple) to serve as standalone-style speakers? Let’s hope things don’t top out at more than a couple hundred bucks. Stay tuned for that, though, as well as any sort of date as to when the Music Frame will be available.

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Scott Ramirez, vice president of product marketing and development for TCL home theater, at CES 2023. The company was mum on any new 8K sets at this year’s conference. Phil Nickinson/Digital Trends