Loewe Connect 55 – Sound Quality

The Connect 55’s sonics are a comfortable cut above those of the vast majority of flat TVs.

The soundstage it produces is exceptionally large, spreading far beyond the physical boundaries of the TV and enjoying an outstanding dynamic range by TV standards. Rich, smooth and powerful trebles are balanced by punchy, reasonably deep bass rumbles. The wide dynamic range also gives the mid-range plenty of room to play with, ensuring that voices are always clear, natural and well-rounded. 

The only problem is the intrusion of a bit of crackly distortion at high volumes during very dense sound mixes.

Other things to consider

The remote control Loewe supplies with the Connect 55 is as beautifully built and weighty as the TV. However, its button layout isn’t especially helpful; it feels like something designed for a pre-smart TV age in terms in the way it fails to give any real size or location emphasis to the most useful buttons.

Gamers need to treat the Connect 55 with a degree of caution. For even with its Game mode (found in the Connections menu) activated and as much picture processing as we could find turned off, we still couldn’t get the TV’s input lag to drop below 60ms. This is around twice as high a figure as we’d like to see, and could affect your scores in reaction-based games.

Please note, too, that if you forget to activate the Game preset for your console/PC input, input lag balloons to a frankly terrifyingly high 400ms.

Should I buy a Loewe Connect 55?

It’s great to have Loewe active in the UK TV market again – especially
as so many less imaginative brands have bowed out in recent years.

If you’re a fan of excellent build quality, superior image processing, good sound quality and you like the idea of your next TV boasting a built-in hard disk video recorder and a customisable design, there’s really nothing that fits the bill as well as the Connect 55. What’s more, it delivers all these attractions for a fairly reasonable price by Loewe’s premium standards.

On the other hand, if your motivations for upgrading your TV are more about the absolute best picture quality and having lots of built-in video streaming services – including Netflix and Amazon’s UHD streams – then you can get the Sony 55X9005B these days for just £1900 and the high dynamic range-capable Samsung UE55JS9000 for around £3100. Though of course, neither of these rival TVs features a built-in PVR.

Verdict

The Connect 55 isn’t a perfect picture performer, and its lack of key streamed video services is pretty painful. It does, though, enjoy some of the best video processing we’ve seen, it’s integrated digital video recorder is a boon, and it still delivers Loewe’s trademark premium customisable design and impressive sound – despite being markedly less expensive than previous Loewe TVs would have led us to expect.

Trusted Score