Primare Allt-i-Ett all-in-one music player review

‘Lifestyle’ was once a dirty word in hifi circles, frowned upon by two-channel purists and traditionalists alike, as a byword for compromise.

But when you think about it, all hifi products are lifestyle, and the ones we choose are simply the ones that best suit our individual home listening situations.

Added to this is the rapid march of tech, which means one box systems are no longer always the poor relations to ‘proper hifi’, thanks to elements like hi-res Bluetooth and streaming services, married to evermore sophisticated DSP and room correction.

This has paved the way for many respected audio brands to establish a foothold in the all-in-one hifi market, including Cambridge Audio, Ruark and of course Naim, to callout three.

The Primare way

So you could argue that Primare is a bit late to the one-box system party, but this is no surprise, as this brand is renowned for not rushing things. Instead its product portfolio is thoroughly considered, with models being more about longterm ownership than quick to market trend chasing. In other words, the Allt-i-Ett has been sometime in the making to offer what Primare sees as its all-in-one solution that stays true to its core values. And while this may sound like marketing speak, it’s also true.

So the Allt-i-Ett (that’s “all-in-one” in Norwegian and Swedish by the way) is packed full of Primare’s proprietary tech. This means a 300W Class D amplifier powering an array of drivers, and Primare’s cutting edge Prisma streaming architecture built-in, aligned to all manner of connections and inputs including digital, spread over HDMI eARC and S/PDIF (optical and coaxial), plus USB and Bluetooth HD. There’s also a set of line-level analogue RCAs, which can be configured for playback from a moving-magnet turntable, should you be vinyl inclined.

Everything but the diskbänk

So the Allt-i-Ett is versatile then, being an ideal roommate for a TV or projector for example via its digital inputs, while also having the option to build it out into a fully fledged LP spinning music centre. Of course thanks to Prisma, a raft of music streaming service connectivity including DAB+ radio plus AirPlay 2, Spotify, Tidal Connect, Qobuz Connect and Bluetooth are available at your fingertips. And going the extra mile, there’s FM radio too (which I still prefer over DAB) plus headphone connectivity, either via wired input or Bluetooth (standard and AptX). So it seems Primare really has thought of everything.

On speaker duty is where things get even more considered, as the Allt-i-Ett packs no less than ten drive units within its rectangular 690/303/150mm (wide/deep/high) carcass. These are made up of six 4″ (100mm) bass drivers, with two front firing, two rear and two downward firing, plus a pair of 4″ midrange drivers and two 0.75″ (19mm) dome tweeters. And if you want more bass, that’s no problem either, thanks to a dedicated subwoofer RCA socket, allowing you to add one of your choosing.

All of these speakers aren’t just there for passive air pumping, as the DSP Primare has dialled in makes the Allt-i-Ett every bit the modern soundbar, and then some – informed by an advanced Klippel NFS 3D sound analysis system that was part of its development. We’re talking room position tailoring for against a wall, in a corner or freestanding placement, plus 11 customisable EQ settings and BACCH spatial audio built in, to offer a more three-dimensional soundstage.

Living in a box

Of course shoehorning all those drivers into a single box needs careful engineering should you want them to work together rather than compete with each other, and then there’s the vibration they’ll generate to consider. So each driver has been custom designed and engineered for the Allt-i-Ett’s acoustic characteristics, with their cones formed from a proprietary polymer material, chosen for its light yet stiff characteristics.

The six woofers share a single chamber for each left and right array that’s carefully tuned with a precisely measured amount of damping material to control internal cabinet resonances. Each midrange driver also gets its own isolated chamber with non-parallel walls (to minimise internal reflections), while the tweeter’s frontal waveguide has been engineered to align its dispersion pattern with that of the midrange driver. Behind its silk dome resides a cardioid shaped rear chamber, to control back-wave energy without overdamping.

To power them, the 300W (peak output) on offer is split into a four amplifier, two-way system, with two channels driving the left and right midrange and tweeter sections, and two channels powering the left and right woofer arrays. 

Normally at this stage in a review I’d rattle off a few things I wish the product under scrutiny had, but Primare has made this pretty difficult, given how much the Allt-i-Ett does. Thankfully though it’s also not ladened with gimmicks or things you don’t need, instead the balance is just right, or ‘lagom‘ as they say in Sweden. Would I welcome a CD player? Personally not, as I like that the Primare looks clean and clutter free – but some may crave it (and if so you can always plug an external CD transport in).

