Written by: MENNO BONNEMA 

Como Audio's latest table radio listens to the name Musica. How does the Musica distinguish itself from its competitors? We did the test. At the table!

Recently I had the opportunity to meet and interview the founding father of Como Musica in Amsterdam. That conversation gave me a clear idea about the philosophy behind the products Tom DeVesto wanted to bring to the market and through crowdfunding eventually did. That philosophy resulted in the Solo as the first 'baby'. At the end of 2017, the company came up with the next 'litter': the Musica. I was allowed to test it extensively at home.

Tabletop radios

The table radio phenomenon in its current form is of course not new anymore. With the introduction of the Tivoli Model One (yes, by the same DeVesto) a new trend and eventually standard was set. The company sold millions of these, also in Europe, and introduced a modern version last year. In Norway alone 800,000 of them were sold. This means that 1 in 5 Norwegians had (has?) a table radio from the American company.

An extremely impressive track record, especially in these times of fragmentation. With numbers like that, you must have a good product, or at least a product that people need. No wonder then that a whole host of manufacturers came up with products with very similar characteristics. But not one was able to match the success. Had DeVesto designed the perfect table radio? He did not think so. He appeared to have enough ideas to come up with something even better. And so he 'just' started all over again. 

Table radio 2.0

DeVesto clearly had three new starting points in mind when he wanted to 'reinvent' the table radio with Como Audio. The amplifier part had to be more powerful, the radio had to include (even) more features and the operation had to be even simpler. To clarify that last point: there are people who just want to control the audio with some buttons on the device itself and not with a complicated app on a mobile phone. Or as the creator himself put it during our conversation: suppose everything is wrong, the wifi doesn't work, there is something wrong with the bluetooth connection, then you still need to get music out of that box? Exactly.

Read on...