Unboxing the Allt-i-Ett reveals a product that will look good in any home and at 16kg, while being manageable, there’s also a sense of quality about it that lifts it beyond the competition. It’s a bit bigger than some rivals’ offerings (including those from Naim and Cambridge Audio) but not as big as others’ (Ruark’s R810 for example).

The ‘blackwood’ finish is pure Primare, being subtle enough to enhance the wood grain without screaming for attention, while the front speaker grille sits intentionally proud of the main unit, in common with Primare’s trademark design language.

Set up is easy enough, thanks to its slick top panel touch screen, large illuminated rotary dial and intuitive menu system.

My advice? Get it on your wifi straight away so you can tweak all the settings in Primare’s best-in-class Prisma app, which includes linking the Allt-i-Ett to your streaming services and tweaking its audio and general settings as you like (including everything from dimming its ambient light to room and placement EQ). There’s a remote control included of course, which is the standard Primare model, but I’d only be using this as backup when my phone or tablet is otherwise engaged.

And then there’s the motorised display screen which I just love, and can be set to ‘up’ (just shy of 90°) or down flat within the app or touch screen controls. A word of caution here though, forcing this down by hand is not advisable, and every Primare dealer in the land should be sitting new owners down to explain this, as the last thing you want is your cack handed kids going at it hammer and tongs (speaking as a parent of such individuals).

Performance

The first challenge the Allt-i-Ett presents for someone like me, with hifi systems in three rooms, is not how, but where to test it. I opted for the two rooms that mirror where most consumers are most likely to install it, being atop a sideboard in my dining room, with reasonable breathing space behind it and then nestled under my living room’s TV closer to a rear wall, with its room EQ adjusted accordingly. I also gave it some time in my main listening suite too partnered with a projector, as I’ll explain.

Whereever you put it though, you’ll reap the benefits of making sure the surface onto which it’s placed is nice and solid, without obstruction, to help those downfiring drivers perform at their best.

What the Allt-i-Ett does from the outset is highlight that the soundstage and music it emits is on a scale and with parameters way beyond the dimensions of its desktop box. Even on easy on the ear tracks like Katie Melua’s Piece By Piece at 16-bit/44kHz (FLAC) via Qobuz, the Primare presents the music with a sense of weight and dimensionality that’s notably well put together. The intimacy of her voice, the power of the bass notes and the gentility of the strings and percussion are all presented within a balanced and enticing window. As a dyed in the wool two channel stereo guy, usually with speakers the size of small wardrobes, I’m impressed with what the Allt-i-Ett does sonically. Markedly so. How those vocals escape its soundstage and lure you in, and how everything else blends together musically while still projecting genuine high fidelity levels of separation challenges my preconceptions of the limits of one-box systems in no time.

Because whoever designed the Allt-i-Ett’s DSP has truly nailed it. Bass isn’t overblown (as some one-box systems can sound in trying too hard), and nor is there any sense of the music sounding ‘boxed in’ or ‘ring-fenced’ within a narrow projection window.

No slouch

Hearing movie soundtracks through the Primare also hammers this home, and partner it with something equally compact yet capable such as Leowe’s We. Beam portable projector (as we did), with its HDMI eARC feeding the Primare, makes for a delightful home cinema experience that’s thoroughly engaging, without the hassle of going full on 5.1 (or more).

But its the traditional audio side that piques my interest the most. Channel Ben Howard’s genre defining Every Kingdom debut album through the Primare’s internals and you’ll be rewarded with a delightful listening experience. At 5x4m square, my dining room is average size, and the Allt-i-Ett has no issues driving it without running out of steam. And as the album’s layers build and the tempo shifts, the Primare accentuates the percussive snaps elegantly, with a sense of energy and punch that’s just a joy to listen to, it’s as though the Allt-i-Ett is enjoying the performance as much as I am, and this is perhaps what underpins the unit’s sonic character the most – as no matter that your throw at it, the music sounds full of life and presence – making it a serious performer yet great fun at the same time.

In summary

In the weeks I’ve had with the Allt-i-Ett, perhaps the most revealing measure of its appeal is how often I’ve defaulted to using it as my main living room system, despite having a dedicated two channel separates rig installed in the same space (complete with standmount speakers fed by a Naim Unitilite). And perhaps more impressive is how everyone else in the house has too.

In this sense the Primare box has literally become one of the family, with wife and kids making a beeline for it in equal measures – underlining that it has that rare quality you find in hifi, in appealing to all equally.

And the reasons for this are three fold, firstly it’s oh so convenient, secondly it just oozes that minimalist Scandi style Primare does so well and perhaps most importantly of all, the performance it delivers makes you want to keep coming back for more